As the season winds down and the Big 12 teams continue to find themselves eliminated from the postseason, we’re taking a look back at the 2012-13 campaign on a team-by-team basis. Next up: Kansas State. 

Final Record: 27-8 (14-4)

The Expectations: Frank Martin’s bizarre decision to take a job at South Carolina left the Wildcats searching for a suitable replacement. They settled on former Illinois coach Bruce Weber, who’d just been fired in Champaign. He was an intriguing coach because of his success at Southern Illinois and, of course, that Final Four run at Illinois and subsequent NCAA Tournament berths, but his tenure with the Fighting Illini ended on bad terms. In a way, though, he seemed like a perfect fit for Kansas State because of his similar intensity to Martin. He doesn’t appear as mentally insane on the sideline, but he’s a fiery defensive teacher and it was clear that the transition wouldn’t be difficult on that end. Once several Kansas State players announced they’d stay and play for Weber, it looked like he had a nice roster that could compete. Rodney McGruder was primed for a big senior year. There was a lot of size, a number of good guards and a rising star in Angel Rodriguez. If Kansas State could learn Weber’s patented motion offense and stick with the same defensive intensity it had under Martin, maybe Weber could win a lot of games. But there was no guarantee.

Bruce Weber Had a Nice First Season (photo credit: Getty Images).

The Actual Result: The best-case scenario occurred in Manhattan. During the first two months of the season, KSU stayed in the background by beating up on bad teams and failing to win neutral-site games against Michigan and Gonzaga (in Seattle). Nobody knew what to think of the Wildcats — that is, until they beat Florida in Kansas City. Game on. From there, Weber’s team took off. There were some initial growing pains offensively, but from a defensive and rebounding standpoint, there were few teams better in America. Kansas State lost only six games during the regular season, four of which (Kansas twice, Michigan and Gonzaga) came against teams who’d been ranked No. 1 at some point this season. The other two came against Oklahoma State and Iowa State, both of whom wound up in the NCAA Tournament as well. Kansas State technically shared the Big 12 title, but it lost both regular season games to the Jayhawks and then fell to them again in the Big 12 title game. Nobody can take that shared title away from the Wildcats, though, and the 14-4 record is proof they had a really, really good season. But Weber even admitted after the Big 12 Tournament that beating Kansas is the next logical step. The La Salle mishap in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament last Friday will overshadow this team’s many accomplishments, but there shouldn’t be many complaints. It’s just difficult to see the winningest senior class in Kansas State history fall flat like that.

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It wasn’t always easy for Miami to get to this year’s Sweet Sixteen, but it was certainly never easy for Marquette to make the same journey. Ultra-tight games and impressive comebacks highlighted the Golden Eagles’ close wins over Davidson and Butler, while Miami romped over Pacific and held on against Illinois. Say what you will about Buzz Williams‘ team, but improbably this team has figured out how to handle the big gut-check moments. During the regular season, Marquette played four overtime games and won three of them. I’m honestly uncertain if “clutchness” is a real phenomenon, but the Golden Eagles give my doubts doubts.

Larranaga and Larkin Intend to Take the Hurricanes to the School’s First Final Four

Big news came for Miami when it was announced that Reggie Johnson would not be traveling with the team for tonight’s match-up, but it’s unclear just how significant this news actually is. Johnson missed a huge chunk of the season with an injury and was out of shape and often ineffectual when he finally returned to the court. Against the smallish Golden Eagles, how much would the lumbering Johnson actually have played anyway? In Miami’s statement game in the ACC championship against small ball North Carolina, the center played all of three minutes. His time instead went to Rion Brown and Julian Gamble,  a pair of players who supercharge the Hurricanes’ offense and defense. It feels unlikely that Johnson would have (or should have) played all that much against Marquette. It’s not that this news doesn’t have a big impact on Miami’s title chances, but for the purposes of this match-up, it doesn’t feel particularly significant for those who have watched this team closely.

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When Oregon takes the floor Friday evening against Louisville, it will do so as a heavy underdog to the top seed. Las Vegas sees the Ducks as 10-point underdogs, while Ken Pomeroy says the Cardinals are 11 points better. But after winning the Pac-12 Tournament and being “rewarded” by the Selection Committee with a 12-seed, the Ducks are used to being counted out. They still think they can win, however, and with head coach Dana Altman pulling the strings, it’s foolish to give up on them, but without question they have their work cut out to knock off the Cardinals.

Dana Altman And The Ducks Have Pulled Off Two Upsets, But A Big Challenge Still Awaits

Priority number one for the Ducks is to take better care of the ball than they did last week. In their upset wins over Oklahoma State and Saint Louis, they did a lot of things really well, but limiting turnovers was not one of them. They turned it over 18 times in each outing, with senior E.J. Singler leading the way with a total of 12. If they are similarly careless against Louisville, those 18 turnovers are liable to turn into 24. And those 24 turnovers could very easily turn into 40 points. And if that happens, even if Louisville struggles shooting the ball — a reasonable occurrence — the Cardinals can still come out of the game with a win by taking advantage of all those Oregon turnovers to earn easy baskets.

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Deepak is a writer for the Big Ten microsite of RTC. Follow him on Twitter for more about B1G hoops at @dee_b1g. 

It is no secret that the Hoosiers won the Big Ten title and secured a #1 seed because of their two star players, Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo. Oladipo proved to any casual hoops fan last weekend that he is arguably the best player in the country by drilling a three to push the Hoosiers past an inspired Temple team. Tonight, the legendary Syracuse 2-3 zone defense will focus on preventing Zeller from receiving the ball in the high post and Oladipo from getting past the initial layer of defense to split the zone. It is almost insulting to call Christian Watford and Jordan Hulls as “X-factors” against Syracuse but if they can combine for close to 25 points, the Hoosiers shouldn’t have any trouble beating the Orange.

Jordan Hulls (center) and Christian Watford (right) will play a big role for the Hoosiers this weekend. (Debby Wong-US PRESSWIRE)

Watford’s block of Anthony Lee’s dunk attempt last weekend was overshadowed by Oladipo’s subsequent three but it set the stage for the final possession against Temple. There aren’t many “stretch” power forwards in the game who can challenge the zone like Watford. Tom Crean may use Watford to feed the ball into the high post from the wing because he has the size and length to pass over Michael Carter-Williams, and if the zone collapses on the catch, then Watford is open to drill a three (48% 3FG). The 2-3 zone also lets opposing teams dominate the offensive glass as Syracuse ranked 13th in the Big East in opponents’ offensive rebounding (36.2%). Watford will have plenty of opportunities to crash the boards through the backdoor and pick up some easy buckets there as well. The key to beating the zone is to be patient and smart with shot selection and this is the time when Watford’s combination of tools and experience should pay off.

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Three weeks ago, coming off an 0-2 road trip to Los Angeles, Arizona was just about ready to be left for dead. It’s not that a pair of conference road losses – one to a team in the middle of a 6-2 streak, the other to the eventual conference champion – were egregious, it’s that they were playing uninspired ball and none of the pieces were showing great cohesion. Mark Lyons was 6-of-24 that weekend with three assists while getting outplayed by Jio Fontan and Larry Drew II; Nick Johnson was in the midst of his regularly scheduled mid-season downturn; and Sean Miller could seemingly never get more than one of his freshman bigs – Kaleb Tarczewski, Brandon Ashley and Grant Jerrett – to play well at any given time.

Sean Miller Has His Wildcats In The Sweet Sixteen, But How Much Further Can They Go?

Flash forward to the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Against a pair of physically overmatched opponents, Lyons was among the best players in the nation, going for 25 points per game in a highly efficient manner. Johnson is now in the midst of a string of unbelievably good defensive performances (dating back to the season finale against Arizona State) and looks to have regained his confidence in his jumper. The freshman bigs have suddenly shown strides to the point where it looks like at least two out of the three can be counted on in any given game. In other words, Miller’s got this team coalescing at precisely the right time. But still, like we said, those two tournament wins were against seriously overmatched teams. Just how far can this Wildcats team go now that the strength of the opponents are about to undergo a serious uptick?

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1. Arizona helps get the Sweet Sixteen underway tonight when it faces Ohio State before what is expected to be a largely pro-Arizona crowd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. While there are plenty of non-monetary reasons why this is a huge game, a big weekend in Los Angeles for Arizona head coach Sean Miller could pay big dividends as he is promised a bonus of $50,000 for an Elite Eight appearance and an additional $175,000 for a trip to the Final Four. All that on top of a $2.2 base salary? Hey, it’s good work if you can get it.
2. One of the main storylines in that Arizona/Ohio State match-up tonight is the relationship between Thad Matta and Sean Miller. Their friendship goes back to 1994 when they were both assistant coaches at Miami (OH) under Herb Sendek (quick sidebar: isn’t it amazing how deep Sendek’s coaching tree is? Eight former Sendek assistants are current Division I head coaches, guys ranging from Matta and Miller to John Groce, Jim Christian, Ron Hunter, Archie Miller, Larry Hunter and Mark Phelps) and continued when, after Matta earned the head coaching spot at Xavier, he hired Miller to join his staff for three seasons. Matta eventually moved on to Ohio State, Miller took over the head position at Xavier, and now, almost 20 years after they first met, they will match wits for just the second time ever as head coaches. The first time? The 2007 Round of 32. The stand-alone game on Saturday afternoon, Xavier had advanced out of the #8/#9 game to get top-seeded Ohio State and Greg Oden. And with three minutes left, the Miller-coached Musketeers were on the verge of closing out the heavily favored Buckeyes. A late three by Ron Lewis completed a fantastic Buckeyes comeback and sent the game to overtime, where the favorites wound up pulling away.
3. How does Oregon stick close to Louisville tomorrow night? Pacific Takes asked four different bloggers and the consensus was that staying red hot is priority number one, but taking care of the ball against Louisville’s pressure, crashing the boards with reckless abandon, and turning the game into a down-tempo defensive rock-fight are among the other suggestions. We’ll have our take on that game later in the day, so check back to see RTC’s prescription for a Ducks win.
4. Bruin Nation got around to listing its possible candidates for the UCLA head coaching job and it is predictably hilarious (seriously, the first dude names Rick Pitino as like his seventh choice as a “short-term solution” – good thing they aren’t setting their sights too high). Elsewhere on the Bruins coaching front, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar threw his hat into the ring on Tuesday night on the Jimmy Kimmel show. And, while we’re mentioning that, I’d also like to take this opportunity to throw my hat into the ring. Why not? Everyone else is doing it. This thing has just started; the absurdity to which this story climbs probably knows no bounds.
5. Up in Pullman, the expectation had been that since there has been no announcement to the contrary, Ken Bone will return as Washington State’s head coach next season. But, it wasn’t until Tuesday that Bone actually met with athletic director Bill Moos to discuss the future of the program. And the prognosis is… that Bone will return for his fifth season at the helm. Bone’s still got three more years on his contract and $2.55 million in guaranteed salary, money that would have been due in the form of a buyout were Bone to have been fired. And, Cougfan.com has five reasons why this was the correct decision all along, in case you were wondering.

Tonight we tip off the Sweet Sixteen with games from the East Region in Washington, DC, and the West Region in Los Angeles, CA. Here are the breakdowns for tonight’s games.

#2 Miami vs. #3 Marquette — East Regional Semifinal (at Washington, D.C.) — 7:15 PM ET on CBS.

Let’s Hope Buzz Keeps This in the Closet If He Makes the Elite Eight

Two coaches and teams that have significantly overachieved this season collide in tonight’s first regional semifinal game in our nation’s capital. Marquette has been the quintessential “survive and advance” team through its two games of this NCAA Tournament having gotten by Davidson and Butler in thrilling fashion. In this match-up, the Golden Eagles will have to overcome some notable disadvantages coming in to it. Even though Reggie Johnson will not play for Miami, he hasn’t been playing all that well of late so his loss isn’t a huge hit for the Hurricanes. Marquette is a team that thrives off of dribble penetration and offensive rebounding so Jim Larranaga’s game plan will no doubt focus on that. Buzz Williams doesn’t have the three point shooters needed to open up his offense, one that is highly dependent on Vander Blue and others creating and getting into the paint. If Miami defends the paint well, can keep Marquette off the free throw line for the most part and win the turnover battle (Marquette averages 14 per game and Miami is #18 in offensive turnover percentage) it should win the game. However, it’s not always so simple. In addition to the dynamic Blue, Jamil Wilson could be a very difficult match-up for Miami. Wilson is a bouncy 6’7 player who can create off the bounce and isn’t afraid of contact around the rim. He could be Marquette’s most important player in deciding the outcome of this one. The intangibles in this game strongly favor the Golden Eagles. It hasn’t just been in this tournament but Marquette has a ton of experience playing in and winning close games over the last few seasons. This team knows how to win and make plays in big moments down the stretch and that becomes such a valuable asset in the NCAA Tournament. We think Miami’s game against Illinois, where the Hurricanes were pushed a bit, was a good thing but it could be only a matter of time as the Hurricanes lack of tournament experience catches up to them. This may be the game as the pressure and scrutiny ramps up, especially against a team with so much experience in one or two possession games. Although this appears to be a good match-up for Miami on paper, there’s a reason why they play the games. The Golden Eagles may come away with another squeaker of a win.

The RTC Certified Pick: Marquette.

#2 Ohio State vs. #6 Arizona – West Regional Semifinal (at Los Angeles, CA) – 7:47 PM ET on TBS

The Thad Matta/Sean Miller backstory gives this matchup plenty of pizzazz, but even without that part of the story, this is quite a battle. You can just run down this game matchup by matchup and find plenty of compelling storylines. At point guard, the Mark Lyons vs. Aaron Craft face-off alone makes this a must-watch game, with Craft one of the nation’s most disruptive perimeter defenders and Lyons one of the most dangerous offensive players off the bounce. While Lyons has the reputation of a guy who is a killer in the clutch, he’ll need to play within himself against Craft and make sure not to force too much against his pressure. Meanwhile, on the other side of the court, Lyons is no slouch on defense himself and Craft an improving, but still somewhat limited scorer. You could do worse that spending the entire 40 minutes of action just watching those two go at it. Elsewhere, the next biggest potential matchup is DeShaun Thomas and Solomon Hill. Thomas is the Buckeyes lone pure scoring threat and Hill will certainly be guarding him for much of the game. Thomas has got a pretty complete offensive game, with range from three, a solid pull-up game off the bounce, some post-up ability and the ability to get on the offensive glass. But, luckily for Arizona, Hill’s defensive versatility can match Thomas’ game, as he’s as comfortable guarding in the post as he is away from the hoop. On the other end of the court, Thomas’ defensive game has improved, but he’s still a long ways from a defensive stopper, although depending on the matchups on the court, he might not be the guy tasked with checking Hill. Arizona doesn’t necessarily need Hill to outscore Thomas in this matchup, but if he can take him out of his comfort zone, OSU will have to count on other less polished scorers to have big games. And there are other great matchups all across the court. Nick Johnson is Arizona’s best perimeter defender and he could take a crack at anyone from Craft to Lenzelle Smith to Shannon Scott, even to Thomas for a stretch if needed. In the paint, Arizona’s three freshman bigs have been playing well of late, but they’ve got big physical veteran Bucks ready to bang with them all day long. And then there are X-factors like Kevin Parrom and LaQuinton Ross. Parrom, a senior, has turned into an excellent third-scorer for the Wildcats, while Ross is starting to live up to the high expectations he earned back in high school. All over the rosters there are strength-on-strength battles, leading me to believe that when we come out of the final media timeout, we’ll be in a dead heat. In that situation, give me the team most capable of putting the ball in the net in a variety of ways. And in this case, that is the Wildcats, with Lyons, Hill, Parrom and even Johnson and Grant Jerrett all capable of filling it up.

The RTC Certified Pick: Arizona

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Bill Self and Kansas are back in the Sweet Sixteen for the sixth time in seven years, and that’s not good news for Michigan, the #4 seed in the South Region that the Jayhawks will meet Friday night in Cowboys Stadium. Self is 5-1 in this round in nine seasons at Kansas and 7-2 for his career dating back to Tulsa at the turn of the century. But Michigan fans shouldn’t be worried about an arbitrary record in a certain round of the NCAA Tournament. They should be worried because Bill Self has an entire week to game plan for the Wolverines, and that is where he has made his teams most dangerous in March.  Between Tulsa, Illinois, and now Kansas, Self has made 14 NCAA Tournament appearances and has 13 losses, winning the NCAA Tournament in 2008. Of those 13 losses, nine came in the second game of the weekend (Round of 32, Elite Eight or National Championship game). As Self likes to point out, the NCAA Tournament is basically split into three two-game tournaments over three weekends. For teams not in the preliminary play-in games, there are four or five days to prepare for their first opponent after the bracket is announced, followed by a roughly 48-hour turnaround. The next week is the same at the regionals and it continues at the Final Four. With that near-week or so to prepare, Self is nearly automatic. He is 12-2 in the Round of 64,  7-2 in the Sweet 16, and 2-0 in National Semifinal games, or 21-4 overall with a week to prepare. The short turnaround has stung him, though. He is 9-3 in the Round of 32, 2-5 in the Elite Eight, and 1-1 in National Championship games, although a month of preparation wouldn’t have been enough time against last season’s Kentucky team. He has won at an 84% clip with a week to prepare and his winning percentage drops to only 57% with a quick turnaround. But the game still has to be played, and Michigan is not your average #4 seed.

Bill Self Is Money With Extra Time To Scout.

Let’s take a look at the match-ups in this game:

Backcourt

Michigan has one of the best players in the country in sophomore point guard Trey Burke, a Sporting News First-Team All-American Selection and possible National Player of the Year. Burke averages 18.8 PPG and 6.7 APG for the Wolverines and controls their offense almost exclusively. According to Ken Pomeroy, his possession percentage of 29.9% (65th nationally) is higher than all but one player remaining in the Tournament, Louisville’s Russ Smith (31.6%). Of the 12 teams remaining that had a player in KenPom’s top 100 for usage percentage, Michigan and Louisville are the only teams remaining. Since 2005 when Pomeroy began publishing possession percentages, only three Final Four teams had a player in the top 100 nationally: UCLA’s Jordan Farmar in 2006, and last year with the Cardinals’ Russ Smith and Kansas’ Thomas Robinson. That’s 90.6% of Final Four teams that have not relied heavily on one player. Fortunately for Michigan fans, Kansas has been torched by point guards several times this season. Baylor point guard Pierre Jackson had 28 points and 10 assists while handing Kansas its last defeat on March 9. Fellow All-American point guard Marcus Smart had 25 points, nine rebounds, and five steals in an Oklahoma State win over Kansas on February 2. Like Jackson and Smart, Burke should have the advantage over Jayhawk guards Elijah Johnson and his backup, Naadir Tharpe. Off the ball, expect to see Travis Releford guarding Tim Hardaway, Jr., and Ben McLemore on Nik Stauskas. Stauskas is a 43.4% three-point shooter and it will imperative that McLemore — or whichever Jayhawk is guarding him — chases him off the three-point line and funnels him into the paint. Burke is going to have a big game regardless. But if Stauskas and/or Hardaway (39.3% from deep) start knocking down threes, Kansas’ best defensive weapon slowly becomes irrelevant. Offensively, Kansas will need better production from McLemore, who had two points on 0-of-9 shooting against North Carolina. He leads the Jayhawks with 15.8 PPG but has disappeared at times this season. He is averaging only 7.0 points per game in the last four outings despite being the most talented player on the court in nearly every situation. Look for Self to draw up a few plays early designed to get McLemore easy buckets and to give him some confidence.

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1. Your move, Texas Tech. Five-star recruit Keith Frazier just tentatively committed to play for the Red Raiders, but he wants to play for interim head coach Chris Walker. That means Tech might need to keep Walker on as the permanent coach for Frazier to stay true to his word. Is it worth it? Frazier is, after all, a consensus top-25 recruit with the potential to change the entire landscape of this program. The shooting guard from Dallas is a McDonald’s All-American. Fan interest in Lubbock could be at an all-time high if he does indeed step on campus, but it appears that will hinge on Walker’s status. As the interim coach, Walker didn’t win very many games, but don’t judge him on the mess he inherited from Billy Gillispie. He kept things together fairly well, knocked off Iowa State at one point and avoided a complete catastrophe. Frazier or no Frazier, Chris Walker isn’t a bad candidate as the permanent head coach of this program.
2. Amath M’Baye‘s short stay at Oklahoma is over. The swingman announced he’ll skip his senior year to enter the NBA Draft, a decision made partly because he needs to financially support his family overseas. He also feels he’s mature enough to make the move, considering he’s now almost 24 years old. The former Wyoming transfer was a solid addition for Lon Kruger this year, but he wasn’t an elite player and a few heads were scratched with his decision to forgo his senior year. M’Baye has a life to live, though, and his choice makes sense on a lot of levels. It’ll leave the Sooners looking for a versatile wing to fill the void, since M’Baye did a lot of different things with his blend of size and athleticism in the frontcourt.
3. You’ve probably heard of Andrea Hudy before. She’s already been featured on ESPN, but here’s another look at the woman behind the magic at Kansas. Hudy is the strength and conditioning coach for the Jayhawks, and she’s built quite a reputation as a fierce motivator and frightening trainer. In the background of all this is her role as a female trainer in a largely male world of men’s college basketball. It’s admirable that she’s able to do her job — and do it well — without complaint from either the players or Bill Self’s staff. It’s proof that regardless of gender, a trainer’s a trainer. And they’re almost all as scary as Andrea Hudy. Judging by Self’s dominance of the Big 12, it looks like Hudy’s a step above her competition.
4. Oklahoma State‘s roster will depend on whether Markel Brown, Le’Bryan Nash and Marcus Smart all return to school. That’s huge. But here’s a more detailed look at exactly what Travis Ford might have to work with next year. We know Philip Jurick is gone. Ford will miss that big body, but he ran into legal trouble before the season and isn’t irreplaceable. Michael Cobbins could be primed for a big year up front, as could Kamari Murphy, who’ll be a sophomore. Oklahoma State returns a good group of guards, too, including Phil Forte and Kirby Gardner. Beyond that, the Cowboys will welcome five newcomers who could get big minutes if the OSU Big Three decide to leave for the NBA.
5. Let’s get this over with. You probably don’t like the NIT, but you need to know that Baylor knocked off Providence to advance to the semifinals at the Garden. The Bears will now face BYU, a team it defeated in Waco earlier in the year. That was an odd game, as it turned out — Baylor fell behind early, then went on a masterful run to seize control of things and win fairly easily. At that time, it seemed like that might be the win that could turn the season around. Instead, Scott Drew’s team is playing BYU in the NIT. So much for that.