- Frank Haith doesn’t need anybody to stand up for him anymore — not with a 21-2 record in early February. Still, Kim English has been a vocal supporter of Haith since the day he was hired, and he’s back at it on Twitter. “Please don’t get it twisted whose “players” we are… We are Frank Haith’s “players”!!!” English never mentioned Mike Anderson, but he didn’t have to. Missouri fans have already long erased that name from their vocabularies.
- Like Haith, when Kansas State hired Frank Martin, he also immediately became the butt of the Big 12’s jokes. He wasn’t a coach; just a caretaker of Michael Beasley and Bill Walker. But after establishing his own brand at KSU following the departure of those two stars, Martin has created a consistent program in Manhattan despite a slip-up this past month or so. The Wildcats are not elite, though, and at least one person argues that it’s because he’s failed to recruit a dominant big man. In a way, that’s true. But you’ve got to remember that there are only a handful of elite bigs out there on the recruiting trail. Martin has brought in Curtis Kelly, Jamar Samuels and several other productive forwards to team with his terrific guards. And who’s to say Thomas Gipson won’t eventually pan out?
- This is going to be weird: The first 2,000 Texas Tech fans to show up on Saturday will all receive cut-outs of Billy Gillispie‘s head, and the first 200 students all get free pizza (yeah, it’s been a rough year in Lubbock). That’s great and all, but the idea of 2,000 blow-up pictures of Gillispie around the arena is frightening– like something out of one of the Scream movies. Let’s hope it doesn’t become a national trend.
- After an encouraging non-conference start, Oklahoma has fallen flat in Big 12 play. It’s not a major surprise for a team that most considered a cellar-dwellar in the preseason, but if anyone would have overachieved, it’d have been Lon Kruger. Clearly, though, that isn’t the case with this team. At 3-8 now in the Big 12, OU probably does not have much of a shot at any postseason tournament, much less the NCAAs. Still, it’s not as though Kruger’s team has rolled over for Big 12 foes. They seem to fight everyone they play, yet they cannot figure out how to close out a game or pull a major upset. That’s a good sign for Kruger’s program, which should take off in the near future. Hey, Kruger has won everywhere else he’s coached — why not Oklahoma?
- Oklahoma State has a thin roster, and it’s even thinner up front. But Michael Cobbins is starting to play big for the Cowboys. He’s served as the main cog in the paint for a team that has defended very well this year, and he swatted four shots against Baylor. He played every minute of the game and limited the Bears’ production, which is not an easy task against a team that starts three All-Conference caliber forwards. With Philip Jurick out due to injury right now, expect to see Cobbins’ role expand even further.