Julien Lewis (Getty Images)

For Texas fans to stop bemoaning their recent run of football mediocrity long enough to pay attention to basketball, the Longhorns either have to be contending for Final Fours or enduring uncharacteristic struggles.

Unfortunately for coach Rick Barnes, right now it's the latter.

On the heels of a disappointing season in which Texas missed the NCAA tournament for the first time in Barnes' 15-year tenure, the line of players leaving the program in search of a fresh start continues to grow more crowded. Starting guard Julien Lewis, the program's leading 3-point shooter last season, became the fourth underclassman to leave since March when Texas revealed Tuesday that he will transfer.

The departure of Lewis means a Texas team that already shot 29.7 percent from behind the arc a year ago and 41.3 percent overall now will have to replace its three leading scorers. Sophomore point guard Myck Kabongo entered the NBA draft despite missing the first 23 games of last season due to NCAA eligibility issues and promising sophomore wing Sheldon McClellan announced in late March he intends to transfer.

The responsibility of providing perimeter scoring punch likely would have fallen to Lewis with Kabongo and McClellan gone, but an increased role apparently wasn't enough to keep the rising junior in Austin. Already there are reports Lewis will likely join former Texas assistant Rodney Terry at Fresno State.

Texas appears to be floating the idea that some of the transfers were mutual and could be addition by subtraction, but it's difficult to get behind that concept considering the lack of proven players on next season's roster. 

Isaiah Austin (Getty Images)

In the three years since the short-lived Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series ended with a whimper in 2010, it doesn't appear as though one of the leagues involved has learned from all its mistakes.

The Big 12 has entered into a similar 10-game challenge with the SEC that will begin next season, but the 2013 format leaves a lot to be desired.

Much like the games in the Big 12/Pac-10 series were annually spread over the course of a month, next season's Big 12-SEC challenge games span a six-week window from Nov. 14 to Dec. 21. Spacing the games so far apart hampers the event's chances of creating early-season buzz because only the most hardcore fans will even realize all 10 of the games are part of a challenge between the two leagues.

The only way a series between two leagues can truly capture the attention of fans is if the format is similar to the highly successful ACC-Big Ten Challenge, a battle for bragging rights that spans only two days. The Big 12's release announcing the event mentions that scheduling conflicts were the reason the event is so spread out next season and pledges to work with ESPN to schedule the games across consecutive days in the future.

Hopefully schools in both leagues commit to juggling their future schedules and making this event a two-day blockbuster because it does have potential if it's organized properly. The other problem with the inaugural version, however, is the matchups don't seem to have been chosen with much imagination.

Besides a potential top 10 showdown between Kansas and Florida and an already existing neutral-court game between Kentucky and Baylor, the rest of the slate is far from inspiring. Some of that is a result of the weakness of the bottom half of both leagues, but some of it is also a product of poor matchup choices.

Andrew Wiggins' desire to make the announcement of his college destination an intimate affair did have one unintended consequence.

Grant Traylor (via Twitter)It turned the lone reporter allowed in Huntington Prep's gym on Tuesday afternoon into an instant must-follow for diehard college hoops fans.

Grant Traylor, who covers Marshall Athletics and high school sports for the Huntington Herald Dispatch, had a modest 1,962 Twitter followers Sunday when he went to cover the NCAA tournament selection show party for the Thundering Herd softball team. Once Huntington Prep coach Rob Fulford revealed Sunday night that Traylor would be the only reporter in the building for Wiggins' announcement, however, that number began to mushroom.

It reached 8,100 by Monday morning. It reached 10,400 by Monday night. And minutes before Wiggins revealed Tuesday at 12:09 p.m. EST that he was headed to Kansas, Traylor had more than 17,800 followers, roughly nine times the number he had less than 48 hours earlier.

Traylor's tweet that revealed Wiggins' decision to everyone outside the gym received 1,800 retweets. His mentions poured in so quickly his phone wasn't equipped to deal with all of them.