Both Oklahoma and Texas have had their moments in the Big 12, but it would be fair to call them wildcards in recent seasons. Under Lon Kruger‘s leadership, the Sooners have finished as high as second in the conference (2015) and as low as ninth (2017). Under Shaka Smart‘s direction, the Longhorns have finished as high as fourth (2016) and as poorly as last place (2017). While the small sample caveat applies here, the early going this season has given both teams’ fanbases some reason to buy in to 2020.

Beating one of the worst teams in the Big Ten isn’t going to turn heads on a national level (nor should it), but the Sooners answered the bell over the weekend with a 71-62 semi-road win over Minnesota in Sioux Falls. Like most games around this time of year, a sloppy first half ceded to a 23-4 rager midway through the second half. Oklahoma is hardly a young team, but with the squad graduating five seniors last spring, cohesion was going to be an early question. To their credit, Brady Manek (16.5 PPG, 7.5 RPG) and Kristian Doolittle (10 points, 10 rebounds in his debut against the Gophers) have given Kruger a pair of leaders to which to turn, while Wichita State transfer Austin Reaves (17 PPG, 6 RPG) and sophomore guard Jamal Bienemy should be rotation stalwarts all season long. More tests are on the way, starting with tonight’s matchup against an Oregon State team fresh off a win over Iowa State, but more often than not Kruger can be trusted to get the most out of his players.

What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.

Welcome back college basketball, it’s good to have you back!

Kyle Tucker of The Athletic provided this glimpse into Bankers Life Fieldhouse prior to the tip of last week’s Kentucky/Duke game. Match-ups like these are what we all look forward to…

This building is buzzing. Kentucky-Duke tip is 9:58 p.m., looks like. pic.twitter.com/Sgt1NEXBYf

— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) November 7, 2018

While the game itself may have not lived up to expectations, the debuts of Duke’s R.J. Barrett and Zion Williamson most definitely did. Among their countless highlights of the night, this sequence will be tough to beat.

Zion and RJ out here toying with Kentucky…

(via @CBSSports)pic.twitter.com/igl3QwKxdM

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) November 7, 2018

College sports, where the wild and wacky often happens. Indiana opened its season in Bloomington while wearing their road crimson uniforms.

We're already making history in the first game of the season.@IndianaMBB is wearing crimson at home (for perhaps the first time ever) because of an issue with Chicago State's uniforms: pic.twitter.com/UPf1OVT7BF

— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) November 6, 2018

Why were the Hoosiers wearing their road uniforms at Assembly Hall? Well, Chicago State’s road uniforms were never delivered to them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Can’t guarantee that we’re going to do this every night this season — questions of sustainability and all that — but let’s try this to see what happens. From Opening Night:

Duke's big 3 Barrett, Zion & Reddish was phenomenal. Perhaps as strong a debut performance as we've ever seen, nearly outscoring UK by themselves. Their confidence + athleticism + ease in slicing Ky's defense for 1.44 PPP gave Cal his worst UK loss ever.https://t.co/yjOdTdQSU9

— Rush the Court (@rushthecourt) November 7, 2018

3. Lotta P6 chalk tonight, with a 41-1 record against non-P6 teams. The L was poor @baylorMBB, blowing a big lead to Tx Southern and new HC Johnny Jones to give the SWAC only its 2nd win over a power conf team in the last 3 seasons. Could be a rough yr in Waco.

— Rush the Court (@rushthecourt) November 7, 2018

5. Best story of night was in Austin as Andrew Jones saw game action just 10 mos after leukemia diagnosis. Rec'd huge ovation when he entered & played 9 mins, contributing 1s across the board (pts/rebs/assts/stls/fouls). Great to see him out there.https://t.co/QDUx9A2pbT

— Rush the Court (@rushthecourt) November 7, 2018

As RTC heads into its 12th season covering college hoops, it’s time to begin releasing our annual compendium of YouTube clips that we like to call Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball. These 30 snippets from last season’s action are completely guaranteed to make you wish the games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on Tuesday, November 6. You can find all of this year’s released posts here.

#8 – Where Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop Happens.

We also encourage you to re-visit the entire archive of this feature from the 2008-09, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17  and 2017-18 preseasons.

Yesterday, Big 12 microsite writers Brian Goodman (@BSGoodman) and Chris Stone (@cstonehoops) reviewed Thursday’s Big 12 match-ups. Today, they’re back to talk about the roads ahead starting on Friday for West Virginia, Kansas State and Texas.

CS: This is the fourth NCAA Tournament for Press Virginia and so far the Mountaineers have yet to make it past the Sweet Sixteen. That seems odd given how tough their defense is to prepare for. Do you think West Virginia can finally get over the regional semifinals hump this season?

Bob Huggins’ Mountaineers will need some help to make a deep run. (Washington Times)

BG: They certainly can, but it’s going to be a major challenge. The OVC was home to two of the top 15 teams in the country at generating turnovers — Tennessee State and Austin Peay — and Murray State won all three meetings with them. I like West Virginia’s chances to advance on Friday, but the Mountaineers’ pressure will not be anything new to the Racers and they’ve already proven they can win in spite of it. As far as the Round of 32 goes, West Virginia will likely have to contend with a Wichita State team that takes excellent care of the ball and crashes the defensive glass. Furthermore, the neutral environment in San Diego won’t swing the officiating in the same way it often does in Morgantown. And that’s just to get to the Sweet 16. If you can beat Virginia as West Virginia did earlier this year, you can beat anyone, but I don’t see the Mountaineers getting the requisite amount of help they’ll need to go any further.

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.

With less than 30 days to go until Selection Sunday, we were given an early look at what the top 16 NCAA Tournament seeds would look like as of now…

#MarchMadness Top 16 Seeds!
1. Virginia
2. Villanova
3. Xavier
4. Purdue
5. Auburn
6. Kansas
7. Duke
8. Cincinnati
9. Clemson
10. Texas Tech
11. Michigan State
12. North Carolina
13. Tennessee
14. Ohio State
15. Arizona
16. Oklahoma#BracketPreview (as of today) pic.twitter.com/qn967GDjvY

— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) February 11, 2018

While the bracket preview gives us a sneak-peek look inside the process, Jay Bilas was quick to express his views that the bracket preview only gives us an early look into an incredibly flawed system…

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.

Saturday was an utterly wild day around the world of college basketball. With Duke and Kansas losing in the early afternoon (to St. John’s and Oklahoma State, respectively), Kentucky dropping a game to Missouri a little later than that, the nightcap featured an Arizona team trying to avoid joining the group of illustrious programs with a loss on the day. After tying things up late, it all came down to this…

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/960025983825801216

A few days prior to calling the Michigan State/Indiana game, ESPN analyst Dan Dakich took to Twitter to claim that Miles Bridges “has no game.” Dakich would then go on to say that his comment meant Bridges’ game might not translate well to the next level. It raises the question, though, why can we not appreciate college players for being great college players?

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s Trending is a column examining the week that was in college basketball social media. Matthew Eisenberg (@matteise) is your weekly host.

This week the world of college basketball was dealt a blow when the Texas released a statement saying sophomore guard Andrew Jones had been diagnosed with leukemia.

Statement from the family of @UTAustin sophomore G Andrew Jones: "After undergoing a number of tests & evaluations over the past week, Andrew has been diagnosed with leukemia. He has begun treatments, and we hope everyone will keep him in your thoughts & prayers. …. (cont)

— Texas Basketball (@TexasMBB) January 10, 2018

Just a few hours after releasing that statement, Texas then had to take the court against a highly-ranked TCU team. The game came down to the final play in double-overtime.

This is how TCU lost to Texas in 2OT tonight. Brutal. pic.twitter.com/4g1J6S2olD

— Justin Russo (@FlyByKnite) January 11, 2018

The emotion on the face of Shaka Smart and everyone on the Texas basketball team was evident at the end of the game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Friday Figures is a weekly feature where we look at some of the most intriguing statistics from the Big 12. This week, we’ll focus on the league as a whole, what losing Andrew Jones means for Texas and the breakout season of Iowa State‘s Nick Weiler-Babb.

The Big 12 is as good as ever. Despite plenty of turnover last offseason, the league once again looks like by far the best — read: deepest — conference in college basketball. According to KenPom, a team expected to finish .500 in the Big 12 would have an adjusted efficiency margin of +18.14, a full two points higher than the next best league. That mark would also be the third-highest margin for a conference in the KenPom era behind the 2003-04 ACC and last season’s Big 12. There are certainly valid criticisms of this year’s Big 12 centered around the Final Four potential at the top of the league, but there are also feasible arguments that every team in the league could be on the NCAA Tournament bubble this March if things fall their way. It appears that the fears of the Big 12’s demise were greatly exaggerated.

Andrew Jones is expected to miss significant time for Texas. (Image source: Steve Dykes/Getty Images)

What life without Andrew Jones means for Texas. The Longhorns’ sophomore guard is out indefinitely after suffering a broken wrist against VCU, which is concerning given how poorly the team performed offensively without him in a loss to Michigan earlier this week. Jones was the lone player shooting well for Texas this season, connecting on 43.2 percent of his three-point attempts. Only one other player on the roster is shooting better than 30.0 percent from deep and the team made just 5-of-20 threes against the Wolverines. While poor shooting is a concern, the Texas offense over the last two seasons actually hasn’t been any worse without Jones on the floor on a points per possession (PPP) basis:

Read the rest of this entry »

1. We were surprised to hear that Charlotte had fired Mark Price yesterday morning partly because we had almost forgotten that he was coaching there and that it is still so early in the season. It turns out we weren’t the only ones who felt the same way as Price also was reportedly stunned (presumably just for the firing part) by the sudden announcement. The former Georgia Tech great finished with a 30-42 record in a little over 2 seasons including a 3-6 start this year. The firing might not be that surprising given Price’s record since we still consider Charlotte a decent program, but they haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2005 so we aren’t exactly sure what they are planning on doing with the extra three months searching for a coach.
2. Louisville isn’t a top 25 team right now, but they still manage to make plenty of headlines. The two most recent stories are its counterclaim to Rick Pitino‘s suit and meeting with the NCAA to appeal the sanctions levied against them for the escort scandal (you know, the scandal before the FBI one). The first story is interesting because it is a response to Pitino’s claim that he is owed $38.7 million by the school. The school has responded by suing Pitino for money they are having to repay for NCAA Tournament appearances as well as bonuses paid to Pitino for those wins and other associated bonuses. Like we said before, the only people who are going to get rich off this are the lawyers. The latter story is essentially the school begging the NCAA to let it off without taking away its NCAA title and a host of other penalties that they probably don’t care about as much.
3. Texas was off to a decent start in the third year of the Shaka Smart era going 6-2 with its only losses coming to Duke and Gonzaga, but was dealt a fairly significant setback on Monday when it announced that Andrew Jones, its leading scorer at 15.3 points per game, was expected to miss several games with a fracture in his right wrist. It is unclear when Jones, who sustained the injury at the end of a win over VCU, will come back, but it is not expected to be a season-ending injury. If he is out an extended period of time, the Longhorns will need to find another scoring option as they lost the first game of his absence, 59-52 at home against Michigan
4. We aren’t sure why Villanova does not get the same media attention of other top-tier programs (maybe it is the result of having its games stuck on a network that routinely features teams from schools we have never heard of), but you could argue that they have been one of the top five programs in the country over the past five seasons even when you factor in the three second-round exits sandwiched around its 2016 title. Perhaps that is why players like Mikal Bridges tend to go under the radar for all, but the college basketball diehards. As Dan Greene notes, that might not be an issue much longer for Bridges as he has quietly transformed himself into lottery pick. It will be interesting to see who becomes the go-to-guy for Villanova (Bridges or Jalen Brunson) as the season goes on. Before the year started, we would have said Brunson without hesitation, but now it might not be that clear.
5. We hadn’t really thought about the case of former Yale basketball player Jack Montague, who was expelled in 2016 for sexual misconduct, since he left the school, but his name resurface this week with the news that he had enrolled at Belmont. Montague, who was the captain of the team, was expelled for an incident that occurred in 2014 in which he claims that he did not hear that the woman asked him to stop. He is suing the school to reinstate him and allow him to complete his degree as he claims that the woman’s complaint was the result of a Title IX officer coercing her to file the complaint. Montague used up all of his eligibility so he won’t be playing for the Bruins, but his admission has led to quite a bit of controversy on campus with several individuals questioning whether he should be admitted to the school.