1. Andrew Wiggins, the No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2014 out of Huntington Prep (WV) has decided to graduate early and reclassify to the 2013 class, Rivals.com announced Thursday. Wiggins is good enough that he’s already assumed the No. 1 spot in the class of 2013, supplanting Julius Randle or Jabari Parker, depending on whom you ask. Kentucky and Florida State remain in the lead for Wiggins’ services, but North Carolina and Kansas recently checked in on the 6’7″ Canadian as well. Kentucky seems like the obvious favorite at the time but the Wildcats already have five commitments in the class — three in the top 10 — leading to some serious competition for playing time. Wiggins’ father, Mitchell Wiggins, played for Florida State in the early 80s, which has obviously helped the Seminoles in his ongoing recruitment. Kansas and North Carolina sent assistants to Huntington earlier this week, but the interest between the two schools and Wiggins is still largely unknown.
2. Speaking of the Jayhawks, Kansas announced Thursday the installment of a four-year series with Georgetown to begin next December in Allen Fieldhouse. The two teams will meet in the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. during the 2014-15 and 2016-17 seasons with another trip to Kansas in 2015-16. The Hoyas are another quality non-conference opponent for Bill Self in a long line of quality non-conference opponents, from Duke and Kentucky to Michigan State and Ohio State in recent years. The primary incentive of this interesting Big 12/Big East match-up is to benefit KU’s east coast recruiting. Assistant coach Joe Dooley is an east coast native and has helped land a number of local recruits for the Jayhawks, such as the Morris twins (Philadelphia), Tyshawn Taylor (New Jersey) and Thomas Robinson (Washington, D.C.).
3. Baylor opened up its exhibition season with a 103-75 victory over Abilene Christian Thursday night in Waco. Junior guard Brady Heslip hit six three-pointers and finished with 18 points on the night. That Baylor gave up 75 points is a whole lot of scoring to give up to a Division II team, but the game was only an exhibition after all. There was nothing of note to take from the box score, obviously, but it was nice seeing one of those again after a six-month hiatus. Only two weeks until the real games begin.
4. Jeff Borzello of CBSSports.com ranked the top 30 freshman on Thursday, and put Kentucky center Nerlens Noel on top. The Big 12 had four freshmen on the list including three of the top 10. Oklahoma State guard Marcus Smart was second on the list, and his versatility will give him plenty of opportunities to score this season while also racking up plenty of assists alongside scorer Le’Bryan Nash. The Big 12 rounded out its choices with Baylor center Isaiah Austin (#7), Kansas guard Ben McLemore (#9), and Texas center Cameron Ridley (#18).
5. Yes, it’s another CBSSports.com list. They’ve been on fire this week with these preseason lists of players and Jeff Goodman added another quality piece on Thursday, ranking the top 30 transfers this season. Not surprisingly, former Xavier standout Mark Lyons — now at Arizona — topped the list, but not far behind Lyons was Iowa State forward Will Clyburn (#4), who averaged 17.1 PPG and 7.8 RPG for Utah two seasons ago, both team highs. Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg seems to love Clyburn, another solid transfer to venture to Ames the last few years. The Cyclones were represented again with former Michigan State guard Korie Lucious coming in at No. 17. Big 12 newcomer West Virginia had two players on the list as well, center Aaric Murray (#5) and point guard Juwan Staten (#13). Oklahoma junior forward Amath M’Baye was the fifth Big 12 player on the list (#23), and was recently named a team captain.

1. The CBSSports.com crew was at it again on Wednesday, this time ranking the top 50 wings in the country for this season. UCLA freshman Shabazz Muhammad came in at No 1. ahead of Ohio State’s DeShaun Thomas. The Big 12 has four players on the list, three of whom are in the top 15. Oklahoma State sophomore Le’Bryan Nash (13.3 PPG, 5.0 RPG last season) was No. 7 followed immediately by Kansas redshirt freshman Ben McLemore at No. 8. Rodney McGruder of Kansas State (15.8 PPG, 5.2 RPG) came in at No. 14 and Texas’ Sheldon McClellan (11.3 PPG, 3.3 RPG) rounded out the conference at No. 43. All four players have a shot to lead their respective teams in scoring this year as well as challenge for Big 12 Player of the Year.
2. Andy Glockner unveiled a list of his own on Wednesday. He ranked all 32 Division I conferences and placed the Big Ten on top. The Big 12 showed up on his list at third, one spot behind the Big East. His assessment is spot on to me in that while there’s maybe just one great team — maybe Kansas –– the middle of the pack is tough from Baylor all the way to Oklahoma. TCU and Texas Tech will finish at the bottom and the Jayhawks should win the league again, but it would be hard to argue against any projection of teams in the second through eights positions. Every one of those teams has question marks but every one of them also has a bright spot or two that could lend itself to a good season.
3. Here’s more from Glockner: A strength of schedule breakdown of a handful of teams this season. He liked Kansas‘ slate, saying “The Jayhawks did what Indiana (and others) should have done: load the schedule with home and quasi-home games, but against capable opposition.” KU’s schedule is highlighted with a game at Ohio State, versus Michigan State in Atlanta in the Champions Classic, Colorado, Washington State, and either Texas A&M or Saint Louis in the CBE Classic in Kansas City. Glockner liked Kansas’ schedule, but he loved Texas’ slate. The Longhorns are in the Maui Invitational, they play UCLA in Houston, Georgetown in New York, and face off with North Carolina and Michigan State. Texas Tech’s schedule, on the other hand, is laughed at, and rightly so. They don’t leave the state of Texas until January 16 and play just three power conference schools — Arizona, Arizona State, Alabama — in the non-conference season.
4. Bill Self acknowledged his team’s need to replace the toughness that No. 5 pick Thomas Robinson took with him to Sacramento in a kusports.com article Wednesday. Self told the Lawrence Journal-World‘s Gary Bedore that Robinson “gave us an air of toughness. It made other players think they were really tough or fierce because he led by example.” Self added that his team will miss Robinson’s presence initially but believes he’ll have enough players to fill Robinson’s role by year’s end. It’s hard not to agree with Self with his track record of largely unknown role players becoming productive starters nearly every year. I want to say he’ll hit a bump in the road one of these years and won’t have a group capable of sliding in seamlessly, but I can’t. Eight straight conference titles speaks for itself.
5. Oklahoma State senior Jean-Paul Olukemi is still waiting to hear from the NCAA about his appeal regarding his eligibility. Because he took classes at a junior college in high school, his eligibility began earlier than he realized and is now scheduled to run out after the first semester. “You just hope that people understand that you listen to people who are much older than you and they give you the wrong information because they’re trying to do something to benefit themselves,” Olukemi told the Tulsa World on Tuesday. “I hope they understand it wasn’t something that I did.” Nothing to see here, just case 5,489 of the NCAA potentially hurting a kid’s career over something this silly. Did he take money from an Oklahoma State booster? Did he cheat on a standardized test? No. He took a few college credits in high school. Sure, he should have double- or triple-checked to make sure he was good to go. But the NCAA should realize that neither Olukemi or Oklahoma State gained any athletic advantages in this case. Let the kid play.

1. It seems the Houston Rockets and former Iowa State forward Royce White have figured out the rookie’s fear of flying. White, who has struggled with anxiety issues most of his life, missed parts of Houston’s training camp while trying to figure out the travel issue. White will be allowed to travel by bus to as many road games as he can this season. He’ll obviously have to fly in certain situations, like long trips up either coast or for back-to-back road games that occur throughout the season, but allowing him to drive when possible should keep him in a good frame of mind and protect the Rockets’ nearly $3 million investment. FoxSportsSouthwest‘s Tully Corcoran had a great column on the situation earlier this month. It’s in the Rockets’ best interest to accommodate White for the two years they have to pay him. After that, we’ll find out if all the extra effort is worth it to the team.
2. The CBSSports.com basketball staff unveiled their top 50 big men on Tuesday, and not surprisingly, Indiana’s Cody Zeller topped the list. The Big 12 didn’t fare as well as on Monday’s point guard rankings, landing just four players on this list. Kansas center Jeff Withey came in at No. 8 and Matt Norlander predicted “another huge season from a big white guy in Lawrence.” Newcomer Aaric Murray of West Virginia was next in line at No. 18, followed by freshmen Isaiah Austin of Baylor (#21) and Cameron Ridley of Texas (#43). It’s hard to argue against Zeller at No. 1, seeing he’s the best player on the preseason No. 1 team in the country, but I would have put Creighton’s Doug McDermott (#2) in that spot. Semantics, I know. Kentucky freshman Nerlens Noel (#3) received the Anthony Davis treatment and was overrated at No. 3 ahead of proven college players like Mike Moser, Tony Mitchell, and C.J. Leslie, but that’s what the UK hype machine does to otherwise reasonable people.
3. Last season, Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger allowed fans into the Lloyd Noble Center to watch practices from the stands. Now there’s no excuse for the diehard Sooner basketball fan not to catch a glimpse of practice, as he has decided to live stream every preseason practice online for fans to watch. It looks to be the first time a Division I team has tried this, and while watching every minute of every practice would bore even the most loyal fan to tears, it’s cool that Kruger is looking into other avenues to excite his football school’s fan base. He doesn’t have anything to lose.
4. Jeff Goodman has an in-depth list of the “secret scrimmages” that are happening all across the country in the next week. According to Andy Katz of ESPN, teams can play two exhibitions with non-Division I teams or scrimmage fellow Division I opponents. Looking at Goodman’s list, a lot of teams prefer to scrimmage a similar opponent rather than pay a Little Sisters of the Poor to come in and lose by 50 points in front of a few dozen fans. Somewhere in the NCAA wording of the rule, though, it states that scrimmages can’t be open to the public or media and they can’t be advertised. Whatever the case, this Saturday TCU is playing at Texas A&M, Texas is hosting Davidson, Texas Tech is playing at Texas Southern, and Xavier is playing at West Virginia. Sunday, Iowa State is hosting Nebraska. Allegedly.
5. The odds are stacked against Texas Tech interim head coach Chris Walker, but he’s handling his situation — at least so far — as well as anyone. He was surprisingly upbeat at last week’s Big 12 Media Day and had some of the best quotes of the day. My personal favorite: “I tell the guys all the time that 85% of the people don’t care what’s going on, and the other 15% are glad you’re going through it.” The Red Raiders are looking up at every team in the Big 12 except TCU this season, and how Walker handles the struggles might determine if the interim tag is removed and he returns next season. Either way, Tech fans could have had done much worse than having Walker on board to guide this team this year.

1. On Monday, the guys over at CBSSports.com gave us their top 50 point guards heading into the season and five Big 12 players made the list. A surprise to myself and probably many fans across the Big 12 was seeing Marcus Smart at No. 5, ahead of preseason player of the year Pierre Jackson of Baylor (#7). Jeff Borzello had this to say of Smart’s game: “Is he a natural point guard? Probably not, but Smart is a born winner, is willing to do anything to help his team win, and is a top-notch leader. Sounds enough like a point guard to qualify.” That’s a whole lot of intangibles to describe a top-five point guard, especially a freshman at that. I’ll take Jackson over Smart right now and not look back. Other Big 12 point guards on the list: Elijah Johnson of Kansas (#14), Myck Kabongo of Texas (#16), and Iowa State’s Korie Lucious (#40).
2. Kansas State is unveiling its brand new practice facility Friday night with a free public viewing of the 50,000 square foot building. The facility includes new locker rooms, player lounges, offices, a strength center, and a viewing deck overlooking the practice court. Not surprisingly, head coach Bruce Weber believes the practice gym will help his team’s free throw shooting this season as they won’t have to worry about finding an open bucket. The Wildcats shot 67.1% from the free-throw stripe last season.
3. Many of next year’s recruiting classes are complete, but there’s still a handful of five-star recruits in the 2013 class who are undecided. Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma were all listed as finalists for power forward and No. 1 overall recruit Julius Randle, who won’t be declaring until the spring. The Jayhawks are also in on No. 5 recruit Aaron Gordon, a forward from San Jose. Gordon visited Kansas for its annual Late Night in the Phog earlier this month and seemed to enjoy himself. The Oklahoma Sooners found themselves on the short list of schools still vying for No. 11 ranked Jarrell Martin, but it might be hard to lure the Baton Rouge native away from LSU next season. Baylor and head coach Scott Drew are also still in the mix for a five-star recruit, as Los Angeles guard Isaac Hamilton lists the Bears in his top five along with Washington, UNLV, San Diego State, and UTEP.
4. Speaking of Julius Randle, this recent article revealed that Texas is one of the two favorites for the No. 1 overall recruit. Apparently, Longhorns coach Rick Barnes is selling Randle on being able to play on the perimeter despite his 6’9″ stature, something that appeals to the multi-faceted big man. If Texas signs him and sophomore point guard Myck Kabongo stays one more year in Austin — both big ‘ifs’ at this point — the 2013-14 Texas squad would be one of the best in the country. Randle and Kabongo would form the best 1-2 duo in college basketball and the rest of this year’s freshman class — sophomores at that point — would fill in nicely around the pair. Again, a lot would have to happen between now and next fall, but the thought of what might be has to be exciting for Longhorns fans.
5. Myron Medcalf of ESPN is excited about Kansas center Jeff Withey this season. And with the jump to stardom so many KU big men have made recently when given their chance, from Cole Aldrich to the Morris twins to Thomas Robinson, it’s hard not to agree with Medcalf. Withey averaged 9.0 PPG, 6.3 RPG and 3.6 BPG last season, including a record-setting 31 blocks in last season’s NCAA Tournament. Head coach Bill Self has said Withey has improved his mid-range game but needs to learn to score over both shoulders. If he makes the jump in production seen by so many Kansas big men in the Self era, the Jayhawks could be poised for another Final Four run.

1. 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?”
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

Fred Hoiberg grew up in Ames, Iowa, and starred on his high school football and basketball teams. He turned down impressive college offers in both sports to stay home and play basketball for the Cyclones, where he still ranks in the top 10 in nearly every statistical category. He’s the most famous player in Iowa State basketball history, so much that he received a handful of write-in votes in the 1993 Ames mayoral election. He’s been called “The Mayor” ever since.

The Mayor has the Cyclones ready to compete in the Big 12.

I said that so I can say this: For a man as popular as Hoiberg is in Ames, who left a great NBA front office job with the Minnesota Timberwolves to return home to coach his alma mater in 2010, he didn’t have to do things this way. He didn’t have to collect a grab bag of cast-offs and troubled players looking for a second chance. Hoiberg had as long of a leash as any new coach in the country. He could have recruited the exact type of high school recruits he wanted and built for the future. But Hoiberg didn’t settle for that. He quickly assembled an impressive quartet of transfers in 2010, led by NBA first-round pick Royce White. The other three, though — Chris Babb, Anthony Booker, and Chris Allen — all helped guide the Cyclones to a 23-11 record last season as well. “My biggest thing when I got the job was trying to get the talent base where we could compete at the Big 12 level,” Hoiberg said on Wednesday at Big 12 Media Day. “We only had three scholarship players when I took the job. To get those transfers in there to give them a second chance was attractive to them.”

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The Big 12 debuted its new basketball identity on Wednesday in Kansas City at its annual Media Day, and there was plenty of personality to go around. That was no more obvious than when West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins stepped up to the mic for his question and answer session. Huggins, who coached at Kansas State during the 2006-07 season, was asked if his one-year stint in the Big 12 would help West Virginia’s transition this season. “I don’t know,” Huggins said. “I do know where to eat now, though.” On a more serious note, Huggins said he felt that West Virginia is a lot like the other schools in the Big 12. “We’re the state university,” He said. “We’re a land grant institution, we’re in a college town. We have a great venue to play in. We’re very much similar.”

The Big 12 Welcomed Many New Faces at Media Day on Wednesday

Huggins added that road wins will be tougher to come by in the Big 12, whose more intimate venues are a far cry from the sometimes stale and large off campus arenas often found in the Big East. He was quick to add though, “I’ve always told my players, I’ve never seen a fan block a shot or score a goal. Some of them probably have committed fouls but they didn’t call them.”

One of those venues is Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan, where Bruce Weber is also entering his first season in the Big 12 after accepting the head coaching job at Kansas State in the offseason. Weber was fired from Illinois after last season, where he incidentally had taken over for Kansas coach Bill Self in 2003. Self has dominated the Big 12 since his arrival at Kansas, so much that Kansas State Athletic Director John Currie asked Weber during his interview if he was up to the task of dealing with Self’s Jayhawks. “As a coach, you want that challenge, that’s the exciting part of it,” Weber said. “I hope we make it a rivalry. It’s obviously a rivalry, but we hope we can compete and have a chance to really get them worried about us also. So it should be fun. He’s done a great job, and hopefully we can compete with them.”

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The NCAA can be as unpredictable as midwestern weather when it comes to its investigations, so it’s hard to tell Texas fans to rest easy today. But if the most recent news coming out of the Myck Kabongo story is indeed true, it doesn’t seem likely that the Longhorns will be without the talented point guard this season.

Myck Kabongo might be in the clear with the NCAA.

Kabongo flew to Cleveland this summer for a private workout with childhood friend, former Texas teammate, and current Cleveland Cavalier Tristan Thompson. How Kabongo financed the trip is the reason behind the NCAA’s questioning. Yahoo! Sports originally reported that the trip was paid for by Thompson’s agent, Rich Paul, a clear violation of NCAA guidelines that could potentially have resulted in Kabongo ineligible to play this season. FoxSportsOhio is now reporting that Thompson paid for the trip rather than Paul. Because Thompson and Kabongo’s relationship goes back to their childhood, it appears unlikely that sanctions will come down on Kabongo or Texas.

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From the WAC to the Big 10 and now the Big 12, Bill Self has finished in the top two of his conference every year since the 1998-99 season. For a future Hall of Fame coach, it’s a great run but nothing that will necessarily grab headlines on SportsCenter. But what Self has been doing at Kansas since 2004 — winning the Big 12 regular season title every year — is reaching historic levels the likes which haven’t been seen at a major conference since UCLA won 13 straight conference titles from 1966-1979.

Can Self work his magic and lead KU to a 9th straight Big 12 title?

Conference dynasties aren’t totally foreign to college basketball. Penn captured seven Ivy League regular season titles from 1998-2007. Gonzaga emerged as a mid-major power in the late 90s, winning the West Coast Conference 10 times since 1998-99. But this isn’t the Ivy League or the West Coast Conference. Bill Self hasn’t had the luxury of facing Dartmouth or San Francisco on a regular basis. He’s beaten Hall of Fame coaches and future NBA stars. Kevin Durant, the all-NBA talent and No. 2 pick in the 2007 NBA draft, couldn’t win the Big 12 his one season in college. That title belonged to Self and Kansas. Fellow No. 2 pick Michael Beasley fell to the Jayhawks during his one-and-done season in 2007-08 as well. Talented players come and go, coaches (and teams) move through the conference, but penciling in Kansas to hoist the trophy in early March has been the safest bet for nearly a decade.

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We’re just four days away from the official opening to the 2012-13 college basketball season as schools will be able to start officially practicing Friday night. Before then, though, we’re going to take a look at the various pre-conference tournaments that have become synonymous with the first month of college basketball. Nearly every Big 12 school is competing in one of those tournaments this season and we’ll take time each day this week to preview each bracket, from Hawaii to Puerto Rico to New York City. We start the week with the premier programs in the conference, Kansas and Texas.

CBE Hall of Fame Classic

Dates: November 20-21
Location: Sprint Center, Kansas City, Missouri
Teams: Kansas, Texas A&M, Washington State, Saint Louis

The Sprint Center Will Have a Partisan KU Crowd at the CBE This Year

Technically, there are 12 teams in the CBE Hall of Fame Classic. The four host schools listed above each play two “host round” games at home before advancing — win or lose — to the Championship Rounds at the Sprint Center in Kansas City. The “win or lose” part is why talking about teams like Chattanooga or Utah Valley as if they’re really in the tournament field is unnecessary. If you cut through the algebraic details of the “host rounds” and “sub-host rounds” listed on the tournament website, things get much simpler. Texas A&M plays Saint Louis on Monday, November 20. Kansas plays Washington State soon after that. The winners and losers play the next day.

Most of the Sprint Center will be decked out with KU’s Crimson and Blue, but the biggest storyline heading into the 12th annual tournament might be the unexpected departure of Saint Louis head coach Rick Majerus, who stepped down in August due to heart problems. The Billikens nearly knocked off No. 1 seed Michigan State in the second round of last season’s NCAA Tournament and have been a fringe Top 25 team on many preseason ballots.

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