1. The Naismith Trophy Top 50 watch list was released on Wednesday, and the Big 12 had nine players make the cut. They are: Kansas’ Cliff Alexander, Wayne Selden and Perry Ellis, Kansas State’s Marcus Foster, Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield, Iowa State’s Georges Niang, West Virginia’s Juwan Staten, and Texas’ Isaiah Taylor and Myles Turner. Some of these guys have better chances of winning the trophy than others; for example, it’s hard to imagine Selden or Hield doing so after poor shooting starts this season, but the freshman Turner could very well win this award. Turner is seventh in the nation in block percentage (16%) and has blocked at least five shots in three games already. Ellis hasn’t been too bad, either, as the senior is averaging 15.3 PPG and 7.0 RPG and ranks eighth on Ken Pomeroy’s National Player of the Year watch list.
2. Gary Parrish over at CSBSports.com updated his Top 25 (And One) yesterday (like he does every morning) and Kansas (#8) and Texas (#9) each jumped up a spot in his daily rankings. West Virginia (#18) and Oklahoma (#19) were the other two Big 12 schools on his list, but all this will change soon. Kansas takes on Florida tonight in Allen Fieldhouse; Texas takes on No. 1 Kentucky in Lexington; and West Virginia lost at home to LSU last night. Oklahoma should take care of Missouri tonight in Norman, and Kansas will probably win a close one against the Gators. Texas is the team I’m most intrigued about, though — if the Longhorns play Kentucky close or somehow manage to win the game, they might be reasonably considered the favorites to win the Big 12 this season.
3. Will the Big 12 win the SEC/Big 12 Challenge? ESPN‘s Andy Katz thinks so, and he doesn’t think it will be close. Texas Tech started things off with an ugly 46-44 win over Auburn on Wednesday night, and the Big 12 went 3-1 last night: TCU beat Ole Miss; Baylor beat Vanderbilt; and Iowa State beat Arkansas. LSU was the lone SEC school to pick up a win after beating West Virginia in Morgantown. Things pick up tonight, with the elite programs battling it out. I think Kansas and Oklahoma help improve the Big 12’s lead while Kentucky beats Texas by 10 points.
4. There was always a distinct possibility that Iowa State would run Arkansas out of the gym last night. The Razorbacks play as quickly as almost anybody (12th in the country in adjusted tempo) and rely on turnovers via their full-court press to fuel their offense. If that doesn’t happen, though, a team like Iowa State can thrive. That’s exactly what happened as the Cyclones dropped 95 points on the Hawgs in a 95-77 win. Bryce Dejean-Jones and Georges Niang combined for 53 points in one of the fastest games of the season, and the Cyclones improved to 5-1.
5. Last night was definitely a big setback for a rising West Virginia team. The Mountaineers came into their meeting with LSU undefeated, were up five points at halftime, and led by as many as 14 points in the second half. However, a layup by Josh Gray with 7.3 seconds left gave the Tigers the 74-73 win. West Virginia was ranked #16 going into the game but they will probably drop significantly next week as a result. Depending on what happens with LSU, this could end up being a costly loss for the Mountaineers down the road. LSU’s best win before last night came against UMass earlier this week, and they have already dropped games to Old Dominion and Clemson.

It has now been 16 days since Kansas suffered its worst loss of the Bill Self era, a 72-40 clubbing at the hands of the No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats. Luckily for Jayhawks fans, the team has rebounded about as nicely as you could expect, winning four straight, including an Orlando Classic title after a five-point victory of Michigan State on Sunday. Still, there are plenty of questions about this team. Will Perry Ellis continue his recent surge when faced with bigger frontcourts? Will Kelly Oubre impress Self enough to earn decent minutes? What exactly is wrong with Wayne Selden? There is one thing we know for certain, though: Sophomore point guard Frank Mason III looks like the guy who will lead this team going forward. Since a disastrous outing at the Champions Classic where he was 1-of-10 from the field and largely invisible in his 32 minutes, Mason has made a strong case to become Self’s starting point guard. He has a 134.5 offensive rating since the Kentucky game, a very good mark for someone who uses fewer than 20 percent of his team’s possessions.

Frank Mason III looks like Bill Self’s man at point guard. (USATSI)

I don’t want to discount the night against Kentucky out of hand, though, because maybe it was indicative of how Mason will perform against the highest level of Division I competition. But Mason has been miles ahead of Devonte’ Graham, a player who many thought could supplant Mason in the starting lineup at some point this season. Self doesn’t appear to see it that way, as Graham has only played 13.4 MPG thus far and is no realistic threat to take Mason’s job from him anytime soon. In Orlando last week, Mason looked nothing like the player who went barreling into the lane with no apparent plan against the Wildcats. Instead, he picked his spots for aggressiveness, shooting 11-of-18 from the field and 4-of-6 from three-point range over three games. He also grabbed 10 rebounds in the match-up against Michigan State and averaged 5.6 APG. Read the rest of this entry »

1. A surprise to few after his big weekend in the Orlando Classic, Kansas forward Perry Ellis was named the Big 12 Player of the Week on Monday. Ellis scored at least 17 points in all four games last week, which was capped off with a win over Michigan State on Sunday. Ellis, who is now averaging 18.8 PPG and 7.5 RPG on the season, is also ninth in Ken Pomeroy’s National Player of the Year rankings. While in Orlando, Ellis shot nearly 50 percent from the floor and was named tournament MVP. He had a pretty good Feast Week.
2. West Virginia forward Jonathan Holton also received honors from the Big 12, being named conference Newcomer of the Week. The junior college transfer already has two double-doubles on the season and is a big reason why the Mountaineers have raised quite a few eyebrows around the Big 12 with their 7-0 start. Last week Holton averaged 17.5 PPG and 8.0 RPG in a pair of West Virginia wins, and he is averaging 12.9 PPG on the season. West Virginia hosts LSU Thursday night in Morgantown.
3. Iowa State was a sexy pick to compete and potentially win the Big 12 this season, and so long as Fred Hoiberg and Georges Niang are still in Ames, it is not a terrible prediction. But after losing to Maryland last week, the Cyclones slipped quite a bit in the weekly polls. “Guys really forgot how much hard work it was to be how good we were last year,” Niang told Randy Peterson of the Des Moines Register. The Cyclones rebounded nicely last night, dropping 96 points in a 37-point beat down of Lamar, and are set to face Arkansas tomorrow night in what should be one of the more exciting non-conference games around the Big 12.
4. Brian Spaen over at ClonesConfidential.com has a fair Big 12 Power Rankings heading into this week. Undefeated Texas tops the list, while Kansas follows the Longhorns in second place. We should have a somewhat good idea of where both teams stand after Texas travels to Lexington to take on Kentucky on Friday night. If (when) the Longhorns don’t lose by 32 to the Wildcats, it won’t mean they are the difference better than Kansas; but how the Texas front line handles Kentucky’s size could tell us how they might fare against Kansas in their two (possibly three) upcoming meetings this season.
5. Kansas State didn’t have the best trip to Maui last week. The Wildcats played Arizona tough in the semifinals, but ended up losing their last two games on the island. They are now 3-3 on the year and have a few potentially tough non-conference games remaining, beginning at Tennessee on Saturday. “We’ve just got to keep moving forward,” senior forward Thomas Gipson told Kellis Robinett of the Kansas City Star on Monday. The four-point loss to Arizona was followed by a 23-point blowout against Pittsburgh, before they got back in the win column in Manhattan against Nebraska-Omaha last night. The Wildcats don’t look like a team capable of winning the Big 12 championship, but they have several more opportunities to pile up solid wins before heading into conference play.

1. Kansas defeated Michigan State 61-56 yesterday to win the Orlando Classic and improve to 5-1 on the season, thanks largely to 17 year-old Ukranian Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk. The would-be junior in high school had 11 points in the win and is quickly becoming the Jayhawks’ best shooter. “He can really shoot the basketball,” Bill Self told the Kansas City Star‘s Rustin Dodd after the game. “But he’s really become a really good defender, and he understands what we’re trying to do for the most part.” Mykhailiuk started the last few games and might be starting to come into his own. He was 4-of-10 from the field and 3-of-6 from beyond the arc.
2. If you missed seventh-ranked Texas‘ last-second win over UConn yesterday morning, you missed a good one. Jonathan Holmes knocked down a corner three-pointer with two seconds left to give the Longhorns the 55-54 victory over the #24 Huskies in Storrs. The play was originally designed for freshman center Myles Turner, but when nothing developed it left Holmes with a good look from the corner. There is still plenty of improvements to be made, however, according to head coach Rick Barnes. “I told the team in the locker room that the only time they really listened and did what we asked was the last play,” Barnes told AP writer Pat Eaton-Robb. The 6-0 Longhorns take on No. 1 Kentucky on Friday in Lexington.
3. Speaking of undefeated teams, the West Virginia Mountaineers have looked like a team that could surprise people when Big 12 play begins next month. Like Texas, The 7-0 Mountaineers also have a win over Uconn as well as wins over George Mason and Boston College. There is a decent chance Bob Huggins and Co. are undefeated heading into the conference season. Unknown players like Jonathan Holton, Jevon Carter, and Daxter Miles, Jr. have had their moments, but as Connor Murray points out, junior guard Jaysean Paige might be the most important piece to the puzzle. Paige is 10-22 from three-point range this season and is averaging 7.3 PPG.
4. Yes, even TCU is undefeated this season as well. The 7-0 Horned Frogs aren’t expected to make much noise this season, and that is probably still the case. But they already have wins over power-5 teams Washington State and Mississippi State. If they can beat Ole Miss in Oxford on Thursday, they should have a good chance to go 13-0 out of conference. I don’t know if you had TCU and West Virginia facing off in the battle of the unbeatens on Jan. 3, but I certainly didn’t. Kyan Anderson leads the team in points (12.7 PPG) and assists (3.7 APG), and the Horned Frogs most recently claimed the Corpus Christi Coastal Classic championship over the weekend.
5. Under head coach Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State has been known as a team that will bomb away from deep, getting hot enough to beat anyone in the country but with the potential to cool off and lose to just about anyone. But as Travis Hines of the Ames Tribune points out, the Cyclones are capable of having a legitimate presence down low this season. When 6’9″ forward Jameel McKay becomes eligible at the semester’s end, Iowa State might have someone who can compliment the bevy of perimeter talent. If that happens, the Cyclones should compete for the Big 12 title. If not, they should hope their perimeter-oriented ways will carry them through the grueling double round-robin of Big 12 play.

In a loaded Feast Week of action, several Big 12 schools will head to a neutral site to take on all comers and hopefully build their resumes. Let’s take a look at each, this time with Kansas in the Orlando Classic.

Catching Up: Bill Self claimed that his team would eventually forget all about that 32-point drubbing at the hands of Kentucky last week in the Champions Classic. An Orlando Classic championship would certainly help. So far, the Jayhawks have really only proved they can beat bad teams, defeating UC-Santa Barbara and Rider at home. Self has mixed up his starting lineup so far and its unclear if or when he will settle on the same five guys every night. Junior forward Perry Ellis leads the team with 11.3 PPG. Five-star freshman forward Cliff Alexander is second on the team with 5.3 RPG and had 10 points on 4-4 shooting in just 13 minutes earlier this week against Rider. Freshman point guard Devonte Graham sat out last game with a sprained shoulder, but he should be able to go this week in Orlando. Ukrainian freshman guard Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk received his first career start against Rider and did not disappoint, going 4-for-7 from the field with 10 points and five rebounds.

Bill Self is still trying to find the right rotation this year. (KUSports.com)

Opening Round Preview: The Jayhawks open up the tournament against Rhode Island, an undefeated Atlantic-10 club which most recently defeated #21 Nebraska. The Rams are 13th in the country with 45 RPG and are led in scoring by sophomore guard E.C Mathews, who is averaging 16.3 PPG. Mathews had 26 points in the win over Nebraska, but it took him 20 shots to get there. As a team the Rams are first in the country in offensive rebounding percentage (19.1) and their opponents have shot just 20.7 percent from three. They haven’t done much better themselves, however, shooting 21.9 percent from beyond the arc through three games. In the win over Nebraska, both teams combined to shoot 6-39 from three-point range. It’s hard to imagine Rhode Island staying in this game if Kansas can reach the 70-point mark. The Rams scored 72 against Umass-Lowell and 53 in regulation against Nebraska. They were able to win both games because of their defense, and they will have to play even better defensively to keep the Jayhawks in that neighborhood.

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In a loaded Feast Week of action, several Big 12 schools will head to a neutral site to take on all comers and hopefully build their resumes. Let’s take a look at each, beginning with Kansas State in Maui. 

Catching Up: Kansas State travels to the Maui Invitational with plenty of questions still unanswered. The Wildcats beat up on Southern Utah, played UMKC closer than fans probably expected (winning by 10), and lost on the road at Long Beach State, 69-60, on Friday. The Wildcats have a solid core of Marcus Foster, Thomas Gipson, Nino Williams, Stephen Hurt and Nigel Johnson, and are good (but not great) in most offensive categories. Thomas Gipson leads the team with 17.0 PPG and 6.7 RPG.

Marcus Foster will need a few big games to give Kansas State a Maui Invitational championship.

Opening Game Preview: The Wildcats will face Purdue today and if they win they will face the winner of the Missouri/Arizona game tomorrow. Purdue is 3-0 but hasn’t been tested, with wins over Samford, IUPUI, and Grambling State. The Boilermakers are led by a trio of players averaging double-figures, center Isaac Haas (11.3 PPG), forward Kendall Stephens (13.3 PPG), and guard Vince Edwards (13.7 PPG). KenPom, however, shows us that sophomore guard Bryson Scott is the focal point of Purdue’s offense. He leads the team with a usage rate of 29.8 percent, meaning that nearly a third of Purdue’s possessions have ended because of Scott’s activity. Expect to see the ball in Scott’s hands more than anyone else today — through three games, he is averaging 6.7 PPG with a 35.7 shooting percentage.

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When it was introduced in 2011, the Champions Classic quickly rose to become the crown jewel of ESPN’s Tip-Off Marathon. The event was such a success that last November, all four teams – Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan State – renewed the deal without hesitation. Tonight marks the start of the second rotation, and the nightcap will pit the two winningest college hoops programs of all-time (4,269 wins, at last count) against each other. Big 12 microsite writer Kory Carpenter (@Kory_Carpenter) and SEC microsite writer David Changas (@dchangas) took some time to preview the matchup.

Kory Carpenter: Few coaches have a shared history like Bill Self and John Calipari. Each began his career as a Larry Brown disciple at Kansas in the 1980s, and they were famously reunited over 20 years later in the 2008 National Championship game, with Self (thanks to Mario Chalmers) taking the first championship match-up between the two. Calipari got even with Self four years later (thanks to Anthony Davis), beating Self and Kansas in the 2012 National Championship game. Aside from Coach K at Duke, there is nobody in the country recruiting like these two; and, depending on whom you ask, they could easily be considered the two best coaches in the country. In the first year of the Champions Classic in 2011, Kentucky cruised to a 75-65 win behind 17 points from Doron Lamb and seven blocks from future NPOY Anthony Davis. Kentucky is favored once again, thanks to a roster that includes more McDonald’s All-Americans than Calipari might know what to do with. Blue-blood problems, indeed.

In a battle of coaching titans, John Calipari and Bill Self enter tonight’s contest looking to one-up each other once again. (AP)

Both teams should contend for the National Championship this season, but there are always questions this early, especially when facing teams of this caliber. The biggest concern for Kansas has to be post play, specifically rebounding. Kentucky starts three guys as tall or taller than anyone in Kansas’ starting lineup. Then you have 6’9” Marcus Lee, 6’10” Trey Lyles, and 7’0″ Dakari Johnson coming off the bench. The Jayhawks started a pair of 6’8” guys — Jamari Traylor and Perry Ellis — against UC Santa Barbara on Friday night. Beyond that, Landen Lucas (6’10”) and Cliff Alexander (6’8”) combined for 21 more minutes. As a result, UCSB forward Alan Williams had a field day against the Jayhawks’ frontcourt, finishing with 22 points and 11 rebounds on 50 percent shooting. But with all due respect to the future mid-major draft pick, he’s got nothing on players like Lyles, Johnson, and Towns. Kansas’ Ellis has struggled in the past against bigger, physical players, but that will have to change quickly if Kansas has a chance here, because Traylor doesn’t have a polished offensive game and Alexander looks like he will take some time to become a dominant player. Read the rest of this entry »

This week, the Big 12 microsite will finish previewing each of the league’s 10 teams. Today: Oklahoma.

Strengths: Guards Buddy Hield, Isaiah Cousins, and Jordan Woodard return for the Sooners, giving them potentially one of the best backcourts in the Big 12. Hield averaged 16.4 PPG and shot 38.6 percent from beyond the arc last season, both major improvements from his freshman season. The 6’4″ junior was a second-team All-Big 12 selection and was second in the conference with 1.4 steals per game. Jordan Woodard saw significant minutes (28 MPG) as a freshman and landed on the Bob Cousy Award watch list heading into this season after averaging 10.3 PPG, 4.6 APG, and 2.2 RPG last season. Isaiah Cousins was named the team’s most improved player last season after averaging 11 PPG and 4.2 RPG, and along with Hield and Woodard will give the Sooners one of the most experienced backcourts in the Big 12. They will be joined by junior forward Ryan Spangler, who started every game last season and led the Big 12 with 9.3 RPG. There are definitely holes to fill from last year’s team, but a lineup with Hield, Cousins, Woodard, and Spangler in it is a good place to start for head coach Lon Kruger.

Lon Kruger has talent this season, but will depth become a problem?

Weaknesses: The loss of Cameron Clark could be huge for Oklahoma this season. Clark, a 6’7″ forward, might have been the most important player on last year’s team. He was certainly the most important big man. His departure leaves plenty of question marks down low for the Sooners. Spangler should be improved and will help, but that’s about it. There’s senior forward D.J. Bennett, I guess. But Bennett only averaged 9.1 MPG last season, so it’s hard to say what kind of impact he will have in 2014-15. The presumed fifth starter alongside Spangler looks to be Houston transfer Tashawn Thomas. That’s if he is ruled eligible by the NCAA. Thomas averaged 14.5 PPG and 8.7 RPG in three seasons at Houston. He elected to transfer this summer after Houston coach James Dickey left the program, and is waiting to see if the NCAA will let him play immediately for Lon Kruger. If that is the case, it would go a long way in solidifying an otherwise thin rotation for the Sooners. If not, we’ll see just how much of a load Spangler can carry.

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1. Good news for Iowa State fans: The Cyclones look to finally be healthy heading into their exhibition tonight against Viterbo University tonight in Hilton Coliseum. From a sprained ankle to mono, as Des Moines Register writer writer Randy Peterson points out, the Cycones have been far from 100% the last few weeks. That changed this weekend for the 14th ranked team in the country. They defeated Minnesota 103-78 last week in a closed scrimmage on Sunday and open the regular season next Friday against Oakland.
2. Bill Self took some time for a Twitter Q&A on Thursday. Nothing earth-shattering was shared by the Kansas coach, but hey, it’s still the off-season and anything is better than nothing. In case you were wondering, Self said Brady Morningstar was the best perimeter defender he has had at Kansas, Mario Chalmers is the one player he would want taking a last-second shot, and he likes bacon in his grilled cheese sandwiches. He also wants to play at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Good luck getting Coach K to schedule an actual opponent at home, Bill.
3. In recent years there has always seemed to be a “sexy pick” to finally knock Kansas off the top of the Big 12 standings. Kansas State and Oklahoma State were picked by some the last few years. Not surprisingly, Texas is this year’s pick. Burntorangenation.com previewed the Longhorns this season and asked some good questions surrounding the Texas players. They have a solid core coming back and added one of the best recruits in the country in Myles Turner as well. I don’t think they will have the firepower to dethrone the Jayhawks, but make sure you tune into both (possibly three) meetings, you won’t be disappointed.
4. From the Not-So-Shocking department, Charleston Daily Mail writer Mike Casazza has a good piece on West Virginia and senior guard Juwan Staten, and how the former will have to rely heavily on the latter if the Mountaineers want to make a serious run at the Big 12 title. The conference pre-season player of the year led the league in points and assists last season and will be shadowed in every game this season. Someone will have to step up if the Mountaineers are to be successful in 2014-15.
5. Pre-season No. 1 Kentucky and No. 5 Kansas face off again in the Champions Classic in a few weeks, and a Kentucky blogger wrote about what he believes are the three best games in the Kansas/Kentucky rivalry. Not surprisingly, all three games were won by the Wildcats. Kansas fans would probably point to the 150-90 shellacking they gave Kentucky in Allen Fieldhouse in 1989. This year’s game, played in Indianapolis along with Duke and Michigan State, should be another great one. Does Kansas have the talent to keep up with Kentucky? I don’t know, especially this early in the year. But the Champions Classic has been great every year, and this year should be no different.

Kansas sophomore guard Conner Frankamp announced he will be transferring at semester’s end and his imminent departure has been met with mixed reviews from fans and pundits alike. Frankamp, a sharp-shooting guard coming out of high school who played just 8.3 MPG last season, had plenty of potential. He won back-to-back gold medals with the U-16 and U-17 Team USA squads, was a four-star recruit, and set all sorts of high school records in Wichita. He also very nearly beat Stanford in last season’s NCAA Tournament all by himself, going 4-of-7 from beyond the arc in a three-point Kansas loss. He looked to be in line for a decent number of minutes this season, but he told the Lawrence Journal-World‘s Gary Bedore that he no longer felt Kansas was the right fit for him. That sounds a lot like, “I wasn’t going to play much this season.”

Conner Frankamp is leaving Kansas, but it’s hard to guess what his role would have been this season and beyond. (Mark Gunnoe/Topeka Capital-Journal)

Here’s the thing about Bill Self’s program: Great players don’t transfer. From Tyrone Appleton and Quintrell Thomas to Merv Lindsay, Anrio Adams and Andrew White III, it’s hard to think of a player who left Kansas under Self and really flourished elsewhere. As such, there is no reason to think that Frankamp will be any more successful at a big-time program. If you have the talent to contribute, Self will convince you to stay. It’s no coincidence that it was Royce Woolridge who left for Washington State and Mario Chalmers who was talked into staying at Kansas during his freshman season. Yes, Self said Frankamp would have started in Monday’s exhibition and that he would have played “significant minutes” this season. But in reality, those sound bites come off a lot better than, “We have pro guys at the two and three (Wayne Selden, Kelly Oubre and Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk), and Frankamp would have probably been behind Frank Mason and Devonte Graham at the point guard spot.” Self acknowledged that he met with Frankamp and his father on the day before the sophomore announced his decision. How do you decide to transfer only 24 hours after Bill Self tells you you will see “significant minutes” this season? You don’t. Because that meeting likely in fact consisted of Self telling the Frankamps that he was probably behind the perimeter players mentioned above on the depth chart, but he could be a real contributor for the Jayhawks during his junior and senior seasons.  (Who has a meeting with a player and parents a week before the season, anyway? The situation already seemed a bit toxic.)

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