1. It’s never good to wish away the weekend, but there is a monster match-up awaiting us in the Big 12 on Monday at Phog. Kansas will host undefeated Baylor on the first Big Monday of the season on ESPN, and the Kansas City Star is already gearing up for the contest. The article brings up an interesting perspective: what if Baylor wins? It’s nearly impossible to win in Lawrence, but it’s hard to win in Manhattan too, which Baylor did last week. And if the Bears can win another road game like this, it would be firmly in the driver’s seat for the rest of the Big 12 race. It may only be January, but who says college basketball doesn’t matter until March?
2. Billy Gillispie has suspended Texas Tech freshman Terran Petteway for one game after officials ejected him from Saturday’s game against Kansas. Petteway, who threw an elbow and received a technical foul in the incident, will return after Saturday’s game against Texas A&M. Petteway is not a major contributor, but he is a promising freshman who plays decent minutes off the bench. Averaging 4.6 points per game, the forward was held scoreless in his past two games against Kansas and Baylor. So perhaps he’ll be able to clear his mind while he’s on the bench this weekend.
3. Iowa State did not earn the program-changing victory it wanted when it let one slip away against Missouri on Wednesday in Ames, but the Cyclones’ season is still far from a disaster. At 2-1, there’s no doubt Fred Hoiberg has this team playing better basketball. Still, he’s obviously not happy with any moral victory from Wednesday, instead saying his team “threw the game away.” As the article mentions, Iowa State needed to pull a big victory to really get this season rolling. Kansas State did just that by beating Missouri, and now it’s the Cyclones’ turn to make a statement.
4. Thomas Robinson is good. Like, really good. And he was really good again in a blowout at Texas Tech this weekend, so much that it’s becoming completely normal for him to record a double-double every single night. From here on out, nothing Robinson does will surprise us. He may not have entered the year on anyone’s National POY radar, but he’s a Naismith contender if we’ve ever seen one. According to Bill Self, “the light has come on” during the past month or so especially, which is impressive considering he was playing very well early in the season, too. As Big 12 play rolls on, Robinson’s star status will only continue to grow. With numbers like he has, how can it not?
5. When tragedies in sports occur, they usually hang in the news for a few days. If it’s significant enough, we may keep talking about it for a week or so. Then, we move on. Well, we’ve moved on from the Oklahoma State plane crash that claimed the lives of staff members for the women’s basketball team, but head coach Kurt Budke‘s son certainly won’t move on for a while. Brett Budke’s dad died in the crash, and his high school basketball team has now dedicated its season to the sophomore’s family. Even after losing nine seniors, the team is actually ranked in the top-10 and could be in store for a special season.

dnspewak (343 Posts)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2012 at 7:00 am by dnspewak and is filed under big 12, microsites. Tagged: baylor, billy gillispie, fred hoiberg, iowa state, kansas, missouri, terran petteway, texas tech, thomas robinson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.