Bottom line -- Chris Dufresne

Call it karma that No. 2-seeded Texas has to go through Austin and Houston to get to the Final Four.

How did Texas get a first-round Austin game? Isn’t that against the rules?

That’s not actually in Austin for Texas, that’s against Austin (Peay), the always-NCAA-welcome Governors, who started a “Let’s Go Peay” craze in 1987 with a first-round upset of No. 3 Illinois before an overtime loss to Providence.

While this region was set up to barbecue spit out Memphis vs. Texas in Houston’s Enron Bracket, there are a few early-round bones to go over.

Stanford vs. Cornell, set for Thursday pod play in Anaheim, is a pretty smart opener. Cornell won the Ivy League, the only conference left that believes the regular season still means something and does not conduct a postseason tournament to determine its NCAA bid. Stanford basketball is such a special academic oasis that it has never had a sophomore leave early for the NBA draft, but check back in a couple months regarding sophomore Brook Lopez.

Another intriguing first-round game is Marquette vs. Kentucky. Don’t worry, Wildcats, Dwyane Wade is not at Marquette anymore. It’s not 2003, in Minneapolis, but it is 2008.

Kentucky’s uniforms ought to be good for one NCAA tournament win. The Wildcats have won seven national titles, second to UCLA’s 11, but the Bluegrass brass will never give up the quest. It won’t happen this year because no hallowed program that loses to Gardner-Webb and San Diego in the same season deserves to have anything etched on a trophy.

The South comes down to Memphis vs. Texas.

The horns hook ‘em.

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com