- It’s almost time for the Big 12 Tournament. Are you ready? We are, and we will be there all four days here at Rush the Court to give you an insider’s perspective. If you don’t have tickets already, though, you might be in trouble. They are costing a fortune this year, and you can thank the success of nearby Missouri, Iowa State, Kansas and Kansas State for that.
- That begs the question: will be this be the best weekend in Kansas City basketball history? That’s hard to quantify, but it’s hard to see how any other weekend could ever come close. If Missouri and Kansas play in the Saturday final, you have to think it will be one of the most compelling conference championship games in college basketball in some time.
- As compelling as the Big 12 Tournament is, there is one storyline that sticks out this week: Texas. The Longhorns must beat Iowa State in the quarterfinals or else they will probably stay home from the NCAA Tournament for the first time in Rick Barnes’ tenure. The pressure is on, Longhorns. And seeing as they have lost about a hundred games by one point this season, it’s time for these young guys to figure out how to play in the limelight. Unfortunately, veteran big man Alexi Wangmene will not play in the Big 12 Tournament, so Barnes will be a man down.
- Dennis Dodd gets it. As I wrote yesterday after Frank Haith finished third in the Coach of the Year award in the Big 12, Dodd writes that the honor is skewed. It’s given to the coaches who lead the most surprising teams to an overachieving finish– how can we really quantify the best coach? Dodd also claims conference realignment has something to do with Haith’s third-place finish. Like Haith said, we won’t get into that.
- By the way, the Associated Press clearly disagreed with the rest of the Big 12 coaches by voting Haith the AP Coach of the Year in the conference. Between Bill Self, Fred Hoiberg and Haith, it’s just a tough call. Again, though, it’s not a big deal. Maybe that’s why Haith is downplaying it. “”Those things don’t matter. Our players, I think they get into it. I’ll take the wins,” he said in the Big 12 teleconference.