1. To say TCU struggled last season would be an understatement. The Horned Frogs didn’t win a single game in the Big 12, finishing 0-18 in the round-robin format. A year later, they are picked to finish in last place again. As a result, head coach Trent Johnson doesn’t want his players talking about last year’s performance, and I don’t blame him. Senior guard Kyan Anderson is taking a little different approach, says Fort Worth Star-Telegram writer Carlos Mendez. If TCU is healthy this year, which was rarely the case last season, they will surely pick up a few wins in Big 12 play. “Why am I so happy? Why am I so excited?” Johnson asked reporters at media day. “No. 1 is, for the first time since I’ve been at TCU, we’ve had nine practices and I have a full complement of players — 13 guys on scholarship and three walk-ons, and we’re healthy.”
2. It was just an exhibition against an overmatched Washburn team, but Kansas freshman forward Cliff Alexander gave us a glimpse last night of what he is capable of doing this season. Big 12 front lines should be afraid, as Alexander finished with 14 points and nine rebounds in just 17 minutes of action. It seemed like a flashback to his high school days where he was able to bully smaller players down low. That won’t be the case in most games against quality competition this season, but smaller frontcourts could be in for very long nights against the beefy freshman. “They were so dominant,” Washburn head coach Bob Chipman told the Lawrence Journal-World‘s Matt Tait. Again, the opponent was just a Division-II school, but Alexander playing well early could be huge for Kansas.
3. Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg has been involved in numerous NBA coaching rumors since returning to the college game a few years ago. It’s widely assumed that he will one day leave Ames for an NBA head coaching job, but when that might happen is anyone’s guess. But as FoxSports.com‘s Reid Forgrave writes, Hoiberg’s relationship with Iowa State and the city of Ames is perhaps more unique than any coach in the country. Forgrave tells a great story of Hoiberg’s family life,  NBA career, and the heart problem that cut his playing days short in this fine article.
4. West Virginia will definitely look different than last season, thanks to a few transfers that left plenty of question marks in their wakes. The Mountaineers still have Bob Huggins, however, and that’s a pretty good place to start. Seven new players will make their debuts with this year’s team, but senior guard Juwan Staten seems optimistic. “They’re coming along very fast, in my opinion,” Staten told Matt Hauswirth of West Virginia Illustrated. With the losses of Eron Harris and Terry Henderson, the Mountaineers will need at least a few of these newcomers to seamlessly integrate into the team dynamic if they want to compete for a Big 12 title and an NCAA Tournament berth.
5. Sure, Oklahoma State lost 1st round pick (and flopper extraordinaire) Marcus Smart from last year’s team, but head coach Travis Ford welcomes back senior forward Michael Cobbins, who missed the entire Big 12 season after tearing his Achilles against Robert Morris on December 30. Le’Bryan Nash admitted to the Oklahoman‘s John Helsley that last year’s team definitely missed Cobbins’ defensive presence during the second half of the year. The Cowboys were 12-1 before Cobbins was injured but finished the season with a disappointing 10-11 stretch. If you argued that Cobbins was more valuable to the success of this team than Smart, I wouldn’t disagree.

1. Guys like Andrew Wiggins, Joel Embiid, Isaiah Austin and DeAndre Kane might be gone from the league, but the Big 12 could be as good as ever this season. As was pointed out here, this is the first season when four Big 12 teams have made an appearance in the Preseason AP Top 25. Those four teams are Kansas (#5), Texas (#10), Iowa State (#14), and Oklahoma (#19). The quartet of Baylor, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and West Virginia all received votes as well. Kansas was picked by Big 12 scribes to win the conference for the 11th consecutive year and the AP voters rightfully gave the Jayhawks the highest ranking of any Big 12 team. But as you can see, there isn’t much of a gap between Kansas and the other schools, which should make for a great conference race.
2. Former President Bill Clinton was campaigning for Democrats in Iowa over the weekend when he stopped at a coffee shop in Ames. “You have a very interesting team,” he told a small group of people, referring to Fred Hoiberg’s Iowa State team [see full video below]. It’s not every day when someone can talk hoops with a former president, and while Clinton didn’t give any amazing breakdowns during the conversation, it was still pretty cool to see. For someone who probably doesn’t watch a ton of Cyclones basketball, his wasn’t a terrible point to make. If the Cyclones are anything like what they’ve been in the past few years under Hoiberg, they’ll shoot well enough in some games to beat anybody and go cold in others, making them as upset-prone as nearly any team in the country.
3. If Houston transfer TaShawn Thomas becomes eligible this season, Crimson and Cream Review believes that Oklahoma might be able to knock Kansas off the top spot in the Big 12 for the first time in over a decade. That’s good news for their readers, who seem to believe that Thomas will receive a waiver to play soon. The Sooners winning the conference wouldn’t be a stunner on the level of a TCU or Texas Tech winning the Big 12 title, but getting past Kansas and Texas this year? I don’t know about that one.
4. Kansas freshman forward Cliff Alexander seemed to be a guy who might need a few weeks to get used to the college game. If you watched his high school clips, he basically did whatever he wanted inside simply because he was five inches taller and 50 pounds heavier than anyone else on the court. And while Kansas coach Bill Self recently told beat writer Gary Bedore that Alexander “had done great,” it still looks like he will need a month or so to get the hang of things in college. “Tarik averaged more fouls than rebounds and points until Christmas, and Cliff has the same potential to do that,” Self said. “But when he gets it, he’s going to be really good. I think by the end of the year, he could be one of the harder players to deal with in the league.”
5. CBSSports.com recently ranked its top 100 college basketball players heading into the season, and surprisingly (at least to this writer), incoming freshman Jahlil Okafor was their No. 1 player ahead of guys like Sam Dekker, Montrezl Harrell and Frank Kaminsky. The list’s top Big 12 player is Iowa State forward Georges Niang, who will have plenty of opportunities to showcase his talents this season with the losses of DeAndre Kane and Melvin Ejim from the Cyclones. He is joined in the top 25 by West Virginia’s Juwan Staten (#12), Kansas’ Cliff Alexander (#14), Texas’ Myles Turner (#16), Kansas State’s Marcus Foster (#20), Kansas’ Kelly Oubre (#21), Kansas’ Perry Ellis (#22), and Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield (#25). That’s not a bad collection of talent for what looks to be the second-best conference in the country, behind only the ACC.

Throughout the preseason, the Big 12 microsite will preview each of the league’s 10 teams, from worst to first. Today: West Virginia.

West Virginia

West Virginia rebounded in its second Big 12 season last year, finishing 9-9 in conference play and above .500 overall at 17-16. Both were improvements from its inagural Big 12 campaign, in which it finished 13-19 (6-12) in 2012-13. The Mountaineers ended the season with an opening round NIT loss to Georgetown and are looking to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012. They should make the Big Dance if their upward trend continues, but they have a few pieces to replace if that is to happen. They still have one of the best coaches in the Big 12 in Bob Huggins, who has won 739 games and made two Final Four appearances in a long Division I career that began at Akron in 1984. The Mountaineers also have a soft non-conference schedule this year, so racking up early wins should not be a problem. Only three of West Virginia’s 11 non-conference opponents are from Power 5 conferences, and they might be favored in all 11 of those contests. But like I said, there are definitely holes to fills thanks to a few transfers.

Bob Huggins will need to work some magic after some big losses this offseason.

Strengths: Juwan Staten. The 6’1″ senior guard led last year’s team with 18.1 PPG and shot 48.5 percent from the field. He had a number of big games, including 23 points and seven assists on 8-of-13 shooting in the season-ending loss against Georgetown. You certainly couldn’t say that loss was on him. Staten will be joined in the backcourt by fellow senior Gary Browne, who has been consistently average at West Virginia (6.5, 5.6, and 5.9 PPG in three seasons) but will help form one of the most experienced backcourts in the nation this season. Then you have sophomore forward Devin Williams, who averaged 8.4 PPG and 7.2 RPG in his first college season — the 6’9″ forward should make a considerable leap and average double-figure points for the Mountaineers.

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Throughout the preseason, the Big 12 microsite will preview each of the league’s 10 teams, from worst to first. Today: TCU.

TCU Horned Frogs

Strengths: For a team that ended last season on a 19-game losing streak that included an 0-18 mark in Big 12 play, TCU has a few things to look forward to heading into the 2013-14 season. Seniors Kyan Anderson (17.3 PPG last season) and Amric Fields (13.1 PPG, 6.1 RPG) will team with sophomore center and former four-star recruit Karviar Shepherd to dig this program out of the Big 12 cellar. Another year of that trio playing together along with a solid coach in Trent Johnson should do wonders for TCU as it continues the transition into a tough Big 12.

TCU head coach Trent Johnson returns four starters, but will it be enough to compete in the Big 12?

Weaknesses: Last season the Horned Frogs finished 291st nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, which was evident in their 0-18 league campaign. They scored 60 or fewer points in 11 conference games. They posted a 2-19 record against Power 5 conference teams. They had an effective field goal percentage of 44.6 percent, which placed TCU behind 339 other Division I teams. And while they have experience returning in Anderson, Fields and Shepherd, those players will have to produce because Johnson failed to sign another highly-ranked recruit.

Non-conference tests: TCU has a return game with Washington State scheduled after beating the Cougars on the road last season, 64-62. It plays in the Corpus Christi Classic in (you guessed it) Corpus Christi around Thankgsiving, where the Horned Frogs will play Bradley before a potential meeting with a St. Louis team that earned a No. 5 seed in last season’s NCAA Tournament. They received a good draw in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, when they travel to Ole Miss on December 4. In all, there are a whole bunch of winnable games in the non-conference slate. Teams like Mississippi State, Radford, New Orleans, Furman and McNeese State won’t necessarily prepare TCU for Big 12 play, but this schedule should at least help the Horned Frogs boost their resume for a potential postseason berth. Assuming the CBI is still around, that is.

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Rick Barnes just became a better coach this afternoon. His Texas program just secured the commitment of five-star center Myles Turner — the top uncommitted prospect in the Class of 2014 — which means the longtime Longhorns coach might have the best frontcourt in the Big 12 next season. Turner, a 6’11”, 225-pound senior, picked Texas over SMU, Kansas, Duke, Ohio State, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M, with most experts saying it came down to Texas, Kansas and SMU for his services. Turner is ranked ninth overall in his class at Rivals.com but his popularity soared over the last few months as he eventually became the last big-name recruit to commit to a school. A skinny big man with range from deep, it is no surprise that Myles, a native Texan, might now get a chance to replicate his idol Durant’s historic 2006-07 season in Austin. And if Turner does in fact have dreams of spending some time on the perimeter, Texas was clearly the school for him. It’s hard to imagine coaches like Bill Self or Larry Brown throwing Turner in at the three position and sacrificing his defensive prowess in the paint, but Barnes seems more than willing to experiment with that idea.

Myles Turner Makes Texas a Big 12 Title Favorite.

So what does this mean for Texas basketball next season? The Longhorns weren’t supposed to do much this year, as many wondered if Barnes was already on the hot seat before the year began. But five months later, one of the youngest teams in the country had won 24 games and playing in the third round of the NCAA Tournament. Everyone on the roster is set to return next season, including sophomore guard Isaiah Taylor, senior forward Jonathan Holmes, junior forward Cameron Ridley, and junior guard Javan Felix. Ridley could become the team’s sixth man with Turner starting at the four while occasionally showcasing his other skills on the perimeter. The trio of Turner, Ridley and Holmes would challenge Kansas for the best frontcourt in the Big 12.

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The Big 12 has a problem. It spent most of the regular season perceived as the best conference in the country but went another year without a national champion. Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1984, only two Big 12 teams have won the national title. Both teams were Kansas (1988 and 2008). That represents fewer titles than any other Big Five conference and just one more than UNLV. In the last decade, in fact, Kansas is the only school to make a Final Four appearance as a member of the Big 12 (West Virginia made the Final Four in 2010 while still in the Big East). Since then, the ACC has sent five schools to the Final Four, the SEC seven, and the Big Ten eight. Even the one year-old American Athletic Conference has had a national champion, thanks to Connecticut. This is partly a Kansas problem, as the Jayhawks have missed good opportunities for Final Fours at least four times in the last 10 years. But without the Jayhawks the rest of the Big 12 would resemble Conference USA. It has been full of teams that were good but never considered great, and there is no better example of that than this season.

For the eighth time in the last ten years, the Big 12 failed to send a team to the Final Four.

Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, and Texas spent time together in the Top 25 this season, but only the Jayhawks were considered legitimate threats to go deep in March. Iowa State, for example, cruised to a 13-0 start with a few good wins over Michigan and Iowa, so when they lost to Oklahoma, it meant the Sooners must be good. Or so we thought. And after Kansas State — which lost to Northern Colorado and Charlotte in November — beat a couple of ranked teams like Oklahoma State and Texas, people thought the conference was full of really good teams beating up on one another. But after another disappointing March, it’s time to realize that the Big 12 has one great program and a bunch of other ones capable of playing well for a few weeks at a time. Michigan State has Ohio State, Michigan, and Wisconsin. North Carolina has Duke and Syracuse. Kentucky has Florida. Kansas has a handful of teams capable of upsetting them in their building and disappearing a week later. This is most evident in the fact that Kansas has won 10 straight regular season titles. Bill Self is a future Hall of Fame coach and is on one of the best regular season runs we have seen in decades, but would he have 10 straight titles in any other major conference? Not a chance. And with Self’s prowess on the recruiting trail lately, it’s hard to see any Big 12 team ending the Jayhawks’ run of conference titles.

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It’s been a week since another tough NCAA Tournament loss for Kansas and fans are still scratching their heads at how the Jayhawks went out this season. Few people expected a Final Four berth if freshman center Joel Embiid remained sidelined with his back injury, but a third round loss to #10 seed Stanford was still a shocker. The Cardinal weren’t a particularly good team this season and didn’t appear to pose much of a threat heading into last Sunday’s game. But for the second straight season, the Jayhawks were reminded of how important guard play becomes in March. Starting point guard Naadir Tharpe finished with five points on 2-of-8 shooting with only two assists and two turnovers in the loss. Andrew Wiggins and Wayne Selden combined to shoot 2-of-11 with six points, and that was all she wrote for the Jayhawks in Saint Louis. Bill Self has plenty of talent coming back and a few top recruits arriving in Lawrence, but he will have some substantial holes to fill as well. Andrew Wiggins has already announced his departure, while Joel Embiid is still reportedly undecided, but it is expected that both players will enter the NBA Draft as high-lottery picks. Here are three questions surrounding the status of the Kansas program heading into the offseason.

Will Naadir Tharpe improve enough next season for a run in March? (Rich Sugg/The Kansas City Star)

1. Will Point Guard Troubles Doom Next Year’s Team Too? Kansas was sent packing early for the second straight season largely because of mediocre point guard play. Elijah Johnson was forced to play out of position at that spot last year because Self didn’t yet trust Tharpe in that role. Self had no other realistic choice at the position this time around, but his averages of 4.5 PPG and 2.5 APG against Eastern Kentucky and Stanford weren’t good enough for this time of year. Looking to next season, Kansas could remain in trouble at the slot. Tharpe will have another year of experience under his belt, but he also loses two of the better offensive weapons in the country. His backups — rising sophomores Frank Mason and Conner Frankamp — dabbled at the position but were unable to outplay him, leaving Self to go with Tharpe in the NCAA Tournament. On the recruiting trail, Tharpe’s just-good-enough game may have scared some better prospects away. Kansas went hard after five-star point guard Tyus Jones, but did the talented freshman want to risk losing playing time to a senior in Self’s system? Heading to Duke might have been the safer bet.

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For teams receiving at-large bids in the NCAA Tournament, there isn’t a worst spot to land than an #8 or #9 seed. Because unless your postseason goals begin and end with winning one game, your March dreams more often than not will be dashed in the first weekend. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, #1 seeds have reached the Sweet Sixteen almost 85 percent of the time. Nine-seed Oklahoma State will be facing those odds this weekend in the San Diego pod. They face #8 seed Gonzaga Friday afternoon and would more than likely see #1 seed Arizona in the Round of 32 should they get past the Bulldogs. That game is a tossup, but we’re talking ceilings here and the biggest obstacle to Oklahoma State reaching its ceiling will be waiting for them in the Round of 32.

Can a resurgent Marcus Smart lead Oklahoma State to the Final Four? (Stephen R. Sylvanie/USA TODAY)

For most #9 seeds, their realistic ceiling is playing the #1 seed close. But Oklahoma State isn’t your typical #9 seed. The Cowboys began the year with Big 12 title and Final Four hopes. But they lost their leading shot-blocker, junior forward Michael Cobbins, for the season with an achilles tear on Dec. 30. Sophomore guard Marcus Smart’s meltdown against Texas Tech led to a three-game suspension in early February, which came in the middle of a seven-game skid that had people questioning if the Cowboys would even make the NCAA Tournament. But Smart has played better than he had all season since returning on February 22, averaging 18.7 PPG and 6 APG. His team is 5-2 in that stretch with losses in overtime against Iowa State and Kansas. Oklahoma State has its flaws. Travis Ford isn’t the best in-game coach in the world and they are one of the smallest teams in the country. But their talent far exceeds their resume, and therefore, their seed.

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1. The Big 12 was considered by many to be the best conference in the country this season, and that might have been validated when seven of its 10 schools made the NCAA Tournament yesterday. The 70 percent acceptance rate was higher than any other conference, and as Wendell Barnhouse at Big12sports.com points out, it is the only power conference without a team seeded lower than ninth. As Committee chairman Ron Wellman explains to Barnhouse, Big 12 teams playing so many top-50 RPI teams this season helped improve resumes and likely pushed a potential bubble team like Oklahoma State into the field.
2. If you like NCAA Tournament committee conspiracy theories, Gregg Doyel has an interesting article here on just that topic. Other than the NBA Draft, the NCAA Tournament selection and bracketing process brings out as many conspiracy theorists as any sporting event. Doyel brings up a few interesting points in this year’s bracket, namely that #1 seed and untested Wichita State will potentially face an underseeded #4 Louisville team just 90 minutes from its campus in the Sweet Sixteen, while #6 seed Baylor gets two de facto home games in San Antonio in the first two rounds. Me? I don’t buy them. There are so many interesting potential match-ups (Wichita State vs Kansas State in the Round of 32, as Doyel also points out) that you’re going to get a few of them. The law of averages tells us that. Besides, when the committee had the perfect chance to put Border Civil War members Kansas and Missouri against each other in the Round of 32 last season, #1 seed Kansas was in the South region while #9 seed Missouri was in the Midwest. No conspiracy there.
3. Seven-seed New Mexico quickly became many people’s upset pick when a potential rematch against #2 seed Kansas became a possibility in the Round of 32. And with the way the Jayhawks have been playing without Joel Embiid in the lineup, it certainly makes sense. Kansas beat New Mexico 80-63 back in December thanks to Embiid’s 18 points, six rebounds, and four blocks, and as Rustin Dodd points out, the Lobos are hot right now. Ten-seed Stanford isn’t, however, and the Cardinal looks to be a better match-up for Kansas in the round of 32.
4. ESPN’s Eamonn Brennan takes a look at all 68 teams in the NCAA Tournament and puts them into  categories ranging from bracket busters to favorites, and a few places in-between. Kansas State, Texas and Baylor fell in the “High-Major Meh” category, and it’s hard to argue with him. I don’t see any of those three teams surviving the first weekend. He has a little more faith in Oklahoma, thanks in large part to head coach Lon Kruger. Kansas is just outside the “Favorites” group because of the uncertainty of Joel Embiid’s back injury.
5. One of the best players in the Big 12 is preparing for the first NCAA Tournament game of his career, and it has been a long time coming. But I’m not talking about freshmen Andrew Wiggins or Marcus Foster. Rather, Iowa State guard DeAndre Kane played four seasons in relative obscurity at Marshall before transferring to Iowa State for a fifth season. He led the Cyclones to the Big 12 Tournament championship and a #3 seed as the Cyclones have become a trendy pick to advance to the second weekend and beyond.

Every season, Kansas players exit the huddle with the same phrase: “Big 12 champs.” For the last decade, the chant has worked. Last night the Jayhawks clinched a share of their 10th consecutive Big 12 regular season championship with an 83-75 home win over Oklahoma. And yet, a feat that shouldn’t surprise anyone who follows college basketball is still somewhat surprising. Bill Self — who now has more Big 12 titles than losses at Allen Fieldhouse — has done well in every conference in which he has coached. He finished third in Conference USA during his first year at Tulsa prior to winning back-to-back titles there and moving up to Illinois. In Champaign, he won two Big Ten titles in three seasons before heading west to Lawrence. He then finished second in his first Big 12 season at Kansas and has won a share of the league title every year since.

Kansas has dominated their conference like no major team has in decades. (Nick Krug, Lawrence-Journal World)

Self reflected on the accomplishment last night after the win.“To get a piece of it or win it outright 10 years in a row means we’ve had a lot of good players come through here.” And he is right. But this run hasn’t been your garden variety roll-the-ball-out and dominate with better players like John Wooden’s UCLA dynasties of old. Self has won the Big 12 in just about every way imaginable. The 2008 National Championship team had four NBA draft picks in the rotation. The 2011-12 Final Four squad had former walk-on Conner Teahan as its sixth man. In 2006-07, he won the league with the nation’s best defense and 26th best offense (according to KenPom.com). This year the defense is ranked 27th but his offense is fifth (averaging nearly 80 points per game).

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