1. After beating eighth-ranked Florida on Saturday, Kansas State made its debut in the AP Top 25 poll on Monday, coming in at #25. Oklahoma State jumped from #24 to #22, and Kansas\’ road win at Ohio State vaulted the Jayhawks from ninth to sixth in this week\’s poll. With the Cowboys off this week and only American and UMKC on the schedules of Kansas and Kansas State, respectively, all three teams should remain ranked into the new year.
2. Last week, Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated wrote about his favorite college basketball stories of 2012. Not surprisingly, Kansas\’ 87-86 overtime win over Missouri on February 28 made the list. Missouri won the first meeting at home and held a 19-point second half lead in Allen Fieldhouse, shocking the 16,300 Kansas fans into silence. As everyone remembers, Kansas came back, forced overtime, and won possibly the greatest game the border rivals had ever played. Now with Missouri in the SEC, that rivalry is on hold probably until the teams are someday matched up in the NCAA Tournament.
3. Jeff Goodman and Gary Parrish listed their 10 National Player of the Year Candidates yesterday on CBSSports.com, and Kansas center Jeff Withey came in currently at No. 4. They call him \”arguably\” the best defensive big man in the nation, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone in the post better defensively. He is averaging 8.3 RPG and 5.0 BPG to go along with his 14.1 PPG. He leads the country with 3.9 blocks per foul and has yet to commit more than three fouls in a single game this year, meaning that he\’s on the floor when KU needs him the most.
4. High school superstar Shabazz Muhammad has yet to live up to his preseason hype, but he finally cracked the CBSSports.com Freshman of the Year watch yesterday at No. 5. The Big 12 has two of the five representatives on the list: Kansas guard Ben McLemore is second after scoring 22 points and six rebounds in Saturday\’s 74-66 win over Ohio State. He is averaging 16.5 PPG on the season. Oklahoma State guard Marcus Smart follows McLemore at third, averaging 12.5 PPG, 6.4 RPG, and 5.1 APG. He is also averaging 2.7 SPG and has led the Cowboys to a 10-1 record so far this season.
5. Jay Bilas has never been afraid to voice his displeasure with the NCAA, and Saturday\’s broadcast of Texas-Michigan State was no different. Before the game the NCAA had announced that sophomore point guard Myck Kabongo\’s season-long suspension had been reduced to 23 games. As usual, Bilas held nothing back with his criticism, noted here in a USA Today article from the weekend. Kabongo will be eligible to return on February 13 against Iowa State, and whether that is too late to mesh with his teammates remains to be seen.

KoryCarpenter (150 Posts)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2012 at 7:31 am by KoryCarpenter and is filed under big 12, microsites, morning 5. Tagged: ben mclemore, jay bilas, jeff withey, kansas, kansas state, marcus smart, myck kabongo, oklahoma state, texas. 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.