By Jim Vertuno
The Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas - Sitting in a steaming sun at a Texas football game, sweat poring down his face and staining his shirt, James Thomas wondered what he had gotten himself into. He had left Schenectady, N.Y., to find a warm place to play basketball, and Texas seemed the perfect fit. That was until he nearly passed out in while watching a Longhorns' football game during his first semester in 2000.

"Man, I was hot," Thomas said.

Thank heaven for air conditioning, or Thomas and fellow New Yorker Royal Ivey, both juniors, might have bolted home instead of sticking around Austin.

They have become two of the defensive stars for a Longhorns team heading to the NCAA tournament round of 16 for the second straight year.

Top-seeded Texas (24-6) plays fifth-seed Connecticut (23-9) Friday night in the South Regional semifinals in the Alamodome in San Antonio. This is the first time the Longhorns have had a No. 1 seeding.

Thomas averages 11.2 rebounds and 11.1 points. Ivey is Texas' best defender and routinely draws the assignment of guarding an opponent's top scorer.

After high school, Thomas played one season of prep school at Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia. He committed to Texas on blind faith without visiting the campus.

"Everybody was asking me `Why Texas?" Thomas said. "They thought it was going to be all country bumpkins with boots and cowboy hats. That's what I thought, too."

He arrived still wearing his clothes from military school and paid for it on that sweltering Saturday afternoon.

"No shorts or nothing, man," Thomas said.

Ivey would have stayed closer to his home in Queens if only some of the big schools back East would have recruited him. He still scrawls the name of his hometown on his sneakers.

He and Thomas watched a lot of Big East basketball while growing up.

"If UConn had recruited me," Ivey said. "I would have gone there."

It turned out that Texas was the only major program recruiting Ivey.

Even his family had doubts about his ability to play big-time basketball.

Coach Rick Barnes visited Ivey's father on a recruiting trip. "His dad says `Why do you want my son? He's not that good."'

That changed after the family got to watch Texas play in Madison Square Garden. "He said, `I didn't think he was that good."'

In a second-round win over Purdue, Ivey guarded Boilermaker guard Willie Deane, who was averaging 18 points, and held him to 4-of-17 shooting.

"Nobody wants to do the dirty work," Ivey said. "But that's how I got here, by playing defense. Every game I draw the other team's best scorer, and I look forward to that. That's fun for me."

"Royal just plays with so much heart," Thomas said. "He could be guarding Michael Jordan and would try to put him in shackles."