By KEVIN FLAHERTY
FOXSportsSouthwest.com
Feb. 16, 2011
After Texas's win over Baylor on Saturday, Jordan Hamilton and Tristan Thompson played hot potato with a potential No. 1 ranking in college basketball, eagerly trying to shovel it onto some other team.
"We don't want it," Hamilton said, shortly before Thompson repeated the same response.
But if that was the initial reaction to college basketball's top spot, Longhorns coach Rick Barnes and senior guard Dogus Balbay took a more relaxed look Tuesday at a potential top ranking, an ascension made more likely by Kansas' loss to Kansas State on Monday night.
"I don't think there's going to be any pressure on us like that because we don't really care about the rankings or who we play," Balbay said. "We're just going to go out there and play our basketball. It's all about us."
Said Barnes: "You can't get caught up in it. And you don't. Good players don't."
Perhaps more accurately, good leaders don't. Earlier this year, senior forward Gary Johnson took shots at last year's leadership, adding that the Longhorns' fall from grace happened a week after they received the nation's No. 1 ranking.
"We acted like we had already accomplished something," Johnson said.
But they hadn't. After roaring to a 17-0 start that included much-publicized thumpings of Pittsburgh, North Carolina and Michigan State, the Longhorns collapsed down the stretch, going 7-10 in their final 17 games, including a second-round blowout loss to Baylor in the Big 12 tournament and a loss to Wake Forest in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
The next crop of Longhorns seniors
