It wasn’t pretty, but Kansas advanced to the Big 12 tournament championship game on Friday night with a 62-52 win over Baylor. Jayhawks’ head coach Bill Self joked afterward, “There for a while, I think both teams set basketball back.” It’s becoming a common theme for Kansas to both play and win ugly basketball games. The Jayhawks have scored better than a point per possession in only one of their last four outings. The Kansas offense, once ranked in the nation’s top 15 in adjusted offensive efficiency, has gone cold, having made just 11 of its last 71 three-point attempts.

Wayne Selden finishes an alley-oop against Baylor on Friday. (Kansas City Star)

One factor in that poor offensive production has been the Jayhawks’ lack of a consistent second scoring option to side with forward Perry Ellis. In some odd way individual inconsistency has become a Kansas point of pride with Self describing his team’s identity as capable of always “finding a way.” It has certainly manifested during the Big 12 Tournament with freshman Kelly Oubre picking up the scoring load against TCU on Thursday and sophomore Wayne Selden coming to the rescue against Baylor. Selden, according to Self, “mirrors [the] team from an inconsistency standpoint.” His 20-point, eight-rebound performance against the Bears was his first double-figure scoring output in a month. As a sophomore, Selden’s two-point shooting percentage has declined nearly 15 percent and his offensive rating is down nearly seven points. The talented wing was an explosive finisher last year, scoring on 69.1 percent of his chances at the rim; that number is down nearly 20 percent this season as his overall offensive game has regressed.

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Kansas State last night wrapped up a disappointing season with a 67-65 loss to TCU in the opening round of the Big 12 Tournament. “The game was kind of a microcosm of our whole season,” head coach Bruce Weber said afterward, “a bunch of ups and downs and all-arounds.” The Wildcats have certainly been through the ringer this year. Questions began surrounding the team back in December after a late-game collapse at home against Texas Southern. That loss was followed by star sophomore Marcus Foster finding his way into Weber’s doghouse before returning to help his team upset Oklahoma in Norman. Foster would ultimately be suspended in February and then reinstated down the stretch as the Wildcats defeated Kansas and Iowa State to play themselves back into the NCAA Tournament conversation for a hot second before losing their final two games. In a word, the season has been tumultuous.

There’s plenty of blame to go around for Kansas State’s poor season. (Scott D. Weaver/K-State Athletics)

Perhaps the biggest factor in the team’s struggles has been an often volatile relationship between Kansas State’s players and their head coach. We mentioned Foster’s suspension. After the February loss at TCU, Weber pleaded with his team through the media, saying, “I just want guys that care. That is all I want, guys that care and want to play for K-State and want to play to win and will play hard.” Finally, sophomore Jevon Thomas was kicked off the team earlier this month, only to learn about his removal through social media before getting reinstated ahead of the conference tournament.

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Kansas rather unceremoniously captured a share of its 11th straight Big 12 regular season title when Iowa State roared back for a 77-70 win over Oklahoma in Ames Monday night. The Jayhawks came into last night’s home game against West Virginia wanting to be selfish, as head coach Bill Self told the Lawrence Journal-World, “We don’t want to share it.” It took five extra minutes of basketball to get it done, but Kansas clinched the outright Big 12 regular season title with a thrilling overtime victory over the Mountaineeers. The Jayhawks’ 11th Big 12 title in a row (shared or outright) ties Gonzaga’s WCC streak from 2001-11 for the second-longest streak in college basketball history. Nothing else in the modern era of college basketball even comes close. “I will be shocked if it happens again in a major conference,” Self said after the game. The streak, though, doesn’t end here. The number Kansas is chasing is 13 — John Wooden’s UCLA program won every Pac-8/10 conference title from 1967-79.

Before chasing more historical milestones, the Jayhawks must worry about a somewhat cloudy remainder of this season. After an NCAA issue was raised last week, Kansas is still awaiting word on freshman Cliff Alexander’s eligibility. He has missed the last two games and his family has hired an attorney to expedite the investigation, but it remains unclear whether the big man will return to the Jayhawks’ lineup this season. The larger concern is with junior Perry Ellis. Ellis suffered a sprained knee in last night’s game against West Virginia and is likely to miss Saturday’s final regular season game with Oklahoma. Team doctors told Self that Ellis may be able to return in time for the Big 12 Tournament and Kansas will assuredly need its leading scorer at full health if it hopes to make any sort of run in the NCAA Tournament this year.

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1. And just like that Kansas is back in the driver’s seat as the favorite to win an 11th straight Big 12 championship. The situation looked a bit bleak for the Jayhawks following their recent 70-63 loss to Kansas State, but Baylor’s 79-70 win over Iowa State on Wednesday night put Kansas ahead again. A win would have drawn the Cyclones even with Kansas in the standings, but a barrage of second half threes from the Bears sealed the Cyclones’ fate. “We didn’t talk about any championships that were there,” Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg said. “The guys understand it. They read it. But it’s just going out there taking care of today, and obviously we didn’t get that accomplished.”
2. Wednesday marked the first win ever in Ames for Baylor, and the big road victory should help the Bears immensely with seeding in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. A lock for an at-large bid, this year will mark the first time that Baylor has made consecutive trips to March Madness in school history. Much of the Bears’ recent success should be attributed to Scott Drew. The 12th-year head coach of the Bears takes a great deal of criticism from the college basketball community, but he has molded a roster that was picked to finish sixth in the Big 12 into a Top 25 team with high postseason expectations. Drew rightfully appears to be the clear front-runner for Big 12 Coach of the Year at this point in the season.
3. Drew’s biggest competitor in the race for Coach of the Year comes from West Virginia’s Bob Huggins. The Mountaineers were also picked to finish sixth in the Big 12 preseason poll but have utilized a change in playing style to now sit just one game behind Kansas in the standings. After getting blasted by Baylor in Morgantown, West Virginia will seek revenge on the Bears in Waco this weekend. If the Mountaineers pull of the win, we could have a new name leading the Big 12 Coach of the Year race come Monday.
4. A day after the Jayhawks’ loss at Kansas State, Kansas junior Perry Ellis and sophomore Wayne Selden called a players-only meeting back in Lawrence. There was no trip to Henry T’s like back in 2008, but Ellis and Selden took the opportunity to emphasize the importance of winning another Big 12 championship. Sporting a 3-3 record in its last six games, Kansas is engaged in some soul-searching ahead of March this season. “We got to figure out what’s wrong,” sophomore Brannen Greene said. With three remaining contests against teams ranked in Ken Pomeroy’s top 25, the Jayhawks will need to figure it out quick, starting with a reeling but dangerous Texas squad on Saturday.
5. Finally, while much of Twitter was abuzz yesterday attempting to determine the colors of this dress (hint: it’s white and gold), Adidas was drawing its usual ire for releasing its latest line of jerseys. With Baylor having switched to Nike this season, Kansas remains the only Big 12 team to receive an stylistic update, which the Jayhawks are likely wear for at least one game in the Big 12 Tournament. Baylor received its new look last week, and its tempered color scheme will likely disappoint fans of their glowing highlighter look.

1. The latest turn in the court rushing saga that followed Kansas State’s win over Kansas on Monday came when Kansas State student Nathan Power issued an apology in the Wildcats’ student newspaper, The Collegian. Power admitted to being the individual who was identified for running into Jamari Traylor in the aftermath of the Wildcats’ win, but did not directly apologize to the Kansas forward for his actions. Instead, he opted to apologize for not being “careful of the people [he] was around,” while breaking the “Wildcat way” and disrespecting “the KU basketball team — Jamari Traylor in particular.” Perhaps Power cannot explicitly apologize for running into Traylor because of legal reasons, but he certainly appeared to thrust himself into the Kansas player on Monday night. I suspect this won’t be the last we hear about this incident.
2. Lost in the court-rushing shuffle was the impressive performance put on by the Wildcats in Bramlage Coliseum, as sophomore Nigel Johnson led the way with 20 points on 8-of-11 shooting in the 70-63 win. Johnson entered the game shooting under 30 percent from behind the three-point arc for his college career, but he knocked down four three-pointers (in five attempts) against Kansas. The Wildcats will likely still need a miracle to find their way into the NCAA Tournament, but that was irrelevant to head coach Bruce Weber on Monday. “After last week this is a huge win for our guys,” Weber said. “I just asked them to forget about what happened before and not worry about what’s going to happen in the future; just worry about today and the moment.”
3. It’s been a good week for West Virginia. Senior guard Juwan Staten was named the Big 12 Player of the Week thanks to his big role in wins against Kansas and Oklahoma State last week. The Mountaineers followed up those victories with a 71-64 win over Texas on Tuesday night in Morgantown, putting them just one game back of Kansas in the Big 12 standings with a trip to Lawrence looming.
4. Earlier this week, Burnt Orange Nation’s Cody Daniel called for Texas senior Jonathan Holmes to lead the late-season revival of the Longhorns. Unfortunately for everyone, after knocking down a pair of three-pointers in the first half against West Virginia, Holmes was ejected from the game for elbowing the Mountaineers’ Devin Williams. Although the Longhorns managed to make the game interesting down the stretch, the absence of Holmes from the lineup loomed large for a Texas team that is fighting to stay in the NCAA Tournament picture. Rick Barnes will need his senior leader to step up in the team’s final three games of the regular season just to stay on the right side of the bubble.
5. The next big game in a long line of big games in the Big 12 this season comes tonight when Baylor travels north to face Iowa State in Ames. The Cyclones are now just a half-game back from Kansas in the conference standings, and a win would pull them even with the Jayhawks. Iowa State plays its two toughest remaining opponents in Hilton Coliseum, but that won’t make their remaining schedule any easier, says Randy Peterson of The Des Moines Register. Baylor will attempt to slow the pace against the Cyclones and use its zone defense to force Iowa State to knock down outside shots. If the Cyclones succeed, we’ll be in for a very exciting finish to the Big 12 regular season.

Just a few short weeks ago, an 11th straight Big 12 regular season championship seemed like a lock for Bill Self and Kansas. “[I]t would take a monumental collapse for the Jayhawks to miss out on at least a share of another Big 12 title this season,” I wrote back on February 4, as we passed the midpoint of conference play. At the time, Kansas held a two-game lead over its competition and was coming off an impressive home win against Iowa State in Lawrence. Another share of the regular season title seemed like a sure thing for this year’s Jayhawks.

The Big 12 title race is wide open after Kansas lost at Kansas State on Monday night. (KUSports)

Self emphasized the importance of the Jayhawks’ road games after their victory against the Cyclones. Kansas at the time still had five away contests on the remaining schedule and the head coach noted that his team would be in a much more comfortable position if it could steal a few wins away from Allen Fieldhouse. Since those prophetic comments, Kansas has trended downward, going 1-3 on the road with their lone win coming against the league’s worst team, Texas Tech. The Jayhawks laid an egg in the second half against Oklahoma State, turned it over on 26.9 percent of their possessions in Morgantown, and couldn’t get a stop down the stretch against the Wildcats in Manhattan last night. As a result, Kansas has seen its lead in the Big 12 race slip away; now at 11-4, the Jayhawks are just half a game up on the Cyclones as Fred Hoiberg’s bunch takes on Baylor in Ames on Wednesday.

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1. Don’t look now, but the Big 12 title race is in full swing. After an 85-77 victory over Texas on Saturday afternoon, Iowa State has now won three straight games and sits one game behind first place Kansas with four games left to play. While it may be tough for Fred Hoiberg’s group to win the regular season crown outright, it could certainly earn a share if the Cyclones finish strong. Hoiberg and his players agree that they are putting it together at just the right time. “We’re hitting our stride,” Georges Niang said after the win, “and I think that’s because we decided to come together and do it as a team rather than as individuals. That’s huge for us.” With their potent offense clicking on all cylinders, Iowa State will be a tough out come March.
2. Texas, meanwhile, is headed in the opposite direction. The Longhorns have lost their last two games and are now 6-8 in Big 12 play with only one win over a conference team likely to make the NCAA Tournament. With upcoming road contests against West Virginia and Kansas still to come, it might be time for Texas to start pressing the panic button. Carrying a 1-10 record against the RPI top 50, it’s now just as likely that the Longhorns will head to the NIT, according to NBC Sports’ Rob Dauster. A win against West Virginia or Kansas would go a long, long way toward shoring up Texas’ shaky NCAA Tournament resume.
3. Jesse Newell of The Topeka Capital-Journal published an interesting read on some of the finer details of Bill Self’s coaching during Kansas’ weekend win over TCU. From his position on press row, Jesse could hear how Self was instructing his players during the game’s stoppages in play, so he documented some of those moments in addition to how the players reacted to those conversations. While we are used to analyzing the game from a distance, this was a great opportunity to get inside one of the game’s best coaching minds.
4. ESPN Insider has been running a series of posts this season examining potential Giant Killers in the NCAA Tournament — teams with high seeds that might upset a much better seed in the round of 32. The metric-based forecast has pegged the Big 12’s West Virginia as the most potent potential Giant Killer in the potential field. The Mountaineers’ ability to create extra shots through offensive rebounding and turnovers gives them a 77.9 percent chance to upset an average Giant come March. That’s a lethal combination when opposing teams will have such a limited amount of time (48 hours or less) to prepare for West Virginia’s unique style.
5. Oklahoma and Texas Tech provided the latest case study in whether a team leading by three should foul or defend on the final possession. With 16 seconds remaining, Sooners’ coach Lon Kruger instructed his team to foul on the upcoming possession. With 7.7 seconds remaining, Oklahoma fouled the Red Raiders’ Toddrick Gotcher. After missing the first free throw, Gotcher intentionally missed the second. The ensuing scrum allowed Texas Tech’s Isaiah Manderson to grab the rebound before kicking it out to Gotcher for the tying basket. The Sooners would escape with a win in overtime, but not before facing a similar situation in the extra period. Oklahoma elected to play it out the second time around, walking away with the victory after a missed three-point attempt.

College basketball fans across the country debate which conference is the best every season. That conversation has mostly centered on two leagues this year. If you’re more interested in teams that are likely to make deep runs in March, then your choice will probably be the ACC with the likes of Virginia, Duke, Louisville and Notre Dame at the top of the standings. From a viewpoint of quality of depth of a league, however, nearly every available metric shows that the Big 12 is tops. Ken Pomeroy’s system focused on efficiency ranks this year’s Big 12 as the best conference since the Big Ten of four years ago (when 7 of 11 teams received NCAA Tournament bids). The league has already posted the highest non-conference winning percentage of any conference in a decade and currently has only one team (Texas Tech) with an under .500 overall record.

Georges Niang highlights the Big 12’s selections on the Wooden Award Late Season Top 20 list. (Nirmalendu Majumdar)

The Big 12’s incredible season has correspondingly been driven by a number of individuals who are receiving national recognition on the various late season award lists. While the front-runners for the Wooden Award — given annually to the country’s best player — are Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky, Duke’s Jahlil Okafor, and Notre Dame’s Jerian Grant, the Big 12 put three players of its own on the Late Season Top 20 list. Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield has proven to be one of the conference’s best scorers, averaging 17.2 points per game while shooting 43.5 percent from the field. West Virginia’s Juwan Staten recently found his way back into the national conversation with a dazzling spin move to upset Kansas on Big Monday. Iowa State’s Georges Niang leads the Cyclones in scoring while also averaging 5.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game.

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West Virginia has been one of this season’s biggest surprises in college basketball. Picked by the league’s coaches to finish in a tie for sixth in the Big 12, the Mountaineers are currently 7-4 and tied for third. Head coach Bob Huggins has fundamentally transformed the team’s playing style by adopting a high-pressure defense that aims to turn opponents over before they can set up their half-court offense. “We knew we could get teams to play different,” West Virginia assistant Larry Harrison recently told Bleacher Report. “Our goal is to get them out of their half-court offense. That’s what the goal was.”

The Mountaineers have opened the eyes of opponents with their uptempo play this season.

The strategy has been successful. West Virginia leads the Big 12 in defensive turnover percentage, causing a turnover on 27.5 percent of its opponents’ possessions. Its high-paced, trapping defense has helped create steals on 14.5 percent of possessions in league play. Freshman Jevon Carter — an unranked, three-star recruit — has been a revelation, ranking 10th nationally in steal percentage by creating a turnover on 5.0 percent of possessions. Turnovers are an important part of keeping teams out of their half-court offenses and they’re necessary to West Virginia’s success. Because of it, the Mountaineers have the fourth-best defense in the Big 12 (allowing 98.8 points per 100 possessions) despite only having the league’s ninth-best defensive effective field goal percentage.

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Things continue to get worse for Kansas State. The Wildcats entered Wednesday having lost three of their last four games, but a road trip to Lubbock to face league-worst Texas Tech seemed like just the break Weber’s team needed. Shortly before game time, however, the head coach announced in a statement that freshman Malek Harris and sophomore Marcus Foster had been suspended for violating team rules. “Our players have expectations and there are consequences when you don’t live up to those expectations,” the statement said. “Hopefully, they will learn from this experience and make the necessary progress to rejoin our team.” For those scoring at home, this is the second time Foster has found his way into Weber’s doghouse this season. The sophomore was also benched by his coach earlier in Big 12 play. Harris, a top-100 recruit, is averaging 13.6 minutes per game. While he doesn’t fill up the stat sheet, the 6’8″ freshman has provided the Wildcats with additional frontcourt depth this season.

Kansas State’s leading scorer Marcus Foster was suspended on Wednesday. (Scott Sewell/USA Today)

The bigger loss is Foster, the team’s leading scorer and best player. In his second season, Foster is averaging 14.0 points per game and he was pegged as a potential Big 12 Player of the Year candidate over the summer. Although Foster hasn’t lived up to those lofty expectations this season, he’s still been the team’s most important player and his absence showed on Wednesday night. Texas Tech smashed the Wildcats by 17 points in the team’s second biggest loss of the year. The Wildcats looked helpless offensively against the Big 12’s worst defensive team, scoring just 0.94 points per possession (PPP) and becoming the only team to post a number below 1.00 PPP against the Red Raiders during conference play. The Wildcats also suffered their worst defensive game of the season, allowing a bad offense to score 1.28 PPP and shoot 53.7 percent from the field against them.

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