AUSTIN, Texas -- If it seems as if they've been chatting constantly with Dave and Jay and Regis and Oprah and Leo and J-Lo and even passing notes to Colin Powell at the United Nations, it might be because the Texas Longhorns have garnered more face and body screen time these past few months than, well, Jennifer Garner.

	Little T.J. Ford has Texas fans thinking big inside and outside the Big 12.

Their impressive debut in Madison Square Garden against Georgia. That down-to-the-last-second thrilling defeat at Arizona. The already classic battle -- Dick Vitale is still confused whether Nick Collison was Larry Bird and T.J. Ford was Magic Johnson (or was it the other way around?) -- featuring them losing on the road at Kansas. Another Magnificent Monday highlighted by a win at home over Oklahoma.

Pick a number, any number (or night) and Texas has answered the call, ingraining itself into our viewing consciousness. Not so much as Survivor. But as the most prominent titleholders on Are You Hot? -- since those folks in Lexington, Ky., turned into an NBA team.

"That's the way it's supposed to be. We're Texas," says 'Horns Coach Rick Barnes, 48, the fair-haired, boyish North Carolinian who seems to know whereof he speaks -- so what if he speaks a sort of sophisticated Goober, prepped for the job at George Mason, Providence and Clemson, still looks as if he should be suiting up for his alma mater back in Lenoir Rhyne, N.C., and seems about as Texan as Bill Parcells?

As for his team, hoopsologists of all regions may not have driven a Ford lately, but they've surely been driven to paroxysms of delight watching Texas' little point guard drive his mates near to the top of the polls and himself into a leading candidate for player of the year.

After that depleted Texas Tech squad caught a little bit of Ford Fever on Monday night -- so to speak, no defender has come close to catching the little rascal whose teammates call "Rat", yet -- the predictable result was a painless 77-65 Longhorn victory in which Ford sliced and slithered for 15 points, seven assists and five rebounds against absolutely zero turnovers.

"Ford is an amazing player. He's as difficult to plan for and prepare for as almost any kid I've ever watched," said Bob Knight. Oh, and that was last season -- when Texas whipped Tech twice, by three points at Lubbock (Ford had seven baskets and five assists) and by 25 in Austin (Ford had one and ten). But that's the way it goes with the 5-foot-10, 165-pound sophomore from Sugarland (outside Houston) when he's spreading the sugar all around the land.

At Nebraska last Saturday, Ford shot only seven times but had 10 assists -- even though many of his fervent Texas supporters may not have known about it, the Longhorn radio crew having missed the first few minutes of the contest due to a snowstorm in Lincoln. Still, with many of his dimes finding the secure vaults of Brandon Mouton (who scored a career-high 24 points), Texas was easy money and won 75-63.

"Typical," said Barnes. "Innately, six or seven shots a game is what T.J. wants to shoot. It's very odd, but that's the way he figures the game should be played. I had to get on him once late in the game. I told him, 'Look, we're gonna run this play but we need you to shoot it.' He just wants to get everybody involved."

"It's not just on the basketball court," says Ford. "It's a family thing. I was never selfish as a kid. My mom and dad taught me always to share."

Against Tech, Mouton was again involved enough to sink six trifectas among his 21 points -- an occasion Knight used to speak to Texas' team effort.

Not before, of course, General Wonderful waxed a bit nostalgic by attempting to embarrass his own Lubbock Avanlanche-Journal beat reporter, Brent Schrotenboer. This audacious fellow had the nerve to inquire if the Red Raiders had actually voted to not let their leading scorer, Andre Emmett play in the game -- as two members of the team had just told the assembled media. "None of your goddam business," snarled Knight, who later called Schrotenboer "an idiot."

Ah, so nice to see how pleasantly changed The Bobster has become.

"Mouton?" His Sweetness questioned another incredibly rude questioner. "Why should we talk about one player? Did he just win the high jump, the dashes, the hurdles? It's a team game ... I really like the Texas team. They play hard. They are well-coached ... move the ball ... hard to score against ... don't give up anything. They really work at basketball. They're very unselfish."

According to Ford, whose selflessness seems to be at the center of all of this: "It's not just on the basketball court. It's a family thing. I was never selfish as a kid. My mom and dad taught me always to share."

Not that T.J. (Terrance Jerod for those without a scorecard) doesn't have enough of a capable cast around him with whom to divide the spoils. This is Barnes' fifth season in the coolest capitol city/college colony in all the land -- he won the Big Twelve in his first year and he's compiled 108 victories in Austin already -- but not until the last few minutes has Texas moved out of its own football team's shadow and into the realm of bigtime national power.

"We've never felt like we've been battling football," corrects Barnes. "What we were battling was a lack of identity in our own league. After the merger, the Big Twelve was still mostly the Big Eight and 'Ugh, those others.' But we locked into some fairly bigtime guys and then, with T.J.'s notoriety, what he did was make it cool to come to Texas."

Already in Austin, of course, were juniors Mouton, who made his name playing on Louisiana AAU teams with Duke's Chris Duhon, and James Thomas, Texas' hunkadelic 6-8 rebounder (11 points and 11 rebounds per game) from Schenectady, N.Y. whose muscles nearly outnumber his breakaway braids. But others have come in droves -- Texas building as deep a team in talent as (gasp!) Arizona, 12 Longhorns playing significant minutes against Nebraska.

And from near as well as far.

Brad Buckman, for example, the 6-8 freshman forward who's filled in admirably as a starter after Deginald Erskin went down with an ankle injury, was nourished at the local Spanish Oaks golf club -- his father, Brent, who played alongside Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite on two UT national champion golf teams, being the pro there. Sydmill Harris, for another, a 6-5 sophomore shooter, arrived in Austin from Hoofddorp (which backwards is Proddfooh), The Netherlands. Harris' father Oscar is an award-winning, big band singer in Holland whose "Try A Little Love" is his son's favorite CD although his son's favorite group is The Jacksons. We are not making this up. But if you're still curious, you can ask Harris about it in either of the five different languages -- Dutch, French, German, English and Suriname -- in which he is fluent.

Ba-da-boom ...

Vitale: "ARE YOU SERIOUS! ARE YOU SERIOUS! I CAN'T EVEN SPEAK ONE!? BABEEEEE!"

... Ba-da-boom.

"The important thing isn't our depth, it's our chemistry," says Barnes. "Depth can be a disaster if people don't like each other or pull for each other. I'm not gonna even use depth if it's not productive, and chemistry is a group of guys all rooting for the same thing. (ATTN: Zona. RIP: Will Bynum). We've been lucky to have enough experience where if one or two guys are not doing well, other guys have seemed to be there."

Six different 'Horns have scored 20 or more points this season. Eight different players have horned in to become the team's leading scorer.

Against Kansas, Texas' raw-boned sixth man, forward Brian Boddiker, drained six threes and scored 20 points. Against Oklahoma sub center Jason Klotz swished the key jumper -- and maybe the most important basket of Texas' season (after losing to the Sooners eight straight times) -- with 1:10 left on a play designed for ... HIM! Senior forward and former walk-on Erskin was Texas' leading scorer during last year's NCAA Tournament and de-skinned Seton Hall with 24 points in the fourth game of this season. But his mother's death and that ankle caused him to miss eight games and he's been scoreless in the last three.

It doesn't seem to matter.

"Not finishing off those Arizona and Kansas games was disappointing," says shooting guard Royal (pronounced Roy-AL as in Casino Roy-AL) Ivey, he of the enormous hands and the exquisite defense who's also found time to score in double figures the last five games. "But there's a change in our confidence from last year. Now, we go into every game knowing we can win."

Oh, and one other change. Last season, one of Austin's famous bats winged its way up from the Congress Street bridge into the Erwin Special Events Center during a game and swooped past Ivey's bewildered head.

This year no bats in anybody's belfry. Just a Ford in everybody's space.

Bounce Passes
Quotes Best Taken With A Grain Of Salt -- Or Maybe A Gallon Of Anthrax