With a couple of weeks of games in the books, we can start getting a good gauge on Big 12 teams this season — not a great gauge this early, but good enough. The three Big 12 writers — myself, Danny, and Nate — will publish our conference power rankings every week. While a team that loses usually drops a few slots in the AP or Coaches Top 25 poll, that might not be the case here. The best teams (in our opinion at least) up until that point in the season will be on top. But don’t expect things to remain stagnant with this group of teams. There aren’t many guarantees other than TCU being pretty bad. Each of our top 10’s will be averaged out with any ties going to the higher ranked KenPom team. We’ll also try to mix it up a bit each week with a theme facing each team — this time around, we examine a player stepping up for each squad, someone who maybe wasn’t expected to shoulder as much of the load as he’s done so far this season.

1) Oklahoma State (5-0, 0-0 Big 12)
Previous Ranking: 6

Oklahoma State makes its debut at No. 1 on our list with a nice win over North Carolina State.

Last Week: W 81-51 vs. Portland State

This Week: Saturday @ Virginia Tech, 2:00 PM CST

• Rundown: With the return of sophomore guard Le’Bryan Nash and the introduction of freshman point guard and former five-star recruit Marcus Smart, the Cowboys are 5-0 with an impressive upset of then No. 6 North Carolina State on November 18. It’s enough for them to begin the season atop the list.
• A Player Stepping Up: Junior G Markel Brown: Brown has been a nice complement to the underclassmen duo of Nash and Smart through five games this season. He’s averaging 14.6 PPG, 5.2 RPG, and 2.2 APG including a season-high 23 points on opening night against Portland State.

2) Kansas (5-1, 0-0)
Previous Ranking: 1

Last Week: W 78-41 vs. Washington State, W 73-59 vs. Saint Louis

This Week: W 70-57 vs San Jose State, Friday vs. Oregon State, 7:00 PM

• Rundown: The Jayhawks should have beaten Michigan State a few weeks ago but struggled down the stretch, eventually losing, 67-64. They’ve also looked less than impressive at times against subpar competition at home. Southeast Missouri State got within striking distance in the second half, Chattanooga held an eight-point halftime lead, and San Jose State lost by only 13 on Monday night in Allen Fieldhouse. Bill Self will have this group improved by conference play, but for now, they’re going to continue to be inconsistent while the freshmen get acclimated.
• A Player Stepping Up: Senior G Travis Releford: The senior guard was named Big 12 Player of the Week last week after averaging 20 points in wins over Washington State and Saint Louis in the CBE Classic. Never a true first or second option on offense, Releford is Bill Self’s go-to defender on the perimeter and he’s a nearly automatic in transition.

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1. Some degree of normalcy has returned to Austin. For a night anyway. As most Texas games have gone this season, last night’s win over Sam Houston State was uh-guh-ly. They defeated the Bearkats by 28 but it was far from a typical blowout. The Horns shot 40% from the floor, though I guess it looks better than SHSU’s 21% shooting. They came into last night’s game averaging a Big 12-high 19 turnovers a game and, wouldn’t you know it, UT turned it over 19 times. A win is a win but in this case, is it? The Longhorns have struggled to put the ball in the basket lately and haven’t held on to the basketball. Simply put, for the thousandth time, they need Myck Kabongo back.
2. Bill Self was none too pleased with his Jayhawks’ performance on Monday night against San Jose State. When asked about his team’s play during the Spartans’ 16-0 second-half run, Self said, “I’ve seen bad offense before — third-and-fourth grade YMCA basketball with no good ball reversal and bad ball-handling. Our offense surpassed that tonight the last 12 minutes of the game.” Considering how they looked against Michigan State, in stretches against SJSU and Chattanooga, and Oklahoma State’s quick ascent to the top, you start to wonder if KU can really win this league again. But wondering is all I will do because I don’t want to be the guy dismissing the Jayhawks so soon when history has told us not to. Better safe than sorry.
3. Marcus Smart sure is making a name for himself early. CBSSports.com released its freshman of the year and player of the year power rankings for this week and Smart is one of two freshmen (the other is Kentucky’s Archie Goodwin) to be on both lists. Smart is a player Clark Kellogg would call a “stat-sheet stuffer.” With an ouput of 13.4 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.8 dimes, 2.4 steals, and 1.4 blocks per game? I’d say he’s deserving.
4. One of the big surprises in the league: West Virginia has started the season 1-3. But are they 1-3 because they’re not very good or are they a product of their own scheduling? I tend to give Bob Huggins-coached teams the benefit of the doubt when he has over 700 wins to speak for his talent. At least he’s not afraid of scheduling tough opponents, though, unlike some coaches. Playing at Gonzaga is pretty close to a death sentence. Davidson and Oklahoma on a neutral floor could have been Ws. My brain is telling me that the Mountaineers will come back around when conference play starts up in a little more than a month, because the last and only time he had a team finish under .500 was in 1984-85 with Akron, his first year as a head coach.
5. If ya haven’t heard, Texas Tech is a perfect 4-0 on the young season. A big part of the Red Raiders’ quick start, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal says, is junior Dejan Kravic. The article mentions one play the 6’11” Kravic had against Jackson State. He stood at the top of the key, ball in hand, then made a move with a crossover dribble before hittin a bank shot under duress from a Tiger defender. If the idea of a big guy pulling off a crossover dribble isn’t intriguing enough, then what in the world is? Head coach Chris Walker says being physical on the floor “is not in his nature” and believes “he is only going to get better.” We’ll see how he fares against a long and athletic interior from Arizona on Saturday.

West Virginia is not the worst team in the Big 12. Far from it. And yet there’s no team in the league right now with a worse record than the Mountaineers, who have lost three of their first four games and own a sole victory against Marist in the Old Spice Classic’s consolation bracket (hey, that’s more than Vanderbilt can brag about). If not for that one win, it’d have been fair to call the tournament in Orlando a Thanksgiving disaster for Bob Huggins‘ team, especially on the heels of that embarrassing season-opening loss to Gonzaga by, what was it, 700 points?

West Virginia Is Enduring an Early Losing Skid

With three transfers playing major minutes and a remade roster after losing Kevin Jones and Truck Bryant, nobody expected November and December to be easy for West Virginia. You’ll also hardly see a power-conference team play a schedule like this in the opening weeks of the season. It’s no secret how good Gonzaga or Davidson are, and Oklahoma’s no slouch this season either. Still, we expected to see Huggins’ team embody a completely different mentality. He openly admitted after bowing out early in last season’s NCAA Tournament that he had never coached such a poor defensive team. That was after a blowout loss to those same Zags — and sure enough, seven months later, it happened again in the 2012-13 season opener. Different team, but more of the same issues (GU hit 52% from the floor including nine threes).

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1. Life is not fair. At all. Need evidence? After missing most of 2011-12 with an ACL injury, Oklahoma State’s JP Olukemi will now miss the rest of his senior season with another knee injury. This was supposed to be a year of celebration for Olukemi, who earned an NCAA waiver to play his final semester this winter after months of controversy. Instead, his future is now uncertain after this nightmarish scenario. We all remember when Robbie Hummel injured his knee a second time, but Olukemi might not get another chance to lace up the sneakers. That’s tragic for a guy who’s been through hell and back so far already.
2. Get comfortable, Bob Huggins (as if he weren’t already). West Virginia announced yesterday that it has signed the head coach to an extension through 2022-23, six years past the term of his original deal. This is a no-brainer for the school, no matter how bad Huggins’ team looked against Gonzaga in its season opener. And we’d be willing to bet almost anything Huggins will stick around through the duration of this deal, considering he’s a hometown kid and alumnus of the school. More importantly, he once left behind Michael Beasley and Bill Walker at Kansas State to coach in Morgantown. Need any more proof? Huggins For Life in Morgantown.
3. If you’re tuning into Oklahoma’s showdown with UTEP in the opening round of the Old Spice Classic this afternoon, listen for a ruckus in the stands. That’s probably freshman Buddy Hield‘s family, which is making the trip to Orlando to celebrate Thanksgiving and watch some hoops. He apparently hasn’t seen a few of his siblings in almost two years, so, in that case, the louder the better! Hield’s not a bad player, either. The Bahamas native and coveted high school prospect went off for 17 points against UT-Arlington last week.
4. Finding an amicable split between coach and school in college basketball is about as rare as finding two divorced people who still get along. It just doesn’t happen. Usually, when a coach gets fired or leaves on bad terms, there’s a bloodbath. Ask a Kentucky fan how he/she feels about Billy Gillispie, and you’re likely to get a slew of curse words thrown your way. That’s why it’s so refreshing to read about how Iowa State and former coach Greg McDermott found a way to cut ties with each other and then find success with alternate paths. The Cyclones didn’t fire McDermott, but after a fairly unsuccessful tenure in Ames, he bolted for Creighton before things got really ugly. His old school hired a Cyclone legend in Fred Hoiberg and made the NCAA Tournament within two years, and McDermott found a cozy gig with a basketball-crazy program and now coaches his son (who happens to be an All-American) with good talent surrounding him. It could not have worked out better for either party.
5. Meanwhile, things are not working out well for Richard Hurd, the former Baylor basketball player sentenced to 18 months in prison. Hurd pleaded guilty in September for attempting to extort former Bears’ quarterback and current Washington Redskin Robert Griffin III. He told Griffin he’d release negative information unless the star NFL prospect gave him a million dollars. You’re not really allowed to do that under our legal system, of course, so he’ll spend some hard time in prison somewhere in Texas.

1. Sometimes, you find ridiculous things on the Internet. This is one of those times. We’re linking you to this article not because we believe the writer has any credibility in claiming Rick Barnes should face the hot seat, but rather because his wild assertion only reinforces that Barnes’ job should not in any way be on the line at this point. Losing to Chaminade is bad. Losing to Chaminade by double figures is indefensible, and losing a second game in Maui to USC in overtime isn’t very impressive, either. Myck Kabongo or not, Rick Barnes has had about as disastrous of a start to the 2012-13 season as humanly possible. And he’s still not even close to losing his job. The funny thing is, this article actually supports our point in the opening paragraphs by listing all of Barnes’ accomplishments and crediting him as the face of Texas basketball. Should have probably just stopped right there. Barnes is flawed, and he’s not Coach K, but he’s done one heck of a job in Austin for a long, long time. We owe it to the man to let him work with this team of freshmen and sophomores and see what he can do when (or if) Kabongo returns.
2. Bob Huggins is always great for a soundbite, but he’s actually rather disappointing in this article. Instead, he keeps it real. Fair, but real. He’s not happy with this West Virginia team, but you don’t get the sense he’s panicking in any way. “I thought our returning guys would do a better job, but the honest to God truth is we started three of them who haven’t played,” he said, referring to transfers Juwan Staten, Matt Humphrey and Aaric Murray. Right now, the whole program needs to step it up for Huggins. It’s not really an issue of the transfers not acclimating themselves, but rather that West Virginia still hasn’t returned to that Huggins-like identity of rough and tough basketball. It was a problem a year ago, and the returning players haven’t embraced the defense and rebound-oriented style. Yet. Give it a few months and they may come around.
3. Kansas State didn’t think it’d be facing Delaware at the Garden this week. The NIT Season Tip-Off does it right, though, and does not simply advance the top seeds from regional sites to New York City. Delaware beat Virginia in Charlottesville, so Delaware plays at the Garden. Fair is fair, people! Virginia may have been a more difficult task, but Monte Ross is quietly building a solid CAA program out East. The Blue Hens won eight straight games to close the 2011-12 regular season and have an experienced core of upperclassmen playing with nothing to lose. The Wildcats won’t be able to stroll along in this one.
4. We’ve been laughing for months at the people gushing about Marcus Smart, since they anointed him the king of college basketball before he ever played a game. Well, after the whole Puerto Rico title thing, we’re joining the gushers. Smart was flawless, and here’s a detailed look at just exactly how good he was. By the time Smart finishes his college career — whenever that is — the kid might have become a legend. He’s the kind of mature, humble superstar the world loves to get behind.
5. Good day for Fred Hoiberg. He picked up a top-100 guard in Monte Morris earlier this week, landing a Michigan native who could have played just about anywhere in the country. Oh, he’s a smart kid, too, with a 3.6 GPA and took a look at Princeton. That’s what you want out of your point guard, and hey, he’s not a Division I transfer! See, Hoiberg really can do the traditional recruiting thing.

1. Josh Gray might be one of the more important players in this league (to his team, we mean). It seems odd, but Texas Tech‘s point guard situation was so awful a year ago that Gray seemed almost like a savior of sorts entering his freshman season. A coveted recruit from Louisiana, Gray has played well in a limited two-game window and aready has drawn praise from his head coach. Chris Walker likes the way he’s progressed since the beginning of the summer, and it’s hard to disagree. In two games, Gray scored in double figures and dished out four assists both times, tallied a combined six steals and even grabbed seven rebounds against Nebraska-Omaha. The competition stiffens when Texas Tech lines up against Arizona on December 1, but that’s not a terrible way to start a college career.
2. I have absolutely no idea where I’ll be in two years or what I’ll be doing, but Kansas State does. Exactly two years from today, it’ll play in the 2014 Maui Invitational, along with Arizona, Pittsburgh, San Diego State, Missouri, BYU, and, of course, Chaminade. That seems like a stacked field right now. But for all we know, in two years, Arizona will be a cellar-dwellar in the Pac-12, BYU will have joined the America East and Chaminade, fresh off that win against Texas last night, will have transitioned to Division I. Point is, congratulations to Kansas State for entering this prestigious tournament. Even if it’s not for 24 more months.
3. In yet another addition of Take Away the Practice Gear, Bob Huggins decided to do just that after West Virginia’s embarrassing defeat to Gonzaga last week. College coaches have engaged in this practice since the caveman days, and we’re still trying to put our finger on the exact psychology behind it. As Keaton Miles puts it, “he was saying we played as individuals and he is trying to get us to earn the WVU on our chest and that we represent a state that takes pride in its basketball.” We’ll go with that.
4. Believe it or not, Travis Ford’s Oklahoma State program had not cracked the Top 25 until this week, just a day after slamming North Carolina State and winning the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. That’s fairly surprising considering the early success and NCAA Tournament appearances Ford enjoyed with the Cowboys. The polls don’t mean much at this point, but it has to be refreshing for Ford to see his team ascend to #20 after that landmark victory over the Wolfpack. For a coach supposedly on the “hot seat,” this is a big deal.
5. You may have noticed that Kansas beat Washington State by, like, 150 points last night. Three players scored in double figures: Perry Ellis, Travis Releford and Ben McLemore. Notice that last name on the list. McLemore, a redshirt freshman fresh off a 25-point performance against Chattanooga, scored 11 points and probably has the potential to do a whole lot more damage. If you’re bored and want to break down exactly how McLemore scored those 25 points this weekend, here’s a good look at his offensive output so far this season.

Well, that seemed oddly familiar. Seven months after Gonzaga ended West Virginia‘s 2011-12 season in the most embarrassing of fashions in a 77-54 NCAA Tournament beatdown, the new-look Mountaineers hardly looked new at all. They unraveled in the first few minutes of their season opener — also the first game on ESPN’s 24-hour Tip-Off Marathon slate — and wallowed to an 84-50 loss Monday night (or was it Tuesday morning)?

Gonzaga Took It Right to the Mountaineers… Again (Jed Conklin — AP)

It was bad. Real bad, across the board. Before anybody hopped up on coffee and Five Hour Energy could blink an eye, Gonzaga led 17-2. That lead got to 27 at halftime, and, as Billy Packer once said a little bit prematurely in a certain Final Four game, “this game is ovah” at that point. Players were visibly frustrated, body language was poor and coach Bob Huggins seemed to have no answers. Offensively, his team was a mess. That’s understandable after losing Kevin Jones and, probably more evidently on Monday night, point guard Truck Bryant. Dayton transfer Juwan Staten and Jabarie Hinds combined for just two assists against five turnovers, and the team totaled only eight overall assists. Aaric Murray, a newcomer from La Salle with major pro potential, scored 14 points in his debut, but that hardly mattered. The Mountaineers couldn’t initiate any open looks, and they missed everything. We mean everything. Three-of-26 from three-point land is not very pretty to open the year. Boston College transfer Matt Humphrey, known for his perimeter shooting, finished 1-of-7. Hinds was 1-of-6. It didn’t help that the Bulldogs executed very well offensively after a rather sluggish start, as four Gonzaga starters finished in double figures.

And that’s all you really need to know about West Virginia’s season opener. Playing in unfamiliar territory in the state of Washington, the Mountaineers looked about as culturally shocked as humanly possible in The Kennel. The crowd was fierce, the place was amped and Huggins’ team did not respond well. It’s clear his reclamation project will take time. He has new guards to break in, a new centerpiece on offense in Murray and a lot of sophomores trying to adjust to new roles. You know Huggins will have this team in the hunt for the NCAA Tournament by February. Unfortunately, after this debacle, it’s fair to wonder whether Huggins’ program will ever get that swagger back on the defensive end and on the boards. It lost that identity a bit a year ago — especially against Gonzaga in the NCAA Tournament — and it certainly did not return today.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll bring you the obligatory team previews here at the Big 12 microsite. West Virginia at the #5 position is next on our list. 

The Skinny

2011-12 record: 19-14, 9-9 Big East

Key Contributors Gone: F Kevin Jones, G Darryl “Truck” Bryant

Head Coach: Bob Huggins, 6th season

Projected Finish: 5th

Huggy Bear is Back (AP)

Bob Huggins is back in the Big 12, and that’s nothing but good news for the conference. The former Kansas State head coach bolted for West Virginia in 2007 and is back after the Mountaineers joined the conference along with TCU this summer. His one year stint in the Big 12 in 2006-07 could help his team’s transition. Or not. “I don’t know,” Huggins said when asked about his familiarity in the league. “I know where to eat.” Huggins is just funny enough and just somber enough that you never quite know if he’s being serious or cracking a joke, like when he talked about the new round-robin schedule that will take him to every Big 12 campus this season. “I didn’t get to go to Lubbock,” he said of his 2006-07 season at Kansas State. “I almost wanted to stay so I cold get to go to Lubbock the next year.”

Huggins’ acrimonious remark towards the West Texas town was dead on to anyone who has been there, and it’s a reminder to Big 12 fans that the conference has personality again, like the days when Norm Stewart and Johnny Orr and Billy Tubbs roamed the sidelines and wrote writer’s stories with their quotes. Huggins might not be so familiar with Big 12 locales, but he is familiar with a tough basketball league. He battled Louisville, UConn, and Syracuse for conference titles in the Big East. Now he’s faced with Kansas, Baylor, and Texas. Getting to those schools won’t be easy, either. “They asked me who our rivalry in the conference was going to be,” Huggins said. “I said it’s probably Iowa State, they’re only 853 air miles away.” Travel nightmares notwithstanding, the Mountaineers seem equipped to battle the Big 12’s top teams on a yearly basis. They’ve won 24 games a season every year Huggins as been in Morgantown. But like a lot of programs in the conference, they face a fair amount of roster turnover in their opening season, losing the top two scorers off last year’s team.

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1. With the election now in the rear-view mirror, Matt Norlander over at CBSSports.com wondered if the presidential race was decided by states with the best basketball programs. Norlander’s sample size is comprised of his site’s preseason top 26 because he felt it wouldn’t be as compelling if states like Alaska, Hawaii or Wyoming were put on a level playing field with say, Indiana and Kentucky. It was a close “race” between the number of red states and blue states but the electoral vote count will remind you of the results from Tuesday. It is also worth noting that each of the Big 12 teams in their top 26 are in red states. I’m just saying.
2. USA Today Sports‘ Eric Prisbell and Nicole Auerbach give us a list of coaches with the most to prove this season and two of them are Kansas State’s Bruce Weber and Oklahoma State’s Travis Ford. While these coaches do have some work to do this year to justify their positions, they’re at different levels on the totem pole. Weber is in his first year of a new job while Ford is a bad season away from losing his job. The article also lists UConn’s Kevin Ollie as another coach with a lot of pressure this year, so if you’re going to list guys who have limited head coaching experience with limited time with which to work, Chris Walker of Texas Tech would be as good a candidate as any.
3. We now know how long Oklahoma State forward Michael Cobbins will be sidelined. Travis Ford announced he’ll be out “about a month” after suffering an injury in Monday’s exhibition victory versus Ottawa University. Le’Bryan Nash threw an alley-oop pass to Cobbins but the pass went over his head and he fell on an Ottawa player. This, of course, is bad news for a coach already without two key pieces in his rotation — Phillip Jurick who is still recovering from an Achilles injury and J.P. Olukemi who is dealing with a knee injury. Guard Brian Williams, of course, is also out for the season. Get well, Cowboys.
4. Tuesday night West Virginia dominated its exhibition game like any good program, beating Glenville State, 95-53, and head coach Bob Huggins isn’t happy. As a team the Mountaineers shot 50% from the floor, Deniz Kilicli dropped 19 in an efficient 8-for-10 shooting night, Aaric Murray had 13 points, nine boards, and two blocked shots, while Juwan Staten had 16 points, six dimes and zero turnovers. So what does Huggins think? “We’re going to look at how we didn’t run any offense.” Riiiight, coach. I see what you did there.
5. Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale are two of ESPN’s most visible college basketball personalities and while they have had moments of disagreement over the years, they have finally agreed on one thing: Oklahoma and Lon Kruger are on the rise this season. I don’t like the fact that Kruger doesn’t stay at places very long but what Vitale says is true: He can flat-out coach. Take a good coach like Kruger, the returns of Steven Pledger and Romero Osby, the arrival of Amath M’Baye, an emerging point guard in Sam Grooms, and I believe they will hear Greg Gumbel call their name out on Selection Sunday.

1. Jeff Borzello and his CBSSports.com companions near the end of their Preseason Top 25 +1 Countdown with a look at the Kansas Jayhawks. KU is going to finish the regular season as Big 12 Champions. There’s no point in fighting it anymore. It’s as much of a sure thing as Steve Spurrier getting a daily round of 18 in or Skip Bayless uttering something nonsensical. The only reason Borzello has a “Why This Team Will Disappoint” section of the preview because he has to. I’m sure the Bible has a passage that reads, “Thou shalt doubt not Bill Self.” Check again, it’s in there.
2. Burnt Orange Nation released its full Big 12 preview yesterday. When making our own predictions here at the microsite, we came to the conclusion that predicting three through eight in the league was a total crapshoot. They have Texas ranked second in the league behind the Jayhawks, much like the mid-2000s. Their all-Conference team has the names you’d expect but a couple of their honorable mentions are from squads that will appear to finish at the bottom of the league. They aren’t as crazy as you’d think.
3. The Remember the Miners Scholars Program is announcing the release of the Huggins Horrible Hankie. What fans can do with the “Triple-Hs” is wave them around (a la the Terrible Towel; forget that I just used a Pittsburgh reference) at West Virginia sporting events. The program’s Honorary Chairman is West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, who provides financial aid to miners, dependents of miners, and students pursuing an education in the world of mining. We all know mining is a major part of the Mountain State’s identity, so if you would like to get yourself a hankie or if want to know more about Remember the Miners, do check out remembertheminers.org.
4. The Pistols Firing Blog has now hit number eight on its player-by-player countdown. Forward Kamari Murphy was the topic yesterday and he’s definitely going to get his share of attention as a freshman starter for the Cowboys. His high school coach at IMG in Florida was particularly high on him, and I am too, despite Travis Ford complaining about Murphy not doing enough with the ball when it’s in his hands. I hope Ford’s trying to keep Murphy under the radar now just so he can have a chance to surprise us all toward the end of the year.
5. The Collegian just ran a story on the best player in the Big 12 that nobody’s talking about. Rodney McGruder was the top scorer from last year’s Kansas State squad and he leads a team with the experience of playing a bunch of big games under their belt. I have the Wildcats finishing fourth in the Big 12 and that has a lot to do with no important losses from the program other than Frank Martin’s departure. In fact, I’ll even go as far to say that K-State could be a sleeper team to make the Sweet Sixteen this year.