1. Oddly enough, Keiton Page may be the Big 12’s most intriguing player. The undersized guard hardly looks like an elite basketball player, but he has managed to contribute heavily in all four of his seasons Oklahoma State. When he graduates after this year, he will leave a mixed legacy as both a gritty underdog and a volume three-point shooter who never made more than 40% of his three-point attempts in a given season. Though he hasn’t been a perfect player since arriving in Stillwater, he was basically perfect in a 40-point effort which sprung him to fourth among the league’s scoring leaders. Page may be heating up lately, but this argument for a spot on the All-Conference team is a little off. Page actually shoots less than 40% from the field, including just a 35% clip from three. His attitude and leadership have been commendable especially since injuries and transfers have forced him to move to point guard, but that is not enough for an All-Conference selection.
2. That 40-point game was quite a scene for Page, though, and it’s worth another mention. Teammate Le’Bryan Nash was most surprised by Page’s ability to pump fake. “I’m like: ‘Why do guys jump? You’re 5-9, I’ll just put my hands straight up and make you try to shoot over me… But guys who play my position, they make defensive mistakes. He looks for those defensive mistakes. And I’m glad they’re calling it for him,” Nash told The Oklahoman. Something tells us Keiton Page and Bob Knight would get along great, considering The General mentions his love for pump fakes at least a dozen times each broadcast.
3. Now playing for a program looking to sneak back into the NCAAs for the first time in several years, Chris Allen‘s experience is shining at the right time for Iowa State. Allen, who has Final Four experience from his days at Michigan State, scored a career-high 25 points in a blowout of Texas A&M this weekend. That’s the second straight game Allen has led Iowa State in the scoring department. In fact, over the last four games, Allen has shot 17 for 29 from three and is shooting right around 50 percent from the field.
4. At least Billy Gillispie has a sense of humor. After a 33-point beating at the hands of Thomas Robinson and Kansas, the Texas Tech coach made a Seabiscuit reference to describe the way the Jayhawks manhandled his team inside. “I keep thinking every time we have the tip of that scene in ‘Seabiscuit, where they walk Seabiscuit out here and he’s going against War Admiral, and War Admiral is this much taller (gestures about a foot) than him,” Gillispie told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. There’s not a whole lot to add to Coach Gillispie’s depiction of the situation– it’s pretty much spot on.
5. Texas and Baylor are moving in opposite directions, and they are going to clash on Big Monday tonight. The Longhorns have a chance to move above .500 in the Big 12 and knock off their first ranked opponent while the Bears are trying to stop a nasty slide in conference play. After entering the Big 12 season without a loss, the Bears have now dropped five league games and hit rock bottom with a poor effort in Saturday’s loss at home to Kansas State. It’s desperation time in the state of Texas on Monday and that makes for great television.

dnspewak (343 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2012 at 7:30 am by dnspewak and is filed under big 12, microsites. Tagged: baylor, billy gillispie, chris allen, iowa state, kansas, keiton page, lebryan nash, oklahoma state, texas, 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.