Texas
Texas preparing to face either Virginia or Colorado State to open NCAA Tournament
AUSTIN, Texas — The excitement of the Texas Longhorns upon earning a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament on Selection Sunday quickly turned towards senior forward Kadin Shedrick when the Virginia Cavaliers were paired with the Longhorns as one of the No. 10 seeds facing a First Four play-in game on Tuesday.
Shedrick, in his first year at Texas, spent his first three college seasons under head coach Tony Bennett in Charlottesville, setting up a potential matchup with his old team if Virginia advances on Tuesday by beating the Colorado State Rams in Dayton at 8:10 p.m. Central on truTV.
Might Shedrick be in charge of preparing that scouting report as the Longhorns staff gets ready for both teams ahead of Thursday’s first-round game in Charlotte on TNT at 5:50 p.m. Central?
“He’s very familiar with those guys,” laughed Texas head coach Rodney Terry.
Facing a play-in team is a first for Texas in the NCAA Tournament that departed the Big 12 Tournament early and projected as a No. 8 or No. 9 seed by most bracketologists, allowing Terry’s team to escape a potential second-round matchup against a No. 1 seed and set up the possibility of an intriguing contest with former head coach Rick Barnes and No. 2 seed Tennessee.
Barnes left the Forty Acres following a string of disappointing early exists from the Big Dance, a continuing trend in Knoxville in three of the five tournaments since Barnes took over in addition to a Sweet 16 upset by No. 13 seed Purdue as a No. 2 seed in 2019.
With 16 years of experience coaching teams in the NCAA Tournament as an assistant and a head coach, Terry isn’t looking ahead to the Round of 32 and that likely looming matchup with Barnes, who hired him away from UNC-Wilmington in 2002, the start of Terry’s 10-year stint at Texas that included runs to the Final Four in 2003 and the Elite Eight in 2006 and 2008.
“The first game is always the hardest game,” said Terry. “If you don’t win the first game, there is no second game. So you’ve got to put everything you have into game number one and if you’re fortunate and blessed to get to the next game, you’ll deal with that one then.”
For now, Texas is starting to hone in on the details of both potential opponents, teams that Terry called well coached and successful this season. Foregoing plans to have a watch party for Tuesday’s game — they’ve already had their watch party, Terry said — the Horns will instead have an intense, competitive practice before backing off on Wednesday.
And although Virginia is arguably the worst at-large team in the NCAA Tournament field with an adjusted efficiency rating of No. 69 by KenPom.com and a NET ranking of No. 54 thanks to a 2-7 record against Quad 1 opponents, Bennett’s team does present a consistent challenge.
In addition to a transition defense that Terry termed elite, what always makes the Cavaliers dangerous, even in a down year, is Bennett’s signature pack-line defense, a philosophy directly opposed to the no-middle defense that Chris Beard popularized at Texas Tech — the pack line uses hard hedges on ball screens and asks on-ball defenders to force opponents into the middle and away from the baseline with off-ball defenders staying inside the so-called pack line, an arc one step in from the three-point line roughly 16 or 17 feet from the basket, to help take away dribble drives without having to recover to three-point shooters.
Even this year’s comparatively mediocre Virginia team executes defensively at a high rate, ranking fifth in adjusted efficiency, allowing opponents to shoot just 30.4 percent from three, 17th nationally, posting the fourth-best block rate in the country, and allowing a free-throw rate of 25.7 percent that ranks 22nd.
The elite defense combined with a regressive offensive mindset produces laborious basketball at an adjusted tempo that ranks as the slowest in the country. Bennett’s teams never play aesthetically-pleasing basketball, but this year’s group is outright bad beyond limiting ambition to the extent that turnovers are virtually non-existent — declining to attack the offensive glass, ranking among the worst teams in the country at getting to the line free-throw line and converting on those rare opportunities, and generally bricking shots inside the arc. The Cavaliers do shoot well from three-point range, ranking 47th at 36.3 percent, but also take them at the 293rd rate in the country because Tony Bennett.
Gross.
The Rams are a two-point favorite, according to DraftKings, with a 55-percent win probability from BartTorvik.com thanks to a more balanced statistical profile that includes a NET ranking of No. 36 on the strength of six Quad 1 wins and the No. 49 offense and No. 40 defense in adjusted efficiency.
In the Mountain West Tournament, Colorado State made it to the semifinals before falling to New Mexico, the eventual champions. During non-conference play, CSU notched a 21-point win over then-No. 8 Creighton, the program’s first win over an AP top-10 opponent in almost 40 years, in addition to conference home victories over San Diego State and New Mexico.
The Mountain West may be a mid-major league, but the top of the conference is high-major quality and the Rams slot just outside that grouping.
Terry is familiar with the engine of the Colorado State offense, senior point guard Isaiah Stewart, an Allen product who received an offer from Terry’s staff at UTEP as a member of the 2019 class and emerged as one of the Mountain West’s best players over the last several seasons, averaging 16.5 points and 7.0 assists per game this year while shooting 44.7 percent from three on a relatively modest 4.1 attempts per game.
Despite the solid adjusted efficiency on defense, Colorado State trends offensively in the raw percentages, ranking second in assist rate led by the playmaking ability of Stevens and shooting well from two-point range and at the free-throw line while relying on the fifth-year senior’s decision making to avoid turnovers.
So the matchup between the Rams and Cavaliers rates as an intriguing strength-on-strength contest even if the Texas team doesn’t plan on congregating together to view the outcome on Tuesday.
Texas
Texas A&M Forward Transfer Seemingly on Visit to See Lady Vols Basketball | Rocky Top Insider

Lady Vols basketball is looking to add more pieces to its 2026-27 roster with high-level experience. After completing her junior season at Texas A&M, Fatmata Janneh has emerged as a Tennessee target for her final year of eligibility. According to her Instagram story on Sunday night, she is in Knoxville.
With the Aggies a year ago, the 6-foot-2 forward averaged 11.4 points per game on 43.3% shooting from the field. She also showed off an ability to hit from range, posting 1.1 makes per game on 33% shooting from three.
Perhaps Janneh’s biggest strength is her rebounding, though. She ripped down 9.7 boards per contest, good for the fifth-most in the SEC. This featured 2.6 rebounds on the offensive end per outing.
Janneh also averaged 1.1 assists, 1.4 steals and 0.4 blocks per game. She appeared in 27 games, starting in each.
More From RTI: How Watching The NCAA Tournament Drew Terrence Hill Jr. To Tennessee Basketball
Janneh started her career with a pair of seasons at St. Peter’s. As a sophomore, she averaged a double-double, posting 18.2 points and 11.6 rebounds per game. This made her a sought-after transfer in the portal before landing at Texas A&M as the nation’s leading defensive rebounder. As a freshman, she averaged 11.0 points and 8.0 rebounds.
The forward is from London, England, attending Barking Abbey Sixth Form for her prep ball. She would be the second player from England to join the Tennessee roster if she committed. UT also added the commitment of incoming freshman and former Boston College signee Irene Oboavwoduo this offseason.
So far, Caldwell and the Lady Vols have landed five transfers in this portal cycle. This features Liberty guard Avery Mills, Northern Arizona guard Naomi White, Stanford forward Harper Peterson and Georgia forward Zhen Craft and guard Rylie Theuerkauf.
Tennessee will also roster a pair of incoming freshmen. Four-star recruit and top-50 prospect Gabby Minus is staying true to her signing despite the roster overhaul and assistant coaching changes, along with the addition of Oboavwoduo.
Texas
Texas needs at least $174 billion to avoid water crisis, state says
AUSTIN (Texas Tribune) — Texas communities will need to spend $174 billion in the next 50 years to avert a severe water crisis, a new state analysis revealed Thursday. That’s more than double the $80 billion projected four years ago, when the Texas Water Development Board last passed a state water plan.
The three-member board presiding over the agency authorized the highly anticipated draft blueprint Thursday, the first administrative step toward adopting the water development board’s plans for the next 50 years. The plan, released every five years, encompasses the projects that 16 regional water planning groups in Texas said are the most urgent, water development board officials said.
The board’s latest estimates come as the state’s water supply faces numerous threats. Growing communities across Texas are scrambling to secure water, keep up with construction costs and cope with a yearslong drought. This week, Corpus Christi officials said the city may be just months away from declaring a water emergency. Meanwhile, other rural cities by the Coastal Bend are rapidly drilling wells to avoid a crisis. Residents in North Texas have also been bracing for groundwater shortages.
In an effort to restrain the crisis, lawmakers last year called an election in which voters approved a $20 billion boost for communities to use on water-related expenses. The water development board’s estimate shows that what lawmakers proposed on the ballot falls dramatically short of the needed cash, experts said.
“What this number tells me at the end of the day is if we don’t get serious about (funding water projects), there are going to be serious consequences for Texas,” said Perry Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network. “Even with the billion-dollar-a-year plan kicking in, it’s not going to be enough to offset the costs of the projects that are going to have to be executed.”
The new estimate accounts for 3,000 projects, from regional infrastructure upgrades to smaller endeavors such as drilling new water wells. Texas’ water supplies are expected to drop by roughly 10% between 2030 and 2080, according to the water plan. In that same time frame, the maximum amount of water communities can draw is also expected to decline by 9%.
The 80-page plan notes approximately 6,700 recommended strategies that would add water to the state’s dwindling portfolio. The recommendations — which are not accounted for in the cost — include developing new supplies from aquifer storage and recovery, brackish groundwater, desalination and recycled water. It also calls for water conservation.
The report suggested that if Texas does not implement the plans and recommendations, the state is one severe drought away from an estimated $91 billion in economic damages in 2030.
The state’s plan attributes a variety of reasons for the bigger price tag, such as higher costs of construction due to inflation, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains, and a growing backlog of water supply projects.
“There’s a plan that can meet our needs,” said Matt Nelson, deputy executive administrator for the Office of Planning at the water development board, adding that they take their cues from the regional planning groups. “These are local projects that folks need to implement; they’re needed regardless of how they’re funded. It’s important to remember these are not top-down projects or state projects.”
Experts told The Texas Tribune that the board’s estimate is only a fraction of what Texas communities will need to ensure they have water in 50 years’ time, saying growth and development are outpacing the state’s ability to keep up.
“This is a bigger water plan in terms of volume strategies and capital costs compared to anything we’ve ever seen before,” said Jeremy Mazur, the director of infrastructure and natural resources policy at think tank Texas 2036.
Mazur suggested that the $174 billion only covers water supply projects and does not account for updating aging infrastructure, adding that the actual price could amount to a quarter of a trillion dollars.
“There’s a substantial magnitude with regard to the capital investment needed to both fix our aging and current systems and potentially develop the water infrastructure, water supply projects that we need.“
The report largely confirmed what many water experts have warned regarding threats to the state’s water supply, said Sarah Kirkle, director of policy at the Texas Water Association.
“Population growth, extreme weather, and economic development needs are all increasing demands on our infrastructure, and the state is going to need more water, sooner,” Kirkle said. “This is all while water projects are becoming more costly and complex because the easiest and cheapest local projects have already been developed.”
Fowler, with the infrastructure network, said he expects the Texas Legislature to take up the issue next year, when lawmakers meet for the 90th legislative session. He said the state should take a bigger role in ensuring that communities can afford their respective water projects.
“It’s going to have to be a top-down priority, there’s no way around it,” he said. “The challenges are so immense that it’s going to take all hands on deck.”
Texas residents have until the end of May to comment on the proposal. Water development board officials must adopt it by January 2027.
Alejandra Martinez contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at www.texastribune.org. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans – and engages with them – about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Texas
Co‑worker confesses to killing missing North Texas man and stealing his car, police say
A North Texas man reported missing earlier this week was found dead Friday, and police say a co‑worker has confessed to fatally shooting him and stealing his car.
The suspect, Gregory D. Lewis, 34, remains in custody and faces a forthcoming capital murder charge, according to the Fort Worth Police Department.
Lewis is accused of killing 31‑year‑old Thomas King, who had been last seen in his Taco Casa work uniform. King was reported missing on Tuesday after failing to return home Monday from the fast‑food restaurant in the 1100 block of Bridgewood Drive.
Car found at Arlington motel
Police said King’s car was found at the Quality Inn on I‑20 in Arlington, and surveillance video showed Lewis arriving in King’s vehicle shortly after King left work.
Detectives identified the man in the video and arrested him on unrelated charges.
Body discovered on Fort Worth’s East Side
King’s body was located on Friday in an open field on Fort Worth’s East Side, authorities said.
According to police, Lewis confessed to shooting the victim and stealing his car.
Medical examiner review pending
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death.
CBS News Texas has reached out to Taco Casa for comment.
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