1. If any team has an excuse to underachieve this year, it’s Texas A&M. Head coach Billy Kennedy has more important things to worry about after learning about his Parkinson’s diagnosis before the season, and Jason King caught up with him in the midst of the Aggies’ disappointing campaign. Kennedy’s story has been publicized for months now, but King tells the story better than anyone else yet has. His depth, detail and raw emotion helps bring out the best in Kennedy’s spirit. On the basketball court, Kennedy said his diagnosis has kept the Aggies behind the curve in the learning process. The 2011-12 season might be a little too late for him to salvage, but Kennedy will eventually get this program going again.
2. Halfway through the Big 12 schedule, it’s now time to reflect on the first nine games. This particular article doesn’t get very controversial, but the All-Big 12 team is debatable. The “honorable mentions” all have worthy arguments of making the squad, and point guard seems to be a really contentious issue. This writer chose Tyshawn Taylor, but Phil Pressey and Pierre Jackson are basically interchangeable there. And it’s also interesting to see no Marcus Denmon, since the senior guard has lost his swagger a bit during Big 12 play. Also, Ricardo Ratliffe may surprisingly have an argument over Perry Jones, especially considering how much he outplayed the NBA lottery hopeful in Waco. In the end, though, none of this matters. It’s just fun to argue about.
3. Oklahoma State has always been a basketball school. Nobody used to want to play at Gallagher-Iba Arena, one of the more intimidating venues in college basketball. Students rallied around hoops, not football, and the winter was the most important sports season. That’s not necessarily the case anymore. As with any university, fans will support the most successful team at any given moment. Right now, football has become king in Stillwater. That’s not inherently bad, but it’s also a little sad to see the dwindling support for basketball at OSU. Travis Ford doesn’t need to compete with football for attention, but he’s got to get this program back on track and make GIA a pit again. It’s good for the league, and it’s good for college basketball.
4. Missouri‘s football program earned a groundbreaking commitment from Dorial Green-Beckham on Wednesday, giving coach Gary Pinkel the top-rated recruit in the nation for the Class of 2012. Great for football, but we’re a basketball site. So why does this story matter? Read the final paragraph: “Green-Beckham said he met Missouri basketball coach Frank Haith during his weekend visit. Green-Beckham said playing basketball in Columbia was a “possibility” and that he would “probably” run track. He has said in the past it was unlikely he would play basketball in college.” Excuse me? Green-Beckham may not be as good at basketball as he is at football, but Rivals.com still rates him as a three-star small forward. And he’d take up a scholarship for football, not basketball. Sign him up if you’re Coach Haith.
5. Finally, on a lighter note, there seems to be a little bit of a friendly war between Missouri and Kansas students in light of Saturday’s Border War game in Columbia. After MU students created a cheesy but funny video called “We Are Mizzou” — which featured several nerdy rappers — Kansas mocked the MU version with its own rendition. They are both beyond ridiculous, but that’s the point of these things. It’s just sad to think this could be the final time KU and MU students get a chance to go at each other if this rivalry really does end after this season.

dnspewak (343 Posts)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 at 7:31 am by dnspewak and is filed under big 12, microsites. Tagged: billy kennedy, kansas, marcus denmon, missouri, oklahoma state, perry jones, phil pressey, pierre jackson, Ricardo Ratliffe, texas a&m, travis ford, tyshawn taylor. 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.