Will Leitch over at SportsOnEarth.com gave us his top 25 jobs in college basketball last week. And while there are a few things we would change (Wichita State and Temple seem too high, whereas Michigan seems too low), the list was close to perfect. His criteria was spot on too, as you can see here. Building upon his idea, we thought we would try our hand at a Big 12 list of college basketball jobs. As Leitch explains, the list isn’t necessarily a rundown of the best programs, although that often comes with having a top job. It instead comes down to a simple question: Where would we want to coach if we had our pick of the litter in the Big 12?

Bill Self has the best job in the Big 12, and it isn’t close. (AP)

1. Kansas: Kansas was #2 overall on Leitch’s list and is undoubtedly the best job in the Big 12. It has one of the best fan bases in the country and the athletic department will pay a successful coach as much as anyone.
2. Texas: Texas hasn’t been great in a while, but it is still a top 10 job nationally with seemingly unlimited resources at its disposal and the benefit of in-state recruiting. Fans can be apathetic with respect to hoops, which could be a plus or a minus depending on the success of the coach. Stress about basketball is rarely an issue in Austin, as Texas hoops fans don’t seem to mind a coach who puts together an occasional winner without ever really challenging for a national title. If you can take advantage of everything Texas has to offer as a head coach, you could set yourself up for your career. Read the rest of this entry »

1. If you missed Iowa State’s annual game against Iowa Friday night, you missed a great one. Both teams were ranked for the first time in what seems like forever (26 years), and the sold-out Hilton Coliseum crowd was rewarded with an 85-82 Cyclones’ win over the Hawkeyes. Georges Niang had 24 points, telling Bobby La Gesse of the Ames Tribune: “I felt like it was my night.” Iowa State improved to 8-0 with the win and barring a home upset against George Mason or Northern Illinois over the next two-plus, will enter 2014 and Big 12 play undefeated.
2. If you haven’t seen Kansas center Joel Embiid’s Hakeem Olajuwon/Dream Shake impression yet, drop what you’re doing and watch the GIF at the bottom of this SI.com piece, or check out the full video here. It’s amazing that Embiid was a soccer player until just a few years ago who is still relatively new to playing basketball. He shot up the recruiting rankings during his last year of high school and is shooting up NBA mock drafts this season. Don’t be shocked if he becomes a top-three pick next summer.
3. Marcus Smart appears to have changed his game following Oklahoma State’s loss to Memphis two weeks ago. “I’m just trying to focus and make sure I don’t force a lot of things because I do have a talented group of guys around me,” he told John Helsley of The Oklahoman after the Cowboys’ 70-55 win over Louisiana Tech Saturday. Smart had 13 points, five assists, and four steals in the win.
4. CBSSports.com NBA writer Matt Moore updated his 2014 mock draft over the weekend and Andrew Wiggins fell to the second pick overall behind Duke freshman Jabari Parker. Joel Embiid was fourth, Marcus Smart seventh, Wayne Selden eighth, Perry Ellis 25th, and Isaiah Austin 29th. Second round selections included Cory Jefferson at 44th and Le’Bryan Nash at 51st. Moore had this to say about Nash, the former five-star recruit: “Such a highly touted high school player doesn’t seem to have enough to offer a sure player to make a roster, but he’s not bad enough to fall out of the draft completely, right?”
5. Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid have gotten most of the national spotlight this season, and rightly so, as both players are likely top-five picks. But it’s no coincidence that as Perry Ellis goes, so go the Jayhawks,  Jeff Borzello at CBSSports.com writes. As he notes, Ellis has struggled in Kansas’ bad games and been great in big wins, most notably his 24-point, nine-rebound performance in the Jayhawks’ 94-83 over Duke last month.

Not much has gone right for Kansas State since capturing a share of the Big 12 regular season championship last season. The Wildcats advanced to the Big 12 Tournament championship game, was beateen by Kansas for the third time, then lost to #13 seed La Salle in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Leading scorers Rodney McGruder and Angel Rodriguez graduated and transferred, respectively, and now, eight months later, K-State opened the season with a 60-58 loss to Northern Colorado, the same Northern Colorado team that was picked to finish fourth in the Big Sky Conference this season.

Bruce Weber Can’t Be Happy Through Six Games This Season. (USA Today Sports/Scott Sewell)

The Wildcats are 3-3 thanks to the Puerto Rico Tip-Off guaranteeing all teams three games, and that allowed them to grab another win over Long Beach State, a team which is #297 in the RPI and #230 on KenPom. The problems have been mostly on the offensive end for Kansas State. The Wildcats have yet to crack 72 points and are showing how dependent they were on McGruder and Rodriguez last season. Through six games, here are the key offensive metrics:

• 62.7 PPG (#326 nationally)
• 40.7% shooting (#293)
• 12.8 APG (#179)

Head coach Bruce Weber returned four players who averaged at least 10 MPG last season, but only junior forward Thomas Gipson has shown signs of improvement early this season. His minutes per game are about the same as last but his scoring is up from a couple of points per game and he is shooting over 55 percent from the floor, up from 51.7% last season. The other three players – Will Spradling, Nino Williams, and Shane Southwell – have either gotten worse or plateaued. On the surface, Southwell’s stat line of 7.8 PPG/5.3 RPG/3.2 APG looks just fine. But the senior guard has been an albatross offensively. He is taking over eight shots per game and shooting a paltry 33.3 percent from the field. His three-point percentage is even worse at 16.7 percent, but it hasn’t stopped him from taking three attempts a game. It became clear some time ago that senior guard Will Spradling isn’t a 30 MPG-type of player at the Big 12 level, but that’s about where he has been the last three seasons. With guards like McGruder, Rodriguez, and Jacob Pullen next to him, he can play as a serviceable third guard or sixth man in a pinch. But more offensive responsibility this season hasn’t led to better results. His 35 percent shooting is the worst of his career, as is his 24 percent from three-point range.

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With Feast Week already in high gear, we’re outlining the roads ahead for prominent Big 12 teams involved in neutral site events this week.

What They’ve Done So Far: The #2 Kansas Jayhawks have played as well as fans could have expected through four games this season. They have beaten three cupcakes by 22.3 PPG and knocked off then-#4 Duke at the Champions Classic in Chicago. The inside-out combination of sophomore forward Perry Ellis and freshman guard Andrew Wiggins is averaging 16.8 PPG, freshman center Joel Embiid showed flashes of greatness in his 16-point, 13-rebound performance against Iona, and the Jayhawks lead the country in field goal shooting at 56.8 percent. The one major concern heading into the season — point guard play — has been anything but a problem early. Junior Naadir Tharpe is averaging 6.7 APG with a 3.3 to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio, and freshman backup Frank Mason has been nearly as impressive, playing 18 MPG and averaging 8.3 PPG, 3.5 APG, and just 0.5 turnovers per game. Bill Self has about 87 different lineups he can throw out at anytime — he can go big, small, fast or slow and there isn’t much of a dropoff between each combination. The Jayhawks are deeper than any team Self has had; they have three potential one-and-done freshmen in the starting lineup in Andrew Wiggins, Wayne Selden and Joel Embiid; and, they have veterans like Naadir Tharpe and Perry Ellis to guide the youngsters. It’s not too early to say Final Four or Bust with this team.

Andrew Wiggins Leads Kansas To The Bahamas This Week.

First Round Preview Wake Forest is 5-0 but the competition has been less than stellar in that record. Wins over Colgate, VMI, Presbyterian, Jacksonville, and The Citadel aren’t proper warm-ups for a Top 25 team, much less a team as talented as Kansas. Defensively, the Jayhawks will need to slow down sophomore guard Codi Miller-McIntyre, who leads the Demon Deacons with 18.6 PPG and 4.8 APG. He opened the season with four straight 20-point games and is the focal point for the Deacons’ offense. Rebounding will be key in this first round match-up. Wake Forest is currently second in the nation with 49.2 RPG, but Kansas is grabbing 83 percent of its opponents’ misses, fifth best in the country. The Demon Deacons aren’t far behind themselves at 81 percent.

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1. Marcus Smart’s 39-point performance against Memphis Tuesday night proved why he belongs in the discussion for college basketball’s best player. Kevin Durant, who watched the sophomore show from courtside, said Smart can play in the NBA today. “Definitely,” he told USA Today‘s Eric Prisbell. Smart was 5-of-10 from the three-point line, a big improvement from last year’s 29 percent from distance. One great shooting night isn’t enough to forget last season’s inconsistency, but it showed us how good he can be if everything is clicking.
2. Kansas State is probably playing Charlotte in the first round of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off as you read this. The game tips (tipped?) at 9:30 CST this morning and the Wildcats are looking to put as many wins between themselves and that 60-58 loss to Northern Colorado a few weeks ago. A win over Charlotte will mean a likely match-up with Georgetown on Friday afternoon. The bottom half of the bracket is highlighted by #14 ranked Michigan and #10 ranked VCU (likely to also play on Friday).
3. West Virginia’s defense hasn’t been great this season, and Bob Huggins knows why. “We play pretty hard and then we kind of figure it’s time for a rest,” he told Allan Taylor of Metro News in West Virginia. The Mountaineers are 2-1 at this early stage of the season, but have given up 82 and 83 points in their last two games, a loss to Virginia Tech and a win over Duquesne. They have talent in guys like Juwan Staten and Eron Harris, but they aren’t good enough offensively to give up 80 points regularly and still win consistently. 
4. Kansas freshman Brannen Greene was held out of Tuesday’s win over Iona because of a coach’s decision. Bill Self told the Kansas City Star‘s Rustin Dodd that “I love Brannen Greene, but he needs to be more responsible taking care of some responsibilities off the court.” As a 6’7” shooter, Greene will probably have a spot in the rotation this season regardless of any small off-court infractions in November. But the Jayhawks are deep, and I wouldn’t get too confident if I were Greene. Andrew White III and Conner Frankamp are capable of stealing his minutes if he isn’t careful.
5. Here’s a shocker: Texas is having trouble getting fans to show up to games. The Longhorns missed the NCAA Tournament last season and haven’t drawn more than 4,018 fans through four home games this season. Granted, the early schedule has been awful (who really wants to pay to see Mercer or South Alabama or Stephen F. Austin?) but averaging around 3,000 fans per game for a program like Texas is not a good look.

1. Credit to Gary Parrish for calling his shot about 10 hours before Marcus Smart went off for 39 points in a rout of Memphis in Stillwater. “But Smart now has a nice opportunity to shift the national conversation back in his direction, because the big stage will be all his on this Tuesday night.” Andrew Wiggins played Tuesday night, as did Jabari Parker and Julius Randle and Aaron Gordon. But Smart stole the spotlight from the fabulous freshmen, reminding us all that he is still the best guard in the country.
2. Kansas freshman center Joel Embiid had a big day Monday. Jayhawk beat writer Rustin Dodd featured him in an excellent article, as Embiid’s dad watched him play for the first time in his life, and he finished with 16 points, 13 rebounds, and three blocks in an 86-66 victory. He was 7-7 from the floor and had a few buckets that made you realize he probably won’t be in a Kansas uniform last season. The biggest defense for the second-ranked Jayhawks is still protecting the rim, and as Dodd points out, Self is working with Embiid to play more like former Jayhawk and shot block-extraordinaire Jeff Withey. If that happens, this team will be complete.
3. Last season Juwan Staten ran the West Virginia offense and the results weren’t pretty. Staten had a respectable statline of 7.6 PPG and an assist-to-turnover ratio of better than 2/1. But as Bob Hertzel points out, last year West Virginia was bad. Really bad. #219 in the country bad. And fair or not, that blame went largely to the point guard. A year later, Staten is averaging 20 PPG, 7.3 APG, and is shooting over 51 percent through three games.
4. Texas is 4-0 for the first time in four years thanks in some part to the hustle of Jonathan Holmes, who lost parts of couple teeth diving for a loose ball in Monday night’s 89-61 win over Houston Baptist. The biggest takeaway from the win, as Chris Hummer notes, is that freshman guard Kendal Yancy got the start over returning leading scorer Javan Felix. It was a good move to get Yancy some starting experience in a game the Longhorns would control because Rick Barnes will need all the help he can get this season to keep his job.
5. If you want good seats in the Kansas student section, whether the Jayhawks are playing Iona or Towson or Missou…Kansas State, you better like early mornings, sitting, and waiting. It’s a somewhat complicated system that is run close to perfection considering it is run by students and students only. But don’t let Elise Reuter of the Kansas City Star fool you about some of the camping group names. Back in the day, when Kansas and Missouri still played, Bill Self once handed out pizzas before reading the list of the 200 or so groups, many of which would make your grandmother blush. “You guys toned it down this year,” he said. “Last season was much worse.”

1. Iowa State senior Melvin Ejim and Kansas underclassmen Perry Ellis and Andrew Wiggins earned Big 12 weekly honors, which were announced on Monday. Ellis, a sophomore forward, scored 24 points in last week’s win against Duke. Wiggins was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Week after finishing with 22 points against Duke. Ejim, a senior forward, made his season debut against #7 Michigan Sunday afternoon and led all scorers with 22 points and nine rebounds.
2. Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg couldn’t have asked for a better visit from Rivals.com’s #7 overall player Rashad Vaughn last weekend. It was capped with an impressive 77-70 win over #7 Michigan Sunday afternoon in Hilton Coliseum. Vaughn told Randy Peterson of the Des Moines Register that the relationships he builds with coaches and schools will be a big factor in his recruitment, and the fact that Hoiberg played major college ball seems to be a positive for the Cyclones. Vaughn has offers from fellow Big 12 schools Baylor and Kansas as well as North Carolina and a handful of others. For the Big 12’s sake, Vaughn moving to Ames would be great for the league.
3. Bill Self didn’t expect his team to jump Louisville for the #2 spot in this week’s AP poll, less than a week after knocking off #4 Duke in Chicago. “That doesn’t make any sense to me,” he told the Kansas City Star’s Rustin Dodd Monday. Actually, it makes plenty of sense. The only thing worse than preseason rankings is voters hesitating to move teams down just because they won. National rankings should be based on resumes, not how your ballot looked last week. If Kansas has a better resume than Louisville when the ballot is due, the Jayhawks should be ahead of them.
4. Oklahoma signed three recruits on signing day last week and as Ryan Aber points out, head coach Lon Kruger filled the holes he needed to fill to keep the momentum going around the Sooner basketball program. Two of the players, Dante Buford and Khadeem Lattin, are in the Rivals Top 150 for the class of 2014 and both players should make immediate impacts in the front court for the Sooners next season as freshmen.
5. If West Virginia plans on bouncing back after last season’s forgettable showing, Eron Harris and Juwan Staten will have to play big roles offensively. They did just that on Sunday in a 96-83 win over Duquesne in Morgantown. The defense left a lot to be desired, but 61 combined points from Harris and Staten was more than enough for the Mountaineers. As Staten told Garrett Cullen here, the new hand checking rules should help both players immensely this season.

1. Gary Parrish is updating his Top 25 (And One) daily this season, which will be fun to look out for each and every afternoon. Not surprisingly, he has Michigan State at No. 1 in the country after beating then-No. 1 Kentucky last week and hanging on against Columbia over the weekend. Kansas is third, Oklahoma State is seventh, Baylor is 22nd, and Iowa State jumped from unranked to 15th after beating Michigan at home on Sunday, 77-70.
2. Never fear, Kansas fans. Cliff Alexander signed his National Letter of Intent on Saturday morning. The No. 4 overall recruit on Rivals.com committed to Kansas on Friday afternoon but said he wasn’t going to sign until January at the earliest, keeping his options open as well as the possibility of committing elsewhere before next summer. Whether it was a change of heart or a friendly nudge in a phone call from Bill Self, Alexander is signed and ready for his one year of college, or so says his AAU coach. Speaking of Cliff Alexander…
3. Friday’s hat ceremony involving the Chicago prospect was anything from awful to hilarious to bush league, depending on the whom you ask. If you missed it, Alexander at first picked up an Illinois hat before setting it down and donning a Kansas hat instead, giving Illinois fans a few seconds of pure joy before ripping it all away. If you’re not an Illinois fan and not at work (unless you have headphones), do yourself a favor and watch the videos of student reactions on CBSSports.com, then thank me later.
4. As John Helsley of The Oklahoman points out, the barrage of great match-ups early in the season has tomorrow’s Oklahoma State/Memphis showdown in Stillwater flying somewhat under the radar. Surprisingly, it will be the first top-15 non-conference match-up (Oklahoma State is eighth, Memphis 13th) in Gallagher-Iba Arena since the 1957-58 season. Between Marcus Smart and Memphis guards Joe Jackson and Michael Dixon, it looks to be one of the best perimeter showcases of the non-conference season.
5. When Kansas signed Andrew Wiggins in May, its odds to win the 2014 NCAA title jumped from 30 to 1 to 10 to 1 overnight. The day before beating Duke last week, those odds had improved to 11 to 2 to cut down the nets in Dallas next April. Oklahoma State follows at 18 to 1 and then we see a drop all the way down to Iowa State at 100 to 1 (although erxpect Sunday’s win over Michigan to improve those odds a bit). The shocker is Baylor, a Top 25 team with the same odds (125 to 1) as a team like Creighton. The worst odds in the league for a team you can bet on is Kansas State, where a $1 bet nets you $300 if the Wildcats end up winning it all.

If yesterday’s Baylor vs. South Carolina matinee was any indication, Big 12 fans will not enjoy the rule changes this season that have resulted in refs blowing the whistle after almost any contact on the perimeter. More fouls equals longer games, and on Big Mondays when the Big 12 game tips off two hours after the start of the ACC game, Big 12 fans might feel a little anxious. By the time West Virginia had blown a 17-point lead and lost to Virginia Tech by five on Tuesday, ESPN switched over to the Baylor game with 11:28 left in the first half. Baylor eventually outlasted the Gamecocks after a last-second foul was a tenth of a second too late and Frank Martin’s team was not provided a chance to tie the game at the free throw line. The following are some random thoughts about Baylor’s performance on Tuesday afternoon.

Brady Heslip Will Spread Defenses Out All Season

• There were 55 total fouls called in a game that lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours. Teams should eventually adjust to the new rules, but don’t expect that to happen before Christmas if it happens this season at all.
• In true Frank Martin fashion, South Carolina attacked inside on nearly every possession and Baylor didn’t do much to stop them. Had the Gamecocks made three or four more of the dozen layups they missed (including a wide-open attempt on a fast break with under three minutes to go during a tie game), it could have been a different outcome. On a number of occasions, South Carolina grabbed the ball out of the net, made two passes and had a layup before Baylor could get anyone back on defense.
• Baylor ran its patented 1-3-1 zone on several possessions, but its effectiveness depended on which player was stationed at the top on the perimeter. When 6’6″ forward Royce O’Neale was there, the Gamecocks struggled to get the ball inside. When 5’11” guard Kenny Chery was in that spot, it resulted in two passes and a layup. Two games in, it doesn’t look like Baylor’s defense has been addressed like it needs to for the Bears to jockey into the Big 12 race.

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

Where We Left Off: With seven minutes left in its Sweet Sixteen match-up with Michigan, Kansas led by 14 points. With 21 seconds left, the lead had dwindled but the Jayhawks still held a controlling five-point lead. Not long after that, Michigan guard Trey Burke’s last-second three-pointer sent the game to overtime, and the Wolverines held on to win the game, 87-85. That game was a microcosm of Kansas’ season, with senior point guard Elijah Johnson committing five turnovers without tallying a single assist. All five starters either graduated or, in freshman guard Ben McLemore’s case, declared for the NBA Draft. At the time, the nation’s No. 2 recruiting class – led by five-star recruit Wayne Selden – softened the blow of another tough March loss for Bill Self. But a little less than two months later, everything changed when No. 1 overall recruit Andrew Wiggins committed to Kansas and transformed this year’s team from a top-25 squad into national title contenders.

Andrew Wiggins Has A Lot Of Reasons To Be Smiling These Days.