Video cameras were rolling when the No. 2 Texas Longhorns walked onto the court at Cowboys Stadium on Friday.

That is, the cameras held by most of the Texas players.

A day before taking on No. 10 North Carolina in the first basketball game at the $1.2 billion stadium, the Longhorns were awed by their first glimpse of the place where their football cohorts won the Big 12 championship two weeks ago and where the NBA All-Star game will be played in February.

Most of their oohs and aahs were directed at the video board that hangs over the court _ every inch of it, and then some.

"It's my first time ever feeling small," said 6-foot-10 center Dexter Pittman, who used to weigh nearly 400 pounds. "I didn't think that JumboTron was that big. I thought people were overexaggerating, but it's huge!"

As big as the screens look for football games, it's even more overwhelming for basketball.

Think about it: the TVs cover 60 yards of a 100-yard gridiron; they are almost twice the size of a 94-foot basketball court.

In fact, the entire platform that holds the court is 134 feet. The boards stretch 160 feet, leaving 12 more feet of screens on either end of the platform.

"I told (a team official) I didn't want to play _ just buy me a ticket to sit in the stands and I'll watch it on the JumboTron," Pittman said, laughing.

When the Cowboys first moved into the building, there was a lot of drama about whether the boards hung so low that they might get hit by a punt. Well, for basketball, they are so high above the court that a smaller set of screens have been installed so folks sitting close to the court don't have to strain their necks. These temporary boards are "only" 15 feet-by-24 feet and hang from the giant boards.

The Longhorns (9-0) seemed glad to have taken the three-hour trip up from Austin to check out the new surroundings. They practiced on the court, too, in hopes of getting of a better feel for the massive environment.

The Tar Heels (8-2) opted to work out at home in Chapel Hill. They were flying in later Friday, with their first glimpse inside the building not coming until they arrive Saturday.

"There's nothing unique about playing in a big building," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. "We do that all the time. We played in a big building last year that was a third full and two-thirds empty when we played Michigan State (at Ford Field in Detroit).