AUSTIN, Texas
The night began with a gift. At just before 6:40 p.m., Kansas coach David Beaty stood in the northwest corner of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and clutched a black cowboy hat in his fingers. The hat — along with a pair of spurs — was courtesy of two University of Texas service organizations, a long-held ritual to welcome head coaches to the heart of Longhorn country for the first time.
Beaty held the gifts and thanked the Texas students, and 20 minutes after the pregame hospitality, the real baptism began — a painful, frustrating and, by now, altogether routine defeat playing out in front of Beaty and his staff.