Over the next two weeks, the Big 12 microsite will preview each of the league’s 10 teams. Today: Oklahoma.

Where We Left Off: Oklahoma returned to the NCAA Tournament last season for the first time since Blake Griffin was in Norman. It was a short trip, however, as the Sooners lost to San Diego State in the round of 64, 70-55. Head coach Lon Kruger enters his third season at Oklahoma and is one of the most experienced coaches in the country. He has gone largely unnoticed, though, especially this year in a league that has (rightfully) been focused on Andrew Wiggins and Marcus Smart and the budding rivalry between the two players and their schools. Kruger, on the other hand, is slowly turning things around at Oklahoma. He won 15 games his first season and 20 games last year. If he continues that upward tick this season he should get consideration for Big 12 Coach of the Year because his top three scorers are now gone.

Lon Kruger Will Face Plenty of Tests Early This Season (AP).

Positives: Sophomore guard Buddy Hield gained meaningful experience last season as a freshman, averaging 25.1 MPG, 7.8 PPG, and 4.2 RPG. He deferred to upperclassmen like Romero Osby, Steven Pledger and Amath M’Baye, all of whom are gone. Hield could become the best offensive weapon for Kruger, which would mean good things for the future. Senior forward Cameron Clark also returns for the Sooners. Clark averaged 6.5 PPG last season while shooting over 50 percent from the floor. Those two players, along with sophomore guards Je’lon Hornbeak (22.7 MPG, 5.6 PPG last season) and Isaiah Cousins (15.7 MPG) look to form the core for the Sooners offensively. Expect Hield and Clark to shoulder a lot of the load offensively early in the season.

Negatives: The Sooners averaged 70.6 PPG as a team last season and nearly 50 of those points per contest do not return this year. The top three leading scorers — Romero Osby, Steven Pledger, Amath M’Baye — account for most of the missing production, averaging 37.7 PPG themselves. It’s unclear how that will affect returning players and if they will be able to maintain a similar offensive output. The 2013 recruiting class doesn’t look like it will make an impact this season either. Kruger signed a pair of three-star players, Frank Booker and Jordan Woodard, as well as unranked Keshaun Hamilton. It was a quiet recruiting class after signing Hield and Hornbeak, both four-star recruits in the class of 2012. With momentum following a five-win improvement last season, the Sooners will have surprised a lot of people if they continue that climb up the win totals column this season.

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Search for the lone weakness on a Kansas team loaded with NBA lottery talent and McDonald’s All-Americans and you won’t be looking for long. He stands about 5’11” and couldn’t crack the starting lineup on a team last season that was one point guard away from another Final Four. You can see why Kansas fans are everywhere from curious to anxious to worried about junior point guard Naadir Tharpe‘s play this season. It’s not that Tharpe isn’t capable of running an offense with future NBA Draft picks at the other four starting spots. It’s that if Kansas falls before the national title game, Tharpe’s play will likely be the reason.

Can Tharpe Keep The Kansas Offense Running Smoothly? (Credit: USA Today)

Last season the Jayhawks went down in flames against Michigan in the Sweet Sixteen with senior shooting guard Elijah Johnson putting the finishing touches on a mediocre season at point guard, all while Tharpe came off the bench playing 19.4 minutes per game. The sophomore averaged 5.5 points per game and shot just 34.3 percent from the floor. Watching Johnson struggle to run the offense for the first time in his college career made you wonder how little Self trusted Tharpe to do the same.

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Where We Left Off: TCU’s first season in the Big 12 changed no one’s mind that the reason the Horned Frogs were the newest members of the Big 12 started with football and ended with the fact the school sits in the middle of the Dallas Metroplex. They never made much noise in the Mountain West, making a few NIT appearances in the 90s while still looking for their first NCAA Tournament victory since 1987. Most people predicted a steep learning curve after joining the Big 12, and most people would be correct. There was one bright spot last season, however, as the Horned Frogs stunned the college basketball world when they knocked off Kansas 62-55 at home on February 6. It was one of two conference victories for the Horned Frogs last season, and they finished a game behind Texas Tech for last place.

Trent Johnson Continues His Rebuilding Effort at TCU This Season. (AP)

Positives: Four-star recruit and freshman Karviar Shepherd was ruled academically ineligible by the NCAA in early July, which appeared to end all hopes for a successful season for the Horned Frogs. Surprisingly, though, Shepherd won his appeal a few weeks later and was cleared to play this season. The 6’10”, 225-pound center had an impressive offer sheet coming out of high school that included Kansas, Marquette, Oklahoma State, Texas and UCLA. The Dallas native’s decision to stay home and play in Fort Worth gave instant credibility to head coach Trent Johnson‘s program, and could potentially lead to more highly sought-after Dallas recruits down the line. Joining Shepherd will be last year’s leading scorer Kyan Anderson, who averaged 12 points per game and was on the Bob Cousy Award watch list last season, recognized as one of the best point guards in the country. The duo should lead the Horned Frogs to a few more wins in the Big 12 this season.
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1. Here’s a great take on the Rick Barnes and Mack Brown situations at Texas by Mike Finger of the San Antonio Express-News. Texas is arguably the best football job in the country and a top 10 basketball job, but both Brown and Barnes have struggled as of late. If it is any consolation for Barnes, he likely has a longer leash than Brown at this point in time. The Longhorn basketball team has little in the way of expectations this year, and like almost every other year, they have little expectations from locals. I wouldn’t be shocked if an NCAA Tournament bid saved Barnes next spring.
2. Not only does Bill Self have one of the most talented rosters in college basketball, and not only is Bill Self one of the best coaches in college basketball, but Self has as much versatility as anyone heading into this season. He has tall guards, athletic big men, and everything in-between. This is what he told the Lawrence Journal-World‘s Gary Bedore about two of his starting guards, Andrew Wiggins and Wayne Selden: “We’ve got to get Andrew (Wiggins) and Wayne opportunities to catch in the post. They could be two of our very best post players,” Self said. That’s on a team with McDonald’s All-American forward Perry Ellis and potential top-10 draft pick Joel Embiid down low as well.
3. From Michael Beasley to Jacob Pullen to Rodney McGruder to… Shane Southwell? Maybe. The 6’7” forward had a good season last year, averaging 8.4 PPG for the Wildcats. But as Ken Corbitt points out, he won’t be able to sneak up on teams this year. He will be the best offensive option for Bruce Weber this season, without a doubt, and his performance could make the difference between the NCAA Tournament and NIT for Kansas State.
4. Lon Kruger landed a solid commitment from four-star forward Khadeem Lattin yesterday, Guerin Emig of the Tulsa World writes here. Lattin had offers from Texas, Memphis, and Georgetown, among others, according to Rivals.com. The 6’9” power forward will be one of the most talented players for Kruger next season as he tries to make Oklahoma a Big 12 contender for the first time since Blake Griffin was still in school in 2009.
5. Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star gives us the best breakdown of all that is Joel Embiid right here. The Kansas freshman has slowly been gaining attention since this summer, but on a team along with Andrew Wiggins and Wayne Selden, he has remained in the background most of the time. And while he might not start until Christmas or even later, there is a reason NBA scouts think he can become a certain lottery pick in next summer’s draft.

1. While Travis Ford and Marcus Smart continue to talk about the budding rivalry with Kansas and Andrew Wiggins, Wiggins seems more worried about not wearing his ankle braces in the shower. Ok, not quite. But the heralded freshman and likely No. 1 pick in next summer’s draft appears to be as down to earth as someone can be in his situation, saying things like, “You can’t take any plays off,” to Gary Bedore of the Lawrence-Journal World at Big 12 Media Day. “The person you are guarding may be as good as you.” Probably not, in Wiggins’ case. But we get the point.
2. Not unlike coaches in any sport, Fred Hoiberg is looking for anything he can use for motivation heading into this season. This week, he found it in a USA Today Big 12 poll. After seeing his Cyclones picked by one voter to finish 10th in the 10-team Big 12, Hoiberg pounced on the opportunity. “That is the one ranking I showed our guys,” Hoiberg said at Big 12 Media Day on Tuesday. “That is the thing I like about being picked low, and then you try to go out and prove people wrong.”
3. Jeff Borzello of CBSSports.com unveiled his top 30 freshmen heading into the season, and we’ll jsut skip over Andrew Wiggins, of course, landing the top spot. Wiggins was joined by Kansas teammates Wayne Selden (#7) and Joel Embiid (#9) but only one other Big 12 player made the final cut: Iowa State guard Matt Thomas at #25. Here is what Borzello had to say about the 6’3″ shooting guard from Onalaska, Wisconsin: “The Cyclones led the nation in 3-pointers per game last season, but their entire perimeter group is gone. That’s where Thomas steps in. He was one of the best shooters in the country.”
4. Good coaches are able to change their style of play if needed to fit their personnel, and that is exactly what Bob Huggins will try to do this season at West Virginia. The Mountaineers went 6-12 in the Big 12 last season (13-19 overall), and lost their highest scoring big man in Deniz Kilicli. “We’ve gone from, I think, trying to ineffectively throw it inside to where we’re going to be more of a perimeter team,” Huggins told Mike Casazza of the Charleston (W.V.) Daily Mail at Big 12 Media Day. After last season’s debacle, the change of play is worth a shot.
5. With the 2014 Final Four being played in the Big 12’s backyard at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Final Four officials spent some time at Big 12 Media Day in Kansas City this week to discuss the event. Dallas Cowboys executive Charlotte Anderson said she expects 80,000 people to attend each game, a new record for the event. She didn’t, however, estimate how many fans will be able to see the court from their seats. The only other question is whether a Big 12 team can get there — Kansas and Oklahoma State certainly will have a reasonable shot.

1. Maybe it was because of the comments that Marcus Smart made about Andrew Wiggins, maybe it was because he actually believed it, or maybe it was because he was just trying to quell any war of words that may have been brewing, but Oklahoma State head coach Travis Ford had nothing but  praise for Kansas heading into the season, and he was not shy about claiming the Jayhawks are still the team to beat, even with Marcus Smart leading the Cowboys this year.  “Winning a Big 12 Championship is something that we strive to do. It’s something we talk about, but we fully grasp that Kansas is still a team to beat.”
2. One team that has flown under the radar this pre-season has been Kansas State, who had a disappointing exit in last season’s NCAA Tournament after losing to #13 seed La Salle in the Round of 64. As Blair Kerkhoff of The Kansas City Star points out here, the last six years of Kansas State basketball have had a go-to guy heading into the season, from Michael Beasley to Jacob Pullen to Rodney McGruder. Now, 6’7″ senior wing Shane Southwell thinks he can be the next guy to star for the Wildcats. He averaged 8.4 points last season and needs to bump that number up into double digits to make Kansas State competitive in the top-heavy Big 12 this season.
3. Speaking of the top-heavy Big 12, maybe you have heard that there is a pretty good team practicing in Lawrence. Kansas coach Bill Self is no stranger to talent or expectations, and this team has as much of both as any team he has coached in his career, especially after Andrew Wiggins announced his plans to play at Kansas this year before bolting for the NBA. Self is quick to squash the comparisons to all-time greats, but admits he has a once-a-decade (or better) talent on his hands. “He’s not LeBron,” He told Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star. “He’s not Durant. He’s not Wilt. He’s Andrew. And Andrew will impact our college game and our program in a huge, huge, huge way.”
4. It’s clearly a 2-team race at the top of the Big 12 this season, but it appears to be wide open after that. With the departures of Amath M’Baye, Romero Osby, and Sam Grooms, senior forward Cameron Clark has slowly become a leader for the Sooners and head coach Lon Kruger. “Everbody listens to him,” sophomore Buddy Hield told Ryan Aber of The Oklahoman at Big 12 Media Day yesterday. “When he’s got something to say, everybody shuts up.”
5. With scoring on the decline, the NCAA has been trying to alter little things here and there to fix things recently, and this season’s new emphasis on hand-checking could do just that. It might take a while for teams to adjust, however. “We’ve had two scrimmages where we’ve had Big 12 refs,” Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg told The Des Moines Register‘s Randy Peterson. “In one of our scrimmages, we were in the double bonus at the 10-minute mark.” Eventually, the new rules should bring forth cleaner games and more offense, and everyone should love that. But November and December could give us slow, drawn-out whistlefests as teams try to adjust.

1. The CBSSports.com crew held a college basketball fantasy draft yesterday and not too surprisingly, Andrew Wiggins and Marcus Smart went No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Kansas center Joel Embiid was the next Big 12 player taken at #12 overall, followed by Baylor center Isaiah Austin at #18. Kansas freshman guard Wayne Selden (#20) made it five Big 12 players in the top 20, all of whom are underclassmen. Other notable selections included Kentucky freshman Julius Randle at #3 and Duke freshman Jabari Parker at #5. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s three of the five best players in the country (according to CBS) playing at the Champions Classic next month in Chicago.
2. Chris Johnson at Sports Illustrated wrote a solid article on Oklahoma State coming into the season and how the Cowboys will challenge Kansas for the Big 12 championship. Oklahoma State returns its top three leading scorers in Marcus Smart, Le’Bryan Nash and Markel Brown. As Johnson notes, the Cowboys were the Big 12 favorites until mid-April. That is when Andrew Wiggins committed to the Jayhawks, putting Kansas back in the driver’s seat for its 10th straight Big 12 regular season title. With Smart leading the Cowboys’ offense as a sophomore, Oklahoma State has enough firepower to win the conference but everyone knows that knocking off Kansas won’t be an easy task.
3. Yahoo!’s Jeff Eisenberg had more to say yesterday about Marcus Smart’s recent comments on Andrew Wiggins. “They are saying he is the best college player there is and he has not even played a game yet,” Smart said. “Of course that hypes me up.” It’s not like Smart said anything controversial there, or that he even said anything untrue about the precocious Kansas freshman. He truthfully hasn’t played a college game yet. As Eisenberg says, credit to Smart for actually answering questions and not spewing cliches. The great thing is that Wiggins and Bill Self will use those words as extra motivation when the teams meet at least twice this season, unfortunately still a few months away.
4. In what is more of a dubious list, Iowa State‘s Melvin Ejim was listed among the 15 least appreciated players by CBSSports.com on Monday. The Iowa State senior big man will be one of the best forwards in the Big 12 this season, without question. But as CBS noted, he nearly averaged a double-double a season ago (11.2 PPG, 9.3 RPG) and he will need to duplicate those numbers if Iowa State has plans to again compete with the top of the Big 12 along with Kansas, Oklahoma State, and Baylor.
5. According to Kevin Doyle at NBCSports.com, defense is what will carry the Texas Longhorns this season. Rick Barnes: “We haven’t been good the last couple years. We will play harder and play better defense. With the size we have, we’ll be able to protect the rim.” With so many losses in personnel from last year’s team, defense will be the only thing that could save Barnes’ job next spring. The Longhorns are young and the administration may finally be getting restless in Austin.

1. Gary Parrish over at CBSSports.com gave us his top 30 big men coming into the season, and the Big 12 was well represented with five players making the list. In order, they are: #8 Isaiah Austin (Baylor), #9 Joel Embiid (Kansas), #11 Cory Jefferson (Baylor), #22 Melvin Ejim (Iowa State), and #29 Georges Niang (Iowa State). Creighton’s Doug McDermott and Kentucky’s Julius Randle topped the list, both of whom are hard to argue against even though Randle is a true, untested freshman. As for Iowa State, if Ejim and Niang play as well as Parrish thinks they can play this season, the Cyclones could contend near the top of the Big 12 standings.
2. It is surprising that a group of talented, young basketball players don’t want to get out and run in transition, but that appears to be what Bill Self is battling with his team so far this season. “I think this could be the quickest team we’ve had to get up and down the court,” Self told the Lawrence Journal-World‘s Gary Bedore Saturday. “But we’ve got to do it every possession.” Self is right, especially with the way he coaches defense. Kansas teams are known for their outstanding defense, and a team that wants to play fast can convert turnovers into points in a flash. The Jayhawks have as many athletes and as much depth as nearly anyone in the country this season, and with a young team that could take some time to master the offense, getting into transition on a regular basis for easy buckets could be exactly what they need early on.
3. Oklahoma State guard Marcus Smart isn’t shying away from his decision to return for his sophomore year, bypassing the NBA and the chance to be a top-5 pick last summer. “A lot of people say I turned (a big opportunity) down, but I didn’t turn down anything,” Smart told the Oklahoman‘s Gina Mizell on Friday. “I just pushed it to the side.” Smart spoke after Oklahoma State’s annual “Homecoming and Hoops” Midnight Madness event, highlighted in part by a video montage that was projected onto the Gallagher-Iba court. Smart said the Cowboys have a chance to make history this season in Stillwater, and he is right.
4. Not only does Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds know his school has a basketball team, he is actually concerned about the state of said basketball team. No, really. “I worry more about basketball,” Dodds told Sports Illustrated‘s Pete Thamel last week. “If I were going to pick one [program] to worry more about, I worry more about basketball.” Dodds has announced his retirement for next August, so it’s hard to see him firing head coach Rick Barnes and making a new hire on his way out the door, but with a new boss coming to town next fall, Barnes’ days in Austin could be numbered.
5. Not unlike Bill Self’s wishes, West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins wants his team to start running. Huggins, however, wants his guys to run because they’ve been so busy teaching and learning this season that actually playing the game has been secondary at times. “It’s just that with all those new guys we’re doing so much teaching that we haven’t had a chance to run up and down,” Huggins said after Friday’s Midnight Madness, officially named the “Gold-Blue Debut.” The Mountaineers return only five players from last year and will have a steep learning curve this season regardless of how much running they do.

Heading into the season, you could have argued that West Virginia had a better talent and coaching combination than eight or nine teams in the Big 12. They returned a number of talented sophomores who seemed poised for breakout years, led by Keaton Miles (30 starts as a freshman) and Jabari Hinds, who started all 33 games as a freshman while averaging 7.4 PPG and 2.5 RPG. Gary Browne (6.5 PPG, 3.4 RPG) wasn’t bad, either, and expecting the trio to see big jumps in production after a year adjusting to the college game seemed fair. The Mountaineers also had a pair of talented Atlantic 10 transfers who would be eligible in guard Juwan Staten and center Aaric Murray. As a freshman at Dayton in 2010-11, Staten had led the Atlantic 10 in assists with 190 while starting all 34 games for the Flyers. In two seasons at La Salle, Murray had climbed all the way to No. 2 on the school’s all-time blocks list with 143. His 15.2 PPG, 7.7 RPG, and 2.3 BPG averages as a sophomore led the team, and it was obvious he should try his luck on a bigger stage. Then there was the bull on the block, senior forward Deniz Kilicli, the 6’9″, 260-pound forward who averaged 10.7 PPG in 2011-12.

It Wasn’t An Easy Season For Bob Huggins

As you can see, future Hall of Fame coach Bob Huggins had a talented roster heading into this season. But with that talent came a lot of question marks. Would the freshmen take that next step? Would the transfers adjust to stiffer competition in a major conference? Would there be program growing pains in their first season in the Big 12, a conference in which their closest road game (Iowa State) was nearly 900 miles from home?

As it turned out, Miles couldn’t get on the floor, averaging only 2.6 PPG. Browne shot only 32.5 percent from the field with 5.2 PPG, and while Hinds’ average stayed at 7.4 PPG, his shooting percentage plummeted from seven points to 35.1 percent. The transfers Murray (8.8 PPG, 5.9 RPG) and Staten (7.6 PPG) were good but not great. Perhaps the only pleasant surprise this season was freshman guard Eron Harris, who led the team with 9.8 PPG. It was a roster made up of many different pieces that never came together, and that may have been evident as early as opening night.

Highs

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