The Texas Longhorns and Houston Cougars, a pair of once-proud former Southwest Conference schools, will reignite their age-old rivalry on Wednesday night in the opening round of the 2013 College Basketball Invitational.
2013 CBI Tournament bracket and schedule: Old SWC foes Texas, Houston square off
2013 CBI participants Texas and Houston, both of which are loaded with talented underclassmen, should be doing much bigger things when next year rolls around.
USA TODAY Sports
Visit our team blogs: Texas -- Burnt Orange Nation Purdue -- Hammer and Rails
The Longhorns may not be down for long, as their top three scorers -- Myck Kabongo, Sheldon McClellan and Julien Lewis -- are just sophomores. In fact, Texas has just two seniors, and both have appeared in only four games.
The 2012-13 season marks the first in 13 years under head coach Rick Barnes that the Longhorns missed out on the NCAA Tournament, but the team has a chance to build momentum going into next season with a solid performance in the CBI.
It has been a bit longer since Houston has seen big-time success on the court. While the Cougars made it to the Big Dance as recently as 2010, they have not won a game in the tournament since the Phi Slamma Jamma days of the early-80s.
Like Texas though, Houston’s most productive players are underclassmen, boding well for the team’s future.
Aside from the Longhorns, the Purdue Boilermakers are the only other major-conference team participating in the CBI. Purdue hosts the Western Illinois Leathernecks, who finished with a 22-8 record, one of the better marks of any team in the tournament.
Here is the full schedule for Wednesday’s slate of CBI contests:
Western Illinois Leathernecks vs. Purdue Boilermakers, 7 p.m. ET, axs.tv
North Dakota State Bison vs. Western Michigan Broncos, 7 p.m. ET
Tulsa Golden Hurricane vs. Wright State Raiders, 7 p.m. ET
Richmond Spiders vs. Bryant Bulldogs, 7 p.m. ET, NEC Front Row
Texas Longhorns vs. Houston Cougars, 9 p.m. ET, axs.tv
An updated CBI bracket can be found here.
More in College Basketball:
See More:
