They are ... Elite.

Only in college basketball in March can a school of 6,000 undergraduates with no military-industrial football complex compete with a school of 38,000 undergrads with a football team its basketball team can be proud of. And win.

The Muskies beat Texas 79-71 Friday night about the same way they've beaten everyone since the beginning of the month: They just kept playing. It sounds simple. It's as obvious as Romain Sato's vertical leap. So be it.

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of Friday's game

They played through the Longhorns' deliberate style, which cramped their own. They played through a set of officials that so vexed Texas coach Rick Barnes, he drew two technical fouls with 3.9 seconds left and the game still marginally for grabs. The refs were determined to whistle players for hand-checking.

Most impressively, XU played through Lionel Chalmers' first-half amnesia. After ripping up the Atlantic 10 Tournament and the first two rounds of the NCAAs, Chalmers forgot how to shoot. In the first 15 minutes, Chalmers missed all five of his field goal tries.

For most of the half, the Longhorns used reserve guard Edgar Moreno on Chalmers. Moreno is 6 feet 2; 6-1 of that is arms. Chalmers looked like a fly in a web. But great players - and Chalmers has been very close to that lately - wait for the game to show up at their door. Because they know it will. All they have to do is keep playing.

Who keeps playing better than Lionel Chalmers? He was scorned early in the year, he was booed midway through. Two months ago, Chalmers went 1-for-15 against Richmond, at home. His senior year looked like just another Hindenburg. Who understands better the twists a long season can take?

Compared to a dead-on-the-hardwood 10-9 record and 1-for-15, going 0-for-15 minutes Friday night was a crack in the sidewalk. Chalmers banged in his last two 3s of the first half.

"I started to get a little impatient, to be honest," Chalmers said. "I knew I had to stay in that rhythm and do other things."

Inside muscle kept the Muskies close while they waited for Chalmers to thaw. Anthony Myles had seven points in the first 11 minutes. Justin Doellman added 10. Brandon Cole, the freshman, played older than that on the boards.

They just kept playing. "Our guys believed," coach Thad Matta said. "That was the biggest job I had, convincing them they could win."

Last year, Matta said his team appeared satisfied to make it to the second round, even as a No. 3 seed. Maryland made them pay for that.

Matta didn't want a repeat. "I had to convince them," he said. "It wasn't hard."

What has happened with this team is a perfect intersection of ability and opportunity, and a coach who has made all the right psychological moves. Everything Matta has emphasized - play hard, keep working, stay together - has come together in the last three weeks.

"Coach said when we were 10-9 it was only us, no one else," Keith Jackson said.

They wouldn't go away. "Stay focused," Chalmers told his teammates. "Keep playing." The Musketeers were up five with four minutes left, up two with three minutes, up three with two left and up four with 25.1 seconds. It wasn't until Sydmill Harris missed a rushed 3-pointer with eight seconds left, Dedrick Finn grabbed the rebound and Barnes got ejected that their persistence won out again. We'll see how far it keeps taking them.

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E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com

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