1. We have seen the best (Puerto Rico Tip-Off) and the average (currently 3-3 in the Big 12) from Oklahoma State, but with a team as talented as the Cowboys are, why haven’t they been able to stake a claim as one of the top teams in this league? What’s keeping this team from flourishing? CowboysRideForFree has an idea of what it could be: the three-quarter court trapping press. The article cites this as a catalyst for making a comeback in the Oklahoma game even though they ultimately lost. And as recently as Saturday, the Cowboys fell behind 13 points to West Virginia before Travis Ford implemented a combination of the press and 2-3 zone to turn that game into a 14-point victory. Maybe it has something to do with the press but there’s much more to Oklahoma State’s inconsistencies than that. Not knowing what you’ll get from Le’Bryan Nash is part of the problem too. They better fix their issues fast because the last thing the Cowboys want is their bubble to burst come Selection Sunday.
2. Wednesday could be an important day in the history of Iowa State basketball. Dating back to 1988, the Cyclones have made the trip to Gallagher-Iba Arena 17 times and 17 times they have left Stillwater empty-handed. That also means head coach Fred Hoiberg never saw a Cyclone victory there as a player either. Iowa State already knows the Kansas State win was a step in the right direction but now it’s time to really make a statement. Are they able to go on the road, to one of the toughest arenas in the Big 12, and beat a fellow bubble team? It’s a big game for both clubs but it would mean so much for the Cyclones to get this one without the help of “Hilton Magic.”
3. Will Spradling is one of the more prolific shooters in the league but at just 35% from three on the year, the Kansas State junior is, ahem, shooting for more consistency from outside. Spradling says he’s going back to an old routine he used to do with his dad where he makes 50 threes during practice… with one hand. “I’ll do that at least once a day,” Spradling said. “That has my shot feeling great right now. Two of the last three games I’ve shot it well and played well. I feel like I’m getting better.” That’s about the worst thing you could hear if you’re an opposing coach.
4. How bad has Texas been this season? Here is their season-in-review in a neat 257-word layout. The Horns scored their two season highs in points against North Carolina and Baylor, both games I happened to see take place live. But they have the tougher task of matching up against Kansas State in Manhattan tonight. Texas hasn’t won a game at the Octagon of Doom since 2008 and I will go ahead and say Kansas State will have their way with Longhorns. For the first time in the Rick Barnes era, they will be looking towards next season while still in the middle of their current season.
5. History has told us that when a coach like Bob Huggins talks/yells/face turns bright red, players listen and respond in the way he would like. There hasn’t been a whole of that this season but in Monday’s game against Kansas, at last, someone finally listened. Aaric Murray explained how to appropriately listen to coach when he’s yelling: “You’ve got to listen to the message and not how he’s saying it. I think I was listening to how he said it instead of what he was saying. When I stopped worrying about him [Huggins], everything was fine.” 17 points, seven rebounds, two blocks and two steals later, hopefully Murray is a success story. Now about the rest of his teammates…

You read that correctly.

Andy Katz is reporting that the interconference event between the Southeastern and Big East conferences is no more. Katz cites the uncertainty in the Big East is to blame and that the SEC has been in negotiations with the Big 12 to be the replacement. The partnership will start during the 2013-14 season, which means that this is yet another collaborative effort between the SEC and Big 12 in addition to the football Champions Bowl (aka the Allstate Sugar Bowl) beginning on January 1, 2015.

Buh-bye.

This is a win for the Big 12. They were previously one-half of the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series until that partnership was discontinued after the 2010-11 season. The potential matchups for next year are tantalizing. Another round of Florida-Kansas State maybe? The Gators could get their revenge on the Wildcats for beating them in Kansas City this season. How about Kentucky-Texas if the Longhorns can get their act together next year? We may also get some important battles between Ole Miss-Iowa State or Alabama-Oklahoma State. And dare I say, a renewal of the Kansas-Missouri rivalry? Mizzou fans would love nothing more.

It’s still funny to think how close the Big 12 was to a violent death. Now look at them. Their football seems to be in good shape and if the conference landscape were to change again, they now have plans for that too. If you are league commissioner Bob Bowlsby, life’s got to be feeling pretty good right now.

1. Going into last night, I thought Kansas was getting set to do terrible things to West Virginia. We instead saw a Jayhawks team playing with fire against an inferior opponent for the second time in their last three road games. They were able to scrape by Texas in Austin after trailing by 11 early in the second half, and KU was also supposed to drive a nail through the Mountaineers when they jumped out to a 22-7 lead yesterday. Should KU fans be concerned about these good-but-not-great performances outside of Lawrence? Look, if Kansas wins every game from now until the national championship by one point (it won’t happen, of course), then there’s no reason to be worried until a game or series of games are lost. Still…
2. The Big 12 conference gathered its 10 athletic directors in Irving, Texas, to discuss measures that would be taken in the case of more conference expansion among the power six conferences. Here’s where it gets interesting: Big 12 sources revealed that if the Big Ten expands again, then that league would likely pursue a list of Association of American Universities in the ACC such as Duke, UNC, Pittsburgh, Georgia Tech and Virginia. They also said that if the SEC were to get bigger, then they would pursue schools who aren’t currently in their footprint like the Virginia and North Carolina schools in the — you guessed it — ACC. Commissioner Bob Bowlsby reaffirmed that the league’s 10 current members are happy with this configuration but they want contingency plans  just in case. I’d really hate it if I read this article and my name was John Swofford, although Bowlsby also noted that the Big 12 is seeking a “friends with benefits” alliance with the ACC as well.
3. It was announced yesterday that Baylor guard Pierre Jackson had won Big 12 Player of the Week honors for the first time this season. Doesn’t it seem a little odd that this is the preseason conference player of the year’s first honor? It’s not like Jackson is having a bad year. He leads the Big 12 in scoring per game (18.7 PPG), is tied at the top in assists per game (5.9 APG) and is in the top 10 for free throw percentage and steals. Jackson averaged 19 points, four assists and two rebounds while connecting on 8-of-16 on three pointers last week. With four-time POTW winner Rodney McGruder coming on strong as of late, it looks to be a photo finish among those two for Big 12 Player of the Year.
4. Big 12 Rookie of the Week went to Will Clyburn of Iowa State who has been everything and then some for the Cyclones. Usually these weekly honors go to players who played well for a team that went undefeated last week. The Cyclones fell on the road to Texas Tech but Clyburn was still able to make a mark on this game by recording 12 points and 10 rebounds. It’s clear he won the award with his 24/10 effort in Iowa State’s win over K-State that finally gave them a win over a ranked opponent. This is Clyburn’s second ROTW of the 2012-13 season.
5. Here is a quote from Oklahoma State forward Kamari Murphy’s AAU coach about the freshman in 2011: “When he goes to Stillwater, he’ll be a freshman eligibility-wise, but a sophomore mentally.” So what prompted Murphy to say this via Twitter and then promptly delete it? Is he feeling disgruntled because he isn’t getting consistent playing time, or did he truly believe his tweet had no meaning to it? You decide. It’s just more bad press for a team that should be contending for second place in the Big 12 but instead finds itself living on the fringe in sixth place.

1. Six teams ranked in the AP Top 10 lost last week, including the nation’s soon-to-be former number one team, Duke. This begs the question: who deserves to become the new America’s Most Wanted? Jeff Eisenberg makes the case for three candidates: Michigan, Florida and Kansas. Based from sheer proximity to the top spot, Michigan appears to be the likeliest suitor. The Wolverines are a very talented team for sure and only have one loss (to Ohio State) on the season. Florida had two losses in a span of seven days in mid-December but it seems like long ago because the Gators have soundly beaten everyone on their schedule since. The Jayhawks are a unique squad. They have had close calls versus Temple and Texas but if there’s something they have on Michigan and Florida it’s that they technically don’t have a loss on the road or at home. It’ll be interesting to see how the writers and coaches vote in their respective polls due out later today.
2. When I started writing about Kansas pushing aside Oklahoma over the weekend, Pandora coincidentally played for me “It’s the Same Old Song” by The Four Tops. In many ways, it was a lot of that at Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday afternoon. The 67-54 victory marked KU’s 10th straight win over the Sooners overall, including the 12th straight at Phog Allen dating back nearly 20 years. OU had its chances to take control of the game; the Sooners were only down eight at the break and won the turnover battle, but the problem was that they only made 35% of their shots and no matter where you’re playing, you won’t win a lot of games shooting like that. We still don’t know much about how good a team Oklahoma is this season. There hasn’t been a game where you could point and say, “This was Oklahoma at its best against a team better than they are.” Good thing we’re still in January. 
   
3. I am about to attempt something unknown to mankind: Describing an important home win for Iowa State without saying a certain phrase. You know what these two words are — they rhyme with “Kilton Sagic”. The Cyclones rebounded in the best way possible from their defeat to Texas Tech, knocking off a reeling Kansas State team in Ames over the weekend. The game was won on the perimeter as ISU connected on 11-of-22 from outside while K-State managed to hit 7-of-19. While Fred Hoiberg has built his alma mater into a conference contender and hopefully NCAA Tournament regulars, I believe wins like the one against the Wildcats won’t have anything to do with the arena; the only “Magic” will be from the Cyclone players on the floor.
4. TCU’s the worst team in the Big 12 and they played a pretty talented one in Baylor on Saturday. According to head coach Trent Johnson, the Bears left quite an impression on his team. At the postgame presser, Johnson said, “This [Baylor] is the most talented team in the country. They’ve got length, they’ve got size, they’ve got quickness to the ball.” I understand that his team was just manhandled by the Bears, but Baylor’s not even the most talented team in the conference much less the country. At their best they’re probably a fringe Top 25 team but nothing better than that. Think about how bad it’ll be when TCU plays at Kansas this season. Wonder what Johnson will have to say then?
5. It’s time for our semi-weekly check-in on the thoughts of West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins. Early in Saturday’s game, the Mountaineers led Oklahoma State by 13 on the road, only to lose by 14. So after another disappointing loss, what could Huggins then say that hadn’t already been said? This will just about do it. “I’ve never had teams that after a timeout come out and don’t know what they’re doing, right after you showed them. It is guys who have played 19 games now this year, 30-some games last year. They’ve played 50 games.” When he’s talking about never having a team like this one in the decades he’s roamed the sidelines, it’s pretty serious. Upperclassmen whose production has declined from last year to this? Hard to picture it for a Huggins-coached team.

Thanks to the double dip of games on Big Monday and the Sunflower Showdown the following evening, Wednesday was rather light on the conference schedule. Like, the weight-of-a-leaf light. TCU-West Virginia and Iowa State-Texas Tech were match-ups that sounded like they were made for ESPN3,  yet there they were, soaking up precious air time on ESPN2 and ESPNU last evening. For fans of Big 12 basketball, it wasn’t a good night.

Iowa State played Tech’s game all night. (Stephen Spillman/The Avalanche-Journal)

West Virginia 71, Texas Christian 50: Everybody knew that the game of the night was down in Coral Gables. What I was hoping for was a close game between Duke and Miami so that the drama of that game would limit the opportunity to check up on that eyesore in Morgantown. As luck would have it, the game I wanted to watch didn’t go as planned but the one that I didn’t want to watch did. Oh, the horror.

Both teams lacked basic fundamentals. Ball-handling was spectacularly bad, fast breaks were poorly executed, and passing was hilarious in the saddest of ways. And I’m talking about TCU and West Virginia. If these schools just stayed where they were, this game would have been the Big East’s problem. TCU plays like they don’t deserve to be in a major conference. I’ll admit it: The Big 12 is having a bit of a down year but will the Horned Frogs win even one conference game this season? I don’t think so. What if they were still in the Mountain West, a conference that’s looking a lot better than several power conferences? I think, no I know, that they’d go oh-fer for sure. I hope Trent Johnson can turn things around and soon because no one deserves to root for a team that’s currently 344th out of almost 350 Division I schools in team scoring. West Virginia on the other hand has been playing better basketball as of late. They came into last weekend having lost three of four to start conference play but could have easily been 3-1 instead. They stunk it up against Purdue on Saturday so with TCU next up on the docket, it was a shoe-in for Bob Huggins’ team to get a W in the left hand column. Deniz Kilicli had his best game of the calendar year and a young guard to keep an eye on is Eron Harris. Huggins has rewarded the freshman with more minutes, and as a result, he’s averaging 15.3 points per game in his last three outings.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the first Conference Call of conference play! We are one full week into the Big 12 season and you can already put each team into one of four boxes: the you’ll-know-how-they-finish box (Kansas, TCU and Texas Tech), the disappointment box (Texas, West Virginia), the surprise box (Kansas State) and the don’t-know-where-to-put-them box (Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Baylor and Oklahoma). Today, we discuss the futures for some of these teams, some of the disappointing players and much more. 

Things have been a-ok for Bruce Weber and Kansas State (Associated Press)

1. Two of the league’s biggest disappointments, West Virginia and Texas, played an ugly basketball game Wednesday with the Mountaineers prevailing in OT. Which team will hear its name called on Selection Sunday?
2. Iowa State was a bank shot three away from picking up a huge win vs Kansas in Lawrence. What do we make of the Cyclones this season?
3. If you were to stop the season right now, which Big 12 coach would be the first to get fired?
4. Which player has been the biggest disappointment this season?
5. Divisional round of the NFL playoffs are Saturday and Sunday. Who ya got?

*****

1. Two of the league’s biggest disappointments, West Virginia and Texas, played an ugly basketball game Wednesday with the Mountaineers prevailing in OT. Which team will hear its name called on Selection Sunday?

• KC: Both teams will hear their names called on Selection Sunday when the NIT picks the scraps off the table. Even if you assume Myck Kabongo will return to his old self immediately next month, the Longhorns will be lucky to be above .500 at that time and Kabongo isn’t good enough to change that ship’s course. And again, that’s assuming he will be great from the get-go, and I don’t think that will be the case. With no marquee wins on the schedule, West Virginia probably needs 12 more wins this season — giving them 20 — to make the dance. You have to jump through a few mathematical hoops to find 12 more wins on their schedule at this point.
• DS:  I’d be surprised if either West Virginia or Texas even make the NIT. The first half of the season has been a disaster for both squads. It’s been so bad, in fact, that both teams are ranked outside of the top 100 in the RPI. I mentioned earlier this week that it’d be silly to even attempt to determine what Texas must do from this point forward to make the NCAA Tournament. That’s how far off the bubble the Longhorns are right now, and the same goes for West Virginia. Look at the Mountaineers’ “resume,” if you even want to call it that. There’s that one-point win against a Virginia Tech team that has lost four straight games by a combined 96 points. Oh, and Bob Huggins‘ team also beat a better-than-you-might-think Eastern Kentucky team at home. So there’s that, too. Texas, meanwhile, is hanging its hat on a home win over a North Carolina team that’s crumbling by the day, and Myck Kabongo won’t return from suspension until mid-February. There are Great West teams with more compelling CBI resumes than Texas and West Virginia right now. Well, almost.
• NK: Regardless of how this season was going to turn out for the Mountaineers, they weren’t going to be anything like last year’s team. That squad had Tournament-tested guys like Darryl “Truck” Bryant and Kevin Jones. Now with those players gone, Deniz Kilicli, Aaron Brown and Jabarie Hinds were supposed to assume bigger roles this season, but in turn, they are having worse seasons this year than last. For some reason, I can’t close the door completely on Texas. Javan Felix has proven he is more than just a back-up point guard in Kabongo’s absence. Though he needs to make shots at a higher percentage, Sheldon McClellan is a better number one option than anyone West Virginia has. I don’t think either team will make the Tournament now but I’d say Texas has better odds of making it than WVU.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. We were beginning to wonder about Ben McLemore a bit during his explosion against Iowa State on Wednesday night and so was his coach. McLemore wasn’t aggressive enough or at least enough to Bill Self’s liking. “[McLemore] doesn’t get himself plugged in,” Self said. Well coach, I think his 33 points on just 12 shots is about as “plugged in” as it gets. He tripled his scoring average of his two games previous (11.0 PPG) and made all six of his threes against the Cyclones. You almost forget that this guy was ineligible to play on last year’s team that lost to Kentucky in the national title game. If he had been eligible, there easily could have been another championship banner hanging at The Phog this season. They could still end up hanging another one but they’ll just have to wait until next season’s home opener to do so.
2. If we learned anything from Wednesday night’s game, it’s that Iowa State has set up a template for beating the Jayhawks. As Rob Dauster notes, Cyclones’ bigs aren’t your prototypical bigs. Guys like Georges Niang and Melvin Ejim can shoot from the outside which means Jeff Withey’s superb shot-blocking ability can be neutralized a bit (although he still had three blocks) when he isn’t hanging around the painted area as much. I think if Big 12 teams were to study this, it could work to their advantage. I look at a team like Baylor with seven-footer Isaiah Austin, who also has the tendency to play around the perimeter. If Austin is on his game, KU could find itself in trouble again.
3. The Los Angeles Athletic Club announced the midseason 25 candidates for the John R. Wooden Award which is college basketball’s most prestigious individual honor. The Big 12 had four players crack the list: Pierre Jackson, Ben McLemore, Marcus Smart and Jeff Withey. First impressions: the LAAC got ’em all right. The representatives went like this among power conferences: the Big East had five, the Big Ten had four, the ACC had three, and the Pac-12, surprisingly, had none. The SEC had two players on the list but both of them (Laurence Bowers and Phil Pressey) play for Missouri, so technically, the Big 12 would have had six players make the cut if the Tigers hadn’t jumped ship after last season. Think about that.
   
4. It’s no secret that WVU-Texas on Wednesday night was everything wrong about college basketball but what Bob Huggins said after his Mountaineers prevailed in overtime raised some eyebrows, if not just my own. “We had opportunities to pack it in and we didn’t when we got down [13] points and we were having a hard time scoring. Hopefully this kind of gets us back to being my kind of team,” Huggins said. I wonder if he actually believes that last sentence. I guess somebody has to, right? The Mountaineers struggled to reach 57 points even with an extra five-minute cushion to boot. All I know is that if Huggins is able to turn this season around, it would be the biggest “sike” in Big 12 history.
5. For the first time since guys like Blake Griffin and James Anderson suited up, the Bedlam Series matters again. Despite their recent slide, I feel good enough to say Oklahoma State will be an NCAA Tournament team by season’s end, but the wildcard in this analysis is Oklahoma. The Sooners didn’t play all that tough of a non-conference schedule so their losses aren’t all that bad, but they have the talent and coaching to go .500 in conference play, maybe better. But, hey, this is a rivalry game — all the facts and figures are supposed to be thrown out the window anyway.

1. After struggling last week, Ben McLemore proved to Kansas fans and all of us last night that he is gonna be juuust fine. His bank-three with 1.6 seconds left forced overtime with Iowa State, where eventually the Jayhawks took control and avoided their first loss in the conference opener in two decades. Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg had some interesting comments after the game. On the bank shot, Hoiberg said, “I wish it would’ve swished. I’d feel better about myself right now if that thing didn’t bank in.” I don’t know if that’s the alternative you really want, coach. Maybe I’m crazy, but if I were you, I’d rather he miss the shot. What a game nonetheless.
2. There was another Big 12 game that came down to a game-tying three and bonus basketball. The problem was that your eyeballs were in risk of a complete meltdown if you watched West Virginia and Texas duke it out to the end last night. Fortunately for you, Chris Flanagan of Hook’em Headlines survived to provide a quick breakdown of last night’s game. I’d like to think I can draw some positives from a game like this for UT but the facts are that Texas choked away a double-figure lead, couldn’t hit their free throws and will face Iowa State in Ames on Saturday. Eep.
3. In an interview with Oklahoma State’s student newspaper before Wednesday’s game, Marcus Smart opened up on the struggles of teammate Le’Bryan Nash. Ever the team leader, Smart said, “We need to find him in the post and give him the ball at times where he needs to get his confidence back. He is down right now, but that is partially my fault because, as a point guard, you need to know when and where to get players the ball.” Nash went 6-of-10 from the field for 13 points last night. I hope it’s a step in the right direction, because the guy’s too talented to be playing the way he has been.
4. Conference play has commenced which means it’s time for Andy Glockner to start up Bracket Watch once again. After feeling uneasy about teams through the first two months of the season, Glockner projects the Big 12 to receive six NCAA Tournament bids: Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. That is also as many as the Big Ten, Mountain West and Big East are projected to receive. The Big friggin’ East! That’s a major compliment, for this season anyway.
5. When we see good programs schedule cupcakes on their schedule (and they know who they are), college hoops and non-college hoops fans alike ask the question, “Does the regular season even matter?” Eamonn Brennan gives us his opinion which, like mine, is a definitive “yes.” The sport is doing fine as-is on the business side with CBS and Turner signing checks to the NCAA Tournament. Whether it’s Indiana-Butler or Indiana-Central Connecticut State, it matters a whole lot if either game is lost. We need to bury this hatchet already.

1. Sad news from the Oklahoma State family as Patsy Sutton, the wife of former basketball coach Eddie Sutton, passed away Tuesday at the age of 74. From everything I have heard about the late Mrs. Sutton, Patsy was loved and respected by just about everyone she has come in contact with. The Tulsa World gives a proper obituary for a woman described by her son Sean as “the steady hand” through “a lot of challenging experiences” for the family. Oklahoma State has been through a lot of heartache since the new millennium so we would like to send along our thoughts and prayers to the Sutton family.
2. If you look at the conference schedule last night, you’ll find there was just one game, pitting Baylor against Texas Tech. The reality is after tip-off, it wasn’t much of a game. The Bears dominated from start to finish. Pierre Jackson filled up the stat sheet, Brady Heslip was hitting treys, and Cory Jefferson was once again controlling the paint. Jefferson would get my vote for the conference’s Most Improved Player award if such an honor existed. With Scott Drew’s two-game suspension now over, the Baylor coach will return for Saturday’s game against TCU.
3. CBSSports.com has updated their freshman power rankings and you will find something fascinating about this week’s list — it’s the exact same as last week. Marcus Smart and Ben McLemore have had amazing seasons to this point, but the play of UNLV forward/”Monstar” from Space Jam Anthony Bennett kept the Big 12 representatives from climbing up the ladder. Smart (24 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 4.5 apg last week) won Big 12 frosh of the week honors Monday while McLemore (11 ppg, 4 apg) struggled a bit in Kansas’ two games last week.
4. My memory of the Jim Wooldridge era at Kansas State is when he had surgery to remove a bulging disc in his neck and literally coached his team with a neck brace on. While I laughed at how ridiculous he looked on the sideline, I knew it was definitely worse to watch for Wildcat fans. So what’s he up to now? Now he’s the head man at UC-Riverside, a program that has only been in the NCAA since 2001. The progress he has made as Highlanders coach doesn’t jump off the page but is noteworthy considering the circumstances. Plus, looking at the last 6 1/2 years, him not coaching at K-State anymore was probably for the best.
5. Robert Whetsell of Cowboys Ride For Free are growing concerned about the state of the basketball team, specifically about one of their superstars. Le’Bryan Nash has disappeared in the last four games (7.5 points per game on 11-for-35 FG) and since the step up in competition his absence has been more apparent. Whetsell has become so frustrated with the play of Nash that he has put his concerns into song form, which fortunately (or unfortunately) is only available in the form of lyrics and not a YouTube video.

1. The Big 12 offices have announced the player and freshman of the week awards for the first weekend of conference play. POTW went to Kansas State’s Rodney McGruder, who locked up the award by scoring 26 of his 28 points in the second half of Saturday’s win against Oklahoma State. It is hard to believe, but this is McGruder’s third such honor in the last six weeks. FrOTW honors went to another repeat winner: Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart. All he did was average 24 points, 4.5 rebounds, four assists. and two steals per game in losing efforts to Gonzaga and the aforementioned Wildcats last week. It’s not a crazy prediction to say Smart and McGruder will win these awards again before the season ends.
2. Last season, Anthony Davis dominated both ends of the court to take home National Player of the Year honors. But as Eamonn Brennan points out, Kansas’ Jeff Withey is hosting a bigger, more impressive “block party” so far this season than Davis did in 2011-12. Through the first 13 games of last year, Davis had 58 blocked shots while committing 29 personal fouls. Currently, Withey has 68 blocked shots and has committed only 16 personal fouls. To be a consistent shot blocker while avoiding contact and foul calls is pretty incredible. Davis finished last year with 186 blocked shots and 78 fouls, so we will definitely keep our eyes on Withey’s numbers going forward.
3. Kansas State received a verbal commitment from 2013 forward Neville Fincher this week. The Teaneck, New Jersey, native describes his game to the Kansas City Star as a defensive-minded player who blocks shots and rebounds with “a few [offensive] moves on the block.” According to ESPN, the three-star Fincher joins an already solid class with four-star point guard Marcus Foster and three-star shooting guard Wesley Iwundu coming to Manhattan as well. Fincher decided on the Wildcats over Marshall, Duquesne, Seton Hall, Houston, and Western Kentucky.
4. Iowa State has been able to regroup and recover over the past three weeks as they have only played one game, but at what cost? They will have to travel to Lawrence, Kansas, tomorrow for their conference opener against a Kansas team that is again the overwhelming favorite in the conference. As Cyclone Fanatic writes, if the Cyclones can weather the storm on Wednesday, they have the opportunity to start 5-1 in the Big 12 with subsequent games against Texas, West Virginia, Texas Tech, TCU, and a home date with Kansas State, which even he admits is “optimistic.”
5. Are you ready for some NIT bracketology? Yes, there is such a thing. Big Apple Buckets released its NIT S-Curve this week and two Big 12 schools made the cut. Iowa State is considered a #1 seed while Texas is slated as a #7 at this point. To put this in perspective, Iowa State is probably seen as a team that just missed the NCAA Tournament, and with its name recognition Texas was able to slide into an NIT bid despite a shaky record. What’s even scarier is that West Virginia of all programs isn’t even considered to be NIT material. I thought NIT bracketology would be kinda fun but now it’s just depressing.