Kelly showing he's key to unlocking Longhorns' basketball success.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

AUSTIN, Texas _ It is one of the standing jokes between Texas coach Rick Barnes and his mercurial guard Darren Kelly.

"I always kid Darren that I don't know what I was thinking when I took him," Barnes said. "It's obvious he knows how to take good coaching."

Of course Barnes looks like a genius now for signing the shooting guard in the spring of 1999 from tiny Brown-Mackie College, which had just won the Division II junior college national championship.

After missing the fall semester for being academically ineligible, Kelly has helped transform the 10-2 Longhorns from a decent young club searching for an identity into a team that appears to be a legitimate Big 12 contender.

In his first two games back, Kelly scored a total of 44 points to lead Texas to victories over Houston and then-No. 5 Illinois and was cited as national player of the week by ESPN.com. The Longhorns have since knocked off UNC Asheville and, behind Kelly's 30 points, Utah.Texas, ranked No. 24 and on a five-game winning streak, opens Big 12 play against Oklahoma State on Saturday.

Kelly said the Longhorns are far from a finished product.

"Hopefully, by crunch time, when we need to be our best, we'll be there," Kelly said. "Once we start putting it all together for 40 minutes, the sky's the limit."