Horns Hoops Surprise Kansas, Former UT Golfer Wins Bob Hope Classic

By Tim Taliaferro in Blog on January 24, 2011 at 10:20 am | No Comments

How ’bout them Horns this weekend?

In case you didn’t see, the No. 10 men’s basketball team went into Lawrence and beat up No. 2 Kansas, snapping the Jayhawks’ 69-game win streak at home.

And then former Texas golfer Jhonattan Vegas won his first PGA Tour victory in a two-hole playoff at the Bob Hope Classic.

Hey, ESPN, you’re making a good decision.

On the hardwood, J’Covan Brown scored a season-high 23 points and keyed a second-half run that brought the Longhorns from behind to grab a 74-63 victory on Saturday.

The Jayhawks (18-1, 3-1) had not lost at home since Feb. 3, 2007, the longest streak in the nation, and had never lost to Texas at home since the inception of the Big 12 in 1996. The Longhorns held Kansas, which came in with a Big 12-best shooting percentage of 52.4, to 36 percent.

“It was a great win for our program,” Coach Rick Barnes said after the game. “I can’t tell you how much respect I have for Bill (Self). He’s one of the best. He’s the model of consistency and one of the best. To come up here and get a win — we’ve had so many great games with him where we’ve obviously come out on the other end.”

On the fairways, Vegas shot a final-round 69 and outlasted Gary Woodland and Bill Haas in a two-hole playoff at the Bob Hope Classic in La Quinta, Calif., a five-round event played on four separate courses.

For Vegas, who played at Texas from 2004-07 and is the first Venezuelan ever to earn a PGA Tour card, it was his second career win as a professional and the 69th PGA Tour victory by a former UT golfer.

But, wait, there’s more: UT Athletics announced Monday morning that two Texas volleyball stars, senior Juliann Faucette and junior Rachael Adams, have been named to Volleyball Magazine’s All-America First Team. The women played in the NCAA Final Four for the third year in a row, losing in the semifinals to eventual national champion Penn State.

Photo of Gary Johnson courtesy of Kansas Athletics. Vegas photo courtesy of UT Athletics