- What’s sometimes lost in all the conference realignment shuffling is the travel. West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins is preparing for his first season in the Big 12 with the Mountaineers and he still isn’t sure how to handle the long plane rides he’ll encounter for every road game. The closest conference game away from Morgantown is Iowa State, a cool 850-plus miles from home. Huggins is still trying to figure out what to do with his travel itinerary, and he’s gone back and forth with the option of staying the night after road games, which isn’t common. “But they don’t sleep anyway after a game,” Huggins said at Big 12 Media Day. “They sleep better on a plane I think. Do you ever notice those guys sleep better sitting down than they do laying down?”
- Bill Self brought up the ever popular “pay-for-play” topic recently in a phone interview with Gary Bedore of the Lawrence Journal-World. Self, who admitted he’s now in favor of paying athletes in some way, will be featured on a panel discussion on November 1 in Lawrence with a handful of college basketball writers including ESPN’s Jay Bilas. The topic of athlete compensation will be on the docket that night and Self gave a quick preview during his interview. “I can’t imagine why there aren’t different angles and avenues in which we could compensate the people that are exactly the ones bringing the money to the schools — the student-athletes,” Self said.
- ESPN NBA Insider Chad Ford released his latest top 100 NBA Draft prospects list with 12 Big 12 players making the cut. Kansas led the group with four players on this list, but Baylor freshman Isaiah Austin received the most praise from Ford, who ranked the 7’0″ power forward No. 6 and projected him to be a top 10 pick in next June’s NBA draft. Other freshmen on the list included Kansas’ Ben McLemore (#20) Texas’ Cameron Ridley (#47) and Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart (#62). I don’t see Ridley or Smart declaring for the NBA after this season, but Austin should stay in the top 10 and McLemore could inch his way closer to the lottery if he’s as good as advertised.
- Hall-of-Famer and former Texas guard Slater Martin passed away last week. Slater played in the 1947 Final Four with the Longhorns and had his No. 15 uniform number retired by the school in 2009. He was elected to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1964 and the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982. Martin left Texas and went on to win five NBA championships with the Minneapolis Lakers and St. Louis Hawks.
- Is this the year Scott Drew finally guides Baylor to the Final Four? The Bears haven’t been there since 1950, but Drew has been close recently with Elite Eight appearances in 2010 and again last season. He has all-conference players in Pierre Jackson and Isaiah Austin and great role players like Deuce Bello, A.J. Walton and Brady Heslip. But Drew has had plenty of talent before and failed to make it to the final weekend of the season. With all that talent every season, he has to make it eventually, right? Until he does, his reputation as a recruiter who can’t coach will overshadow anything else he does on the court. ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi thinks the Bears have a shot, giving them a No. 2 seed in the West region in his latest ridiculously early bracket.