Although Kansas fell just short against Duke in the finals of the Maui Invitational last week, the Big 12 still voted Kansas forward Thomas Robinson as its Player of the Week. Robinson played like a man possessed during the tournament and kept the Jayhawks competitive in spite of their rough point guard play (Tyshawn Taylor’s 11 turnovers against the Blue Devils). He grabbed 15 rebounds to help give the Jayhawks a +5 margin in the game. We all knew this would be Robinson’s breakout year, and he certainly showed his potential last week.
By now, you’re probably also familiar with the tragic story of Robinson’s personal life. The forward lost three close family members last winter, and the aforementioned article is a reflection of the emotion surrounding his situation. No matter who you pull for– even if it’s Missouri— it’s hard not to root for Robinson, who’s had to overcome such a great deal of adversity to continue playing for the Jayhawks. It’s amazing Robinson is still on the court much less grabbing 15 rebounds and dominating the competition.
And speaking of dominating the competition, Chris Babb did that last week en route to earning Big 12 Rookie of the Week honors. Babb also made the All-Tournament team for the South Padre Invitational. In three games last week, he made 13 of 25 three-pointers, seven of which came against Rice in the tournament finals. The Cyclones haven’t been tested yet (yes, they did lose to Drake on the road), but this is still a team to keep an eye on as the season progresses, and Babb obviously looks like one of their leaders.
An update on the Oklahoma State plane crash: a preliminary crash report shows nobody made any emergency calls before the plane went down earlier this month, killing four people (two of which were members of the OSU women’s basketball coaching staff). It could apparently still take as long as a year to figure out exactly what happened and what caused the crash, but it appears weather was not a factor.
ESPN’s Andy Katz reflected on last week’s college basketball action in an article published on Monday, and he gave Missouri a little love. Katz said “Mizzou looks like the best team in the Big 12 early in the season,” and it’s hard to disagree with that assessment after the Tigers beat down Notre Dame and California in the CBE Classic by a combined 58 points. We will still need to find out how Frank Haith‘s team plays on the road, however, before we make any sweeping judgments.
Here’s a look at the power rankings that Drew and I have compiled after the third week of Pac-12 games. Here we go!
T1. California, 5-1: The Golden Bears hold steady for the third straight week after going 2-1. The week started with a solid 70-46 thrashing of Georgia, but as good as that game was, the next one was ten times worse. In front of a heavily pro-Tiger crowd in Kansas City, Missouri dominated California, 92-53. The 39-point loss was one of the worst in school history, and as coach Mike Montgomery prophetically said after the game, “We really didn’t have much going.” California ended the week with a 21-point win over Denver on Saturday. Up Next: 11.28 vs McNeese State
"We're down by 39, I don't even care!" (credit: Ben Margot)
T1. Stanford, 5-1: The Cardinal are tied at the top after a great week in New York City. After a 15-point blowout win over Oklahoma State (Which was never really that close), Stanford hung with Syracuse all afternoon before falling, 69-65. Despite the loss, the Cardinal proved that they will be a force to reckon with in the Pac this season. Up Next: 11.28 vs Pacific
T3. Oregon State, 5-1: The Beavers concluded their ten-day road trip with a 1-1 record. They started off the week on Monday with a heartbreaking, two-point loss against Vanderbilt. The Beavs did not play again until Saturday (A 66-46 win over Towson), but they used the week on the east coast to visit New York City and spend time with the First Family.Up Next: 12.4 vs Montana
T3. Washington, 4-1: The Huskies had just a single game this week after their devestating loss against Saint Louis last Sunday. They were able to wash a little bit of the bad taste out of their mouths on Friday with a 23-point beatdown of Houston Baptist. Sophomore guard C.J. Wilcox led the Huskies with 19 points. Up Next: 12.2 @ Nevada
T5. Oregon, 3-1:The Ducks made sure their only game of the week was a good one as they marched into Lincoln, Nebraska and stole a seven-point win over the Cornhuskers. Nebraska is no pushover in the Big 12 and has already defeated USC earlier in the year. Up Next: 11.29 vs UTEP
T5. Arizona, 4-2: The Wildcats’ lone loss in week three wasn’t a terrible one, but for a conference that is trying to build a reputation from the ground up, the 61-57 loss at the hands of San Diego State is just another step backward. It was also Arizona’s second loss in a row, going back to last Friday. Up Next: 11.29 @ New Mexico State Read the rest of this entry »
Less than 48 hours after Kansas and Duke played the game of the season to this point in college basketball, the folks at Rock Chalk Talk have provided a statistical breakdown of the game. Once you sort through all the numbers, one stat in particular jumps out: turnovers. When you consider that Tyshawn Taylor turned the ball over 11 times himself, it becomes even more remarkable that the Jayhawks took the Blue Devils to the wire. If Taylor fixes his issues, Kansas will have no problem competing for an eighth-straight Big 12 title.
For all the talk about the death of rivalries like Kansas/Missouri and Texas/Texas A&M, it is easy to forget that West Virginia, the Big 12’s newest member, will actually end rivalries of its own by moving from the Big East. With WVU set to take on Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl, the Mountaineers face the same issues as the aforementioned teams. The two schools have been playing for more than a century, but the football game between them appears in jeopardy. The same scenario may play out in basketball, where the rivalry is just as heated. Just as we have clamored for Kansas and Missouri to work out their problems and continue the Border War, consider this a plea for West Virginia to do the same. Rivalries are just good for college sports in general.
In other news involving a future member of the Big 12… TCU‘s Craig Williams has just one more shot to get it right. The Virgin Islands Daily News sat down with the senior, a native of the territory, to discuss his time with the Horned Frogs. After transferring from Temple, Williams will now attempt to help coach Jim Christian turn the program around before it moves from the Mountain West to the Big 12. He may never appear in this conference, but he has a chance to start something special at TCU. The Horned Frogs, by the way, are 3-2 right now, having lost by double-digits to Norfolk State and Mississippi in the Paradise Jam.
With both national polls set to release on Monday, it will be interesting to keep an eye on where Missouri finds itself. The Tigers were considered a fringe top-25 team before the season, but after beating Notre Dame and California by a combined 58 points in the CBE Classic, they could be looking at a top-10 ranking. The scary thing is that Missouri will not have to face a tough opponent until December 6 when it faces Villanova, so it should continue its winning ways until then at the very least. How high could these Tigers rise?
And as Missouri jumps in the rankings, so does the popularity of coach Frank Haith. Considered a poor hire by almost everybody back in the spring, Haith did not make any new friends this summer when Nevin Shapiro accused him of acknowledging an illegal payment to a recruit at Miami. After the CBE Classic, however, Haith has probably made friends in every city in Missouri. He’s a rock star now. Funny how winning fixes a lot of things.
Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-12 conferences.
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Problem Children – The overriding theme in the Pac-12 thus far this season has been problems: chemistry problems, behavioral problems, injury problems, and probably problems on top of those problems. (You know how when you repeat the same word a lot you realize how weird it sounds? Problem is a weird word.) The most high-profile of all these categories has been a handful of student-athletes around the conference creating problems for their teams out of thin air. The Reeves Nelson meltdown at UCLA has been the most high profile, with Jabari Brown’s premature defection from Oregon not far behind, but elsewhere around the conference there have been issues as well. At UCLA, senior point guard Jerime Anderson, a guy who should have been in a leadership position for this team, got busted for stealing a laptop this summer, pleading guilty to a couple misdemeanors and was suspended for two games (including one exhibition game) at the start of the year. On the same squad, ultra-talented big man Joshua Smith came back to the team this year ultra-big, looking as big or bigger than the 300+ pounds he showed he was unable to play at last year, then followed a loss to Loyola Marymount loss by making a fool of himself on Twitter. Over in Arizona, Sean Miller has had troubles of his own with freshmen Josiah Turner and Sidiki Johnson. Johnson is currently suspended, while Turner has displayed some chemistry problems of his own, causing him to be banished to the bench for a game by Miller. In short, aside from some bad basketball on the court, there have been a handful of players around the league making negative headlines off the court as well.
Problem Programs – Nobody really expected the Pac-12 to be a great conference this season, but the expectation was that it would be roughly as good as last year and primed for a big upswing next year with a batch of new highly regarded freshmen joining the talented youngsters currently littering conference rosters. Instead, through Tuesday night’s games, the conference had posted a combined 30-18 record, had just one remaining team (Stanford) still sporting an undefeated record and had a handful of teams in line for the title of worst BCS conference team. UCLA’s losses to Loyola Marymount and Middle Tennessee State have been well-documented, while USC’s 36-point disaster of a performance, in which enough bricks to build several wolf-proof houses were produced, is an excellent example of basketball at its ugliest. Nevertheless, as bad as UCLA and USC have been, one could easily envision both of those teams as middle-of-the-Pac contenders in the conference. That alone should tell you how bad the bottom of the conference is, but if further explanation is needed, look no further than Arizona State and Utah. The Sun Devils dropped a game at home to Pepperdine (a team that will challenge for the basement in the WCC) while Utah squeaked by NAIA also-ran San Diego Christian College (seriously, that’s a team that was 8-22 last year and lost 15 of its last 16 games) by three points before getting drilled by Boise State and losing to Montana State. As bad as the Pac-12 is, this Utah team is far and away the worst team in the conference.
We have to start our Turkey Day post by getting right to the team that Pac-12 fans are currently thankful for, the last remaining undefeated team in the otherwise underachieving conference, Stanford. The Cardinal continued their strong start Wednesday night with a thorough 15-point handling of a solid Oklahoma State squad in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score. Senior forward Josh Owens continued his strong start with 21 points on 10-12 from the field, while below-the-radar point guard Aaron Bright had 15 points on 6-9 shooting, with three three-pointers mixed in there. Further exciting Cardinal fans is the continued emergence of freshman guard Chasson Randle, who played his best game of his young career, scoring 17 points, including three threes of his own. However, while OSU was a step up in competition for Stanford, they should be prepared for another big jump in the talent level of their opponent, as they face RTC’s #5 team in the nation, Syracuse, on Friday afternoon in the championship of the NIT Season Tip-Off.
Elsewhere in the conference Wednesday night, there were two more losses coming from among the four teams considered to make up the top tier of the Pac-12 prior to the season, as UCLAcontinued its disasterous season with its fourth loss on the young season and Arizona dropped its second straight. The Bruins lost by 16 to Michigan in Maui to mercifully end their trip with only a throw-away win over Division II Chaminade and some Hawaiian Airlines frequent flier miles to show for their effort. Meanwhile the Wildcats had their 22-game home winning streak broken by a game San Diego State squad. If there was a bright spot for Arizona, it was their freshman backcourt duo of Josiah Turner and Nick Johnson turning in double-digit performances. While Johnson has been solid from the get-go in Tucson, Turner has had his much publicized struggles. However, he is improving almost every time out and could have his breakout performance in the near future. On the down side for the Wildcats, however, Sean Miller spoke about the Sidiki Johnson suspension following the game and noted that Johnson did not return with the team to Tucson and remains in New York. Miller said that he and Johnson “have an agreement and if he meets this agreement, he could potentially be reinstated.” However, Miller then added, “he could also be dismissed.” Asked later is he was optimistic about Johnson meeting the agreement, he simply said, “no.”
After California’s 39-point loss to Missouri on Tuesday night, Golden Bear fans had to be asking themselves: “Does this really look like a team capable of winning the conference championship?” Upon further research by Jeff Faraudo, no team from any incarnation of what is now the Pac-12 conference (i.e., the Pac-10, Pac-8, AAWU or PCC) dating back to 1950 has ever lost a non-conference game by as many as 39 points and gone on to win the conference championship. Maybe, given the possibly historic weakness of this year’s Pac-12, that streak can be broken. And maybe Tuesday night was simply a matter of a Cal team playing a poor game against a Missouri team that could do no wrong. Still, that was just another in a long line of black eyes for conference teams this season. After Wednesday night, the conference is 33-20 thus far on the season.
There is not a whole lot of hope around the conference thus far, but one team that has inspired confidence among its followers, Oregon State, will get its own dash of hope this weekend. The Beavers and head coach Craig Robinson are in the Washington, D.C. area this weekend for a match-up with Towson on Saturday, and, of course, will be spending some time visiting with Robinson’s brother-in-law, some guy by the name of Barack Obama. The Beavers spent some time Wednesday with the First Family working at a food bank in the D.C. area, and will get a chance to visit the White House likely on Friday. And, while we’re on the topic of the Beavers, I would be remiss if I didn’t point you in the direction of Rob Dauster breaking down Jared Cunningham’s defensive work against Vanderbilt’s John Jenkins the other night. Great read and great analysis.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m going to make sure I keep this post relatively positive. I’m not going to link to Bruin fans absolutely losing it over their team’s oh-for-Division-I start. I wouldn’t possibly send you in search of those same Bruin fans ripping Ben Howland’s personnel decisions (like Norman Powell, Anthony Stover and Brendan Lane are going to turn this team back into a Pac-12 front-runner). And I certainly wouldn’t encourage anybody to take a look at SB Nation’s power rankings of the eight Division I programs in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, in which UCLA is a distant sixth, behind (among others) a Pepperdine team that may finish last in the WCC, a Cal State Fullerton team that already lost to Houston Baptist this season, and a USC team that scored 36 points in losing to Cal Poly. Nah, you don’t want to read those. Go enjoy some turkey instead. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
The Lede. After winning its first four games by an average of 22 points, people expected California to not only compete with Missouri, but beat them on Tuesday night. However, that was far from the case, as the Tigers never let up in the CBE Classic championship,winning 92-53. Like California, Missouri was relatively unknown coming into this game due to their lack of quality opponents. However, a 14-5 run midway through the first half gave the Tigers some initial seperation, and they would just keep building and building that lead as the night wore on.
California guard Jorge Gutierrez led the Bears with 11 points against Missouri (credit: Ray Carlin).
Even though the final result was awful, in the end it is just one game amounting to one loss. Cal fans should be thankful that it was against a Top 25 team like Missouri instead of Loyola Marymount. The Tigers’ mix of an explosive four-guard offense and tenacious half-court trapping on the defensive side is something that the Bears won’t see in Pac-12 play, luckily. Read the rest of this entry »
Forget the controversial hiring of Frank Haith or the ensuing scandal in connection to his Miami days. Forget the Laurence Bowers injury or the Mike Anderson departure. Missouri put every criticism to rest this week with two blowout victories in the CBE Classic. It was stunning enough to watch the Tigers dismantle a consistent Notre Dame program by 29 points on Monday. The Irish are young, but they’re trying to replace Ben Hansbrough and they probably just got overwhelmed by an experienced MU team. Right?
Kim English Took Four Charges -- In One Half
But one night later– after Missouri then beat Pac-12 favorite California by 39 points — there were no good words to describe the Tigers’ performance. They’ve been brilliant. CBE Classic MVP Marcus Denmon scored 26 points against the Irish and managed 18 against the Golden Bears. Even in a relative “off-night” (6-13 overall, 2-8 from three-point land) against Cal, he still finished with four assists. Revitalized senior Kim English led the team with 19 points, but more impressively, he took four charges in the first half. MU shot 58% from the floor during the tournament, tallied 30 team assists and dominated the defensive end by forcing turnovers. The Tigers had run away with both games by the second TV timeout.
Another night, another underwhelming set of outcomes around the conference – and that’s me being generous. Let’s start things out in Kansas City, where California got absolutely drilled by Missouri in the championship game of the CBE Classic, losing by 39 points in a game that was equally mismatched in both halves. Not only could the Golden Bears not get anything going offensively, they had no chance of stopping the Tigers on the other end of the court. Mizzou held Cal to a 31.6 effective field goal percentage on the game, posting a 68.6 eFG% of their own, partly a result of some easy shots generated by the 21 turnovers the Tigers forced. Not only was Cal senior guard Jorge Gutierrez harassed into four turnovers and 4-11 shooting, but sophomore wing Allen Crabbe was held to just 1-8 from the field, and the Cal frontcourt was wholly incapable of taking advantage of an undersized Mizzou front line. The Cal loss leaves Stanford as the sole remaining undefeated team in the conference, with the Cardinal prepping for some tough matchups in New York in the NIT Season Tip-Off beginning tonight.
From the middle of the country, let’s head to the middle of the Pacific, where another preseason conference favorite was getting whooped at the hands of another Big 12 school, as UCLA fell by 16 to Kansas in the semifinals of the Maui Invitational. Unlike the Bruins’ first two losses of the year, at least this time out they showed a little bit of fight, coming back from a 20-point deficit to cut the lead to as little as five late, before the Jayhawks woke back up and strode back out to the final margin with ease. Reeves Nelson played 28 minutes, although he is still coming off the bench in the wake of his recent behavioral issues, but showed the good emotion that gets his teammates inspired rather than the negative emotion that helps deflate his teammates. And then there’s sophomore center Joshua Smith who fouled out in 13 minutes of play, scoring one point and grabbing one rebound. That’s an absolute crime for a guy as talented as he is.
The good news of the night for the conference was USC handling Morgan State at home by three and needing last minutes heroics by Maurice Jones and Aaron Fuller to seal a comeback from a 15-point deficit. It was a surprisingly efficient offensive performance for both teams, as each team shot over 50% from the floor, but the difference was the Trojans forcing Morgan State into 21 turnovers. Junior college transfer Greg Allen, a highly-regarded three-point shooter, scored 14 points for the Trojans, including 3-5 shooting from deep, accounting for his first points at the Division I level. With the limited offensive firepower on this USC team, Allen could be an important piece this season for Kevin O’Neill.
Oregon travels to Nebraska tonight for a matchup with the Cornhuskers (6:00 PM PST, Big Ten Network), and they’ll do so without freshman guard Jabari Brown, who quit the team this past weekend. Head coach Dana Altman still maintains the door is open for Brown’s return, with no deadline for a final decision from the youngster. In the meantime, however, the Ducks have a replacement for Brown’s minutes just waiting, as Devoe Joseph, a transfer from Minnesota, regains his eligibility on December 10. The irony that they’ll be replacing a guy who quit on his team in the middle of a season with another guy who quit on his team in the middle of the season isn’t lost on anybody. There was good news for Oregon, however, as X-rays on the injured right ankle of 6’11” center Tony Woods proved negative, and while Woods’ status for the Wednesday night game is still unknown, he at least is well enough to make the trip to Lincoln.
In the wake of Washington’s first loss of the season to Saint Louis on Sunday, head coach Lorenzo Romar plans to clamp down a little on the freedom he gives his players on the offensive end. After the Huskies struggled executing their halfcourt offense, Romar plans to use that game as a learning experience, saying that “offensively now guys probably won’t have get as much freedom… to take chances and experiment.” It’s a fine line for Romar, as his team’s offensive strengths are in an open court, up-tempo system, but at the same time, the Huskies need to make sure they are taking good shots, something that was obviously not the case at times on Sunday. On the injury front, junior wing C.J. Wilcox, who suffered a concussion during the loss on Sunday, did not practice with the team on Tuesday and remains a question mark for Friday night against Houston Baptist.
The most stunning November development in the Big 12 so far is the play of Missouri, which simply demolished Notre Dame and California in the CBE Classic this week. ESPN’s Jason King had an instant analysis of last night’s 92-53 thumping of the 18th-ranked Bears, who figured to pose a real challenge to the Tigers with their size and discipline. Cal coach Mike Montgomery could only shake his head as MU embarrassed his players for 40 straight minutes. Even without much bulk in the frontcourt, Missouri’s speed looks overwhelming, and it is passing the ball as well as it ever has. Looks like coach Frank Haith is doing something right so far.
MU’s archrival Kansas has also enjoyed a productive two days in the Maui Invitational. KU knocked off Georgetown and UCLA to qualify for the title game against Duke tonight, partly thanks to the play of Elijah Johnson, who had a career high 23 points in the win. Tyshawn Taylor and Thomas Robinson get a lot of the credit as the go-to players on this Jayhawks squad, but Johnson looks like a potential breakout candidate after his excellent performance. As Chad Ford mentions in the article above, maybe Johnson even has an NBA future as well.
Now, let’s bring Missouri and Kansas together for a moment: this article in the Columbia Missourian applies to football, but it speaks to the overall state of the Border War rivalry right now. Even KU football players want to keep playing against MU, which begs the question: Why can’t they? We still have to think this will all get sorted out at some point. Right? It’s the Border War, after all. Somebody’s got to figure something out to keep it alive after Missouri joins the SEC.
Moving away from the MU/KU topic, let’s now turn to Texas Tech, which is actually off to an undefeated start under new coach Billy Gillispie. One blog has a detailed analysis of the Red Raiders’ early-season play, although it’s very early to make comprehensive judgments. That’s especially true for a team as young as Gillispie’s. We’ll find out a little more about TTU in the Old Spice Classic during Thanksgiving weekend.
Finally, in sad news, authorities are still trying to determine how the plane carrying two members of the Oklahoma State women’s basketball coaching staff crashed last week. It appears weather wasn’t an issue, so the cause of the crash is a complete mystery at this point. Officials are expected to release a preliminary report soon, so hopefully we’ll get our answers in the coming days. The main thing here is to figure out the cause so it never happens again. OSU has been through this sort of thing twice in the last decade now, and that’s two times too many for any school to have to handle.
Evan Jacoby is an RTC columnist. You can find him @evanJacoby on Twitter. Night Line will run on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that day’s slate of games.
When forward Laurence Bowers suffered a season-ending ACL injury in an early practice this season, the preseason buzz surrounding Missouri was quieted a bit. Anytime a team loses its second-leading scorer, it’s a big blow, but Bowers was especially important because of his role as one of the few inside scoring threats on the team. He was also their leading returning rebounder and shot-blocker. But Frank Haith’s Tigers have adapted well to his injury, deciding to go with a four-guard starting lineup in order to get their most effective players on the court regardless of size. The result? Mizzou, under its new and somewhat embattled head coach, is now 5-0 while thrashing Notre Dame and California at the CBE Classic to the tune of 29- and 39-point wins, respectively.
Guard Kim English is Excited About Missouri's Hot Start (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Saying that Missouri has been impressive through five games is a massive understatement. They just stomped on unbeaten No. 18 California, perhaps the best team in the Pac-12, by 39 points. No, that’s not a typo; thirty-nine points. How’d it happen? For this team, when it rains, it pours, and the Tigers have been liquid from the perimeter all year. Coming into tonight’s game, Mizzou had already been one of the most efficient offensive teams in the nation, averaging 84 points per game while shooting 50% from the field. Those numbers will improve even more after the 92-53 beatdown they just gave to Cal. During the ESPN2 telecast, Dick Vitale noted that the Tigers truly love sharing the ball. There’s nothing that makes a guard-heavy attack run smoother than such a trait. If selfishness could slow the Missouri offense down, unselfish passing makes it go. And Missouri is in full ‘go’ mode early on this season.
