And then there was one. After Iowa State’s close loss to Ohio State and Kansas’ strong second half win over North Carolina on Sunday, only one of the Big 12’s five NCAA Tournament teams remained through the end of the first weekend. Oklahoma State played the best 12 seed in tournament history (Oregon) and got bounced. Kansas State forgot what time its game against La Salle started and apparently didn’t begin playing basketball until the second half — when it was too late. Oklahoma fell victim to San Diego State’s vicious defense. Iowa State got Crafted by Ohio State. Those locker rooms were surely quiet in the aftermath of those losses. Stunned, probably. Everybody thinks they’re going all the way — or at least have the ability to win a game or two in March — but for four Big 12 teams, the dream has ended. Once the disappointment fades, it’ll become apparent that most of these teams massively overachieved. Here’s our first look at Oklahoma’s 2012-13 campaign:

Lon Kruger Turned Things Around in Norman (Las Vegas Review)

Final Record: 20-12 (11-7)

The Expectations: We touted Oklahoma as a potential sleeper pick on this microsite, but we were never very serious about it. With Lon Kruger at the helm and strong roster continuity due to an abundance of returning starters and contributors, the Sooners just seemed like the perfect candidate to surprise some people. Still, with as poorly as this team played at times a year ago, nobody dared predict Kruger’s team to do big things. The head coach would get this program rolling one day, sure, but it wouldn’t be this year. There were just too many question marks. Could they figure out how to score beyond Steven Pledger, last year’s leading scorer? Would their bigs improve? Would any of the freshmen guards contribute and actually provide some adequate depth? It seemed there were some decent parts for Kruger to work with, but this looked like the quintessential NIT roster.

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1. The search has begun for Texas Tech‘s next head basketball coach, but this is hardly a typical situation. One of the top candidates for the job is, um, the guy who coached the team this year. Chris Walker won only 11 games at the helm with the Red Raiders this season, but the league’s coaches praised him often for the way he dealt with the aftermath of the Billy Gillispie fallout. It would be silly to judge Walker based solely on his performance as an interim, so you’d have to think he’ll at least get a fair shot at landing the full-time position. The other names listed in the early portion of the search are, at the very least, intriguing: Scott Sutton (Oral Roberts), Doc Sadler (current Kansas staff member and former Nebraska head coach), Steve McClain (former Wyoming head coach and highly-regarded, longtime assistant currently with Indiana) and Barry Hinson (Southern Illinois). Sutton’s probably the best candidate of those choices, but he seems to have made a lifestyle choice to stay at Oral Roberts. Sadler didn’t fare well at Nebraska, McClain’s tenure at Wyoming ended poorly, and Hinson’s team finished in last place in the Missouri Valley this season. Surely, other names will emerge. You would have to hope so.
2. Imagine this: Marcus Smart, Markel Brown, and Le’Bryan Nash playing another year together in Stillwater. Banners would be hung. Numbers might be retired. Championships might be claimed. But for that to happen at Oklahoma State, the trio would need to skip the NBA Draft this summer. That might be a tough proposition. Smart’s projected as one of the top picks in the 2013 NBA Draft. Brown’s considered a first-rounder. And Nash might be a second-rounder. If for some reason they did all return, we’re talking about a team with limitless potential. “It’ll be scary,” Nash told The Oklahoman. 
3. Texas had a bad season. Then it played in the CBI and lost to in-state opponent Houston. Rick Barnes obviously wasn’t very happy, so when reporters asked him whether he would ever consider scheduling the Cougars during the regular season, he took a bit of an elitist tone. He said he’d only play them at home in Austin, which is unfortunately a sentiment you often hear muttered by power-conference college basketball coaches. The aforementioned link is pretty snarky and critical, but it has a point. Teams like Texas often say they have nothing to gain by playing a team from a perceived “lesser” conference on the road, but it makes life impossible for non-BCS schools in terms of scheduling. It hurts potential rivalries, kills fan interest, and deprives people of solid basketball during non-conference play.
4. Sorry, awkward teenagers in Lawrence, Kansas: your middle school dance has been cancelled during the Kansas Jayhawks’ Sweet 16 game against Michigan. Probably a good idea, since there surely wouldn’t have been anybody there. Now, they will need to make sure they don’t reschedule the dance for Sunday, when a possible Elite Eight game could be played. Oh, and don’t schedule it for April 6 or April 8, either. You know, just in case.
5. We leave you on one final note: former Kansas State basketball player Dick Stone has passed away. He was a star in the 1950s, but at the age of 78, he was killed on Thursday in Florida when a man driving a pickup truck swerved into his parked car. Very tragic and very sad, and not the best way to end the Morning Five.

Brian Goodman is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after the Round of 64 NCAA Tournament game between #4 Kansas State and #12 La Salle in Kansas City. 

Three Key Takeaways:

1. Explorers hang on after furious Kansas State comeback. La Salle hit their first three-pointer to start the game and used a balanced attack to race out to a 15-4 lead six minutes into the game. Kansas State’s offense eventually got out of neutral, but the Explorers had an answer seemingly every time and went into the locker room with a 44-26 lead. So what changed at the break?  After an ineffective first half, Thomas Gipson was pulled out of the lineup and replaced with Jordan Henriquez, a more active big man than the bulkier Gipson. Henriquez made an instant impact, collecting offensive rebounds, freeing Rodney McGruder and Shane Southwell with screens and going up strong whenever he had the ball close to the hoop. On defense, he was just as controlling, swatting shots and forcing La Salle to change angles mid-drive, and the Wildcats erased the Explorers’ 18-point lead in 13 minutes. The Wildcats led late in the game until … 
   

   Jerrell Wright did a little bit of everything for La Salle Friday afternoon. (AP)

2. The Wildcats unraveled in the final thirty seconds. While going up for a rebound, Henriquez committed a tough but decisive foul, going over Jerrell Wright’s back. Wright calmly buried both free throw attempts in front of a hostile backdrop to retake the lead, and Henriquez missed a close look on the next possession. After fouling again, Wright hit one of two free throws to give Kansas State one last shot. La Salle forced Angel Rodriguez to drive awkwardly along the baseline and missed the close look, though Weber tried to call timeout.
3. Contrary to the halftime deficit, Kansas State showed signs of life late in the first half. The Wildcats had a disappointing first half, but Weber’s team did score 15 points in the final 7:30 in the first half, led by Shane Southwell’s sharp outside shooting. Getting stops was the issue, as Ramon Galloway, Sam Mills and Jerrell Wright kept answering. Fortunately, that late offensive efficiency carried the wave in the second half, but to say that a comeback came out of nowhere would be to lose sight of the fact that it could have easily been a much steeper mountain to climb for Kansas State.

Star of the Game: Jerrell Wright – 21 points, 6-of-6 FG, 9-0f-10 FT, eight rebounds, zero turnovers. Wright gave Kansas State’s defense headaches throughout the first half, playing a vital important in the Explorers’ hot start. Though Wright isn’t immune to criticism in dissecting the Wildcats’ comeback, he’s also deserving of plenty of credit for hitting three crucial free throws in a hostile environment to propel La Salle to a third game later this weekend. Credit also goes to Jordan Henriquez, whose double-double in the losing effort gave Kansas State every chance it needed.

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1. It isn’t official but it does feel like it’s really over. Perhaps yesterday’s loss to the Oregon Ducks was the final game of Marcus Smart’s brief and eventful career at Oklahoma State. He arrived on campus with a lot of hype and he was worth every bit of it. But where does that leave Travis Ford and his program? For such a successful regular season to end suddenly in the round of 64, he’ll hop back on the hot seat. What if Le’Bryan Nash or Markel Brown decides to leave for the pros too? They have a solid recruiting class coming in but it seems unlikely for those freshman to plug in those huge gaps. Uneasy times in Stillwater.
2. Friday is essentially “Big 12 day” at the NCAA Tournament as the league’s four remaining teams will be in action. Two of those teams will do very little traveling (maybe none?). Kansas and Kansas State played at the Sprint Center for the Big 12 Tournament and now have the tough task of playing there again for the Friday/Sunday sessions. KU stands as the top seed in the South Region and there is extra intrigue here as a win today could set up another Roy Williams v. Jayhawks match-up in the round of 32. Due to recent developments (hi New Mexico), the Wildcats would have an easier road to the Final Four if they can get by Gonzaga in the Sweet 16. Or if Wichita State upsets Gonzaga tomorrow, it’d be an all-Kansas regional semifinal in Los Angeles. It is March, it could happen.
3. I guess we should get used to saying this: Iowa State is once again in the tournament. While it wasn’t a given they’d make it here even a month ago, one player who has helped their way in is forward Will Clyburn. As you may now, Clyburn is a transfer from Utah but he didn’t start his college career like most recruits did. He had a growth spurt during his senior year of high school but his height-strength ratio scared off most recruiters. Clyburn chose to enroll at Marshalltown Community College in Iowa. He became a gym rat, fine tuning his game and eventually transferred to Utah after successful freshman and sophomore campaigns. Now he’s the leading scorer (15.0) and rebounder (7.1) for Iowa State. How did you let him get away, coaches?
4. As Oklahoma preps for its second round game against San Diego State, we finally got into the mind (a bit) of their nomadic head coach Lon Kruger. Any coach will tell you how difficult it is to build chemistry on a team so imagine how much harder it’d be if the coach that recruited you leaves for another job before you graduate. “But then every place we’ve been we’ve never looked for another job or asked for another job. It’s just worked out OK with different moves for different reasons. We’ve been pretty fortunate,” Kruger told the Norman Transcript. I tend to believe that that’s a bunch of hooey. One of his former players, Steve Henson, mentioned how Kruger interviewed for the head coaching job at Texas right after his sophomore season. (Kruger ended up leaving for Florida after Henson’s senior year.) That’s not to take anything away from what he’s done in his second year in Norman but you or I shouldn’t be surprised if he up and leaves OU all of a sudden.
5. In case you didn’t know that there was basketball being played outside of the NCAA and NIT tournaments, the Texas Longhorns participated in the CBI on Wednesday night. They took on their old rivals from the Southwest Conference, the University of Houston Cougars and ended up losing to UH 73-72. To add insult, top recruit Julius Randle, who considered Texas in his recruiting process, announced for Kentucky earlier in the week. Hopefully this is the last straw of a season where everything went wrong for Texas. And somewhere in the Northeast, current commissioner of the “old” Big East Mike Aresco is cracking open some champagne for all the wrong reasons.

1. On the Eve of the NCAA Tournament’s first day, five-star 2013 prospect and McDonald’s All-American Julius Randle committed to Kentucky over Big 12 schools Texas and Kansas as well as Florida. The #3 overall recruit was rumored by some to be headed to Lawrence and Bill Self but he decided to join what has now been called the greatest recruiting class (on paper) of all-time. The Wildcats have commitments from four top-2o recruits and have four players who are the #1 high school player at their respective positions. Randle enrolling at Kansas would have made the Jayhawks one of the handful of national title favorites next season. Self is already bringing in the nation’s #2 overall recruiting class, led by top 30 prospects Brannen Greene and Wayne Selden, and the Jayhawks are still in the hunt for the #1 player in the class, Andrew Wiggins.
2. Here are 68 reasons to love the NCAA Tournament, from Bobby La Gesse of the Ames Tribune. He immediately brings up the #16 over a #1 prediction, which would be fun to see this year. Western Kentucky has the best chance to pull off the monumental upset, according to Vegas, as the Hilltoppers are 20-point underdogs against Kansas. While such a major upset seems impossible, the 20-point line has been overcome before. Last season, #2 seed Norfolk State was a 21.5-point underdog when it took out #2 seed Missouri in the Second Round.
3. La Salle advanced past Boise State in a First Four game last night, and the Explorers will face #4 seed Kansas State on Friday in Kansas City. Jeff Borzello at CBSSports.com thinks La Salle’s small lineup could be poised for a run in the Tournament. Guys like Ramon Galloway (21 points against Boise State) will play key roles against the likes of Angel Rodriguez, one of the backcourt leaders for Bruce Weber’s Wildcats. If Kansas State can pound the ball inside, the Wildcats should win comfortably, but if it becomes an uptempo game ruled by guard play, the Explorers might have the advantage.
4. Want to know why your favorite team won’t win the national championship next month? Check out Andy Glockner’s piece here. He briefly explains why 67 Tournament teams won’t cut down the nets next month in Atlanta. He dismisses the #9-#13 seeds altogether (Sorry, Oklahoma and Iowa State), and he doesn’t like #5 Oklahoma State’s draw with Oregon in the Second Round. Kansas‘ point guard struggles scare Glockner, but he admits to picking the Jayhawks early in the season and as recently as January.
5. Speaking of Oregon, the underseeded Ducks face #5 seed Oklahoma State in a  match-up that is much too even for that spot in the bracket. ESPN’s Jason King thinks it will be one of the best games in the Round of 64, and it’s hard to disagree with him. The Ducks finished second in the Pac-12 regular season standings and they also won the conference tournament and played great this year when healthy, which is what they are heading into Thursday.

There were no surprises on Selection Sunday in the Big 12 Conference. Kansas earned a #1 seed after winning the league tournament this weekend. Kansas State and Oklahoma State, the two other Top 25 teams in the conference, got top-five seeds. Oklahoma and Iowa State weren’t locks, but they had decent resumes heading into Sunday and both earned at-large bids without much debate. And Baylor, after bowing out in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament to the Cowboys, was relegated to the NIT. That’s what we thought would happen. So that’s five Big 12 teams in the NCAA Tournament, representative of a good-but-not-great year in the league. In the hours after Selection Sunday, here are a few quick reactions to each team’s respective draws:

1. Kansas State gets Kansas City: We knew Kansas would return to the Sprint Center for the Second and Third Rounds. That was a given. But after Kansas State lost to the Jayhawks in the finals on Saturday, it certainly wasn’t a given that the committee would send the Wildcats there. Fortunately for Bruce Weber, it got a lucky draw and can now bus a few hours from Manhattan for its second round game against the winner of La Salle/Boise State. After the loss on Saturday, Weber recalled his Illinois team’s trip to nearby St. Louis for the 2005 Final Four and said he’d of course enjoy a similar home atmosphere on the first weekend of the Tournament this March. There will surely be Jayhawks blue in the stands rooting against the Wildcats, but if they make it to the Third Round, they’ll have a significant advantage against either Ole Miss or Wisconsin. There’s an argument that playing in front of a semi-home crowd adds more pressure — Weber also recalled this particular situation occurring during his days as an assistant at Purdue — but we’re not sure that holds much weight. Bottom line is, playing a few hours from home is a big deal. It matters. It changes the dynamics of the match-up. And for a #4 seed especially, it’s a really fortunate situation.
   

   Doesn’t seem fair that the “reward” for the Cowboys is a date with the Pac-12 tournament champs.

2. Oklahoma State and collateral damage: Everybody’s angry that Oregon received a #12 seed. It doesn’t seem to make any logical sense, but the lost storyline here is how it affects Oklahoma State. The Cowboys now have to play the Pac-12 Tournament champions in their first NCAA Tournament game — and they’re the #5 seed, for crying out loud! Travis Ford’s team could not have drawn a worse #12 seed. It’s criminal, really. Oregon won at UNLV, beat Arizona and knocked off UCLA twice. You could argue that Oregon’s almost as good a team as Oklahoma State, based on both pure talent and resume. Life ain’t fair, is it?
3. No worries for Iowa State and Oklahoma: They did it. They got in, both as #10 seeds. The bubble wasn’t very strong this year (which seems to be a trend during the past five years or so, whatever that means for college basketball), but after the Big 12 Tournament, these two teams were far from locks. Oklahoma looked like it might be in trouble after completely imploding in a loss to the Cyclones in the quarterfinals, and then Iowa State went out and hardly competed with Kansas in the semifinals. The committee gave them difficult match-ups: Oklahoma faces San Diego State, and Iowa State will play Notre Dame. Both of those teams have been ranked in the Top 25 at some point this year and may be a little bit underseeded. But the important thing is that both ISU and OU got in. For the Sooners, it’s a notable accomplishment for Lon Kruger in just his second year. It’s been a quick rebuilding process, that’s for sure, but we’d expect nothing less from Kruger. And Fred Hoiberg did a nice job with this team after losing Royce White, Chris Allen and Scott Christopherson. The Cyclones are a fun, high-octane team that could surprise some people if they knock down some threes (you know they love to shoot them). Read the rest of this entry »

The games are over, and in a few short hours the speculation will be finished as well. Kansas and Kansas State highlighted the Big 12 Tournament with a highly anticipated championship game after they split the regular season title. Kansas completed the season sweep of the Wildcats and may have earned a #1 seed while doing so. But more on that in a minute. Iowa State and Oklahoma have been on the NCAA Tournament bubble for a few weeks now. The Cyclones likely solidified their spot in the dance with the quarterfinal win over the Sooners in Kansas City on Thursday. As of last night, the Cyclones were a #10 seed at Bracket Matrix, ahead of nine other at-large teams. There really isn’t a reason to worry about Iowa State making the field of 68 this afternoon, but crazier things have happened, I suppose. Oklahoma is in a tougher spot. They ended the regular season with a terrible loss to TCU, and like Iowa State, needed a win in the conference tournament to calm their nerves heading into today. Bracket Matrix still has the Sooners alive, however, as an #11 seed. They are ahead of seven at-large teams, so bracketologists don’t seem to think the Sooners have anything to worry about, either. But what about Kansas and a possible #1 seed?

Kansas Won The Big 12 Tournament Saturday, Strengthening Its Case For A #1 Seed (Nick Krug, KUSports.com).

It seemed impossible a month ago after Kansas lost three consecutive games and dropped to #14 in the AP Poll. But the Jayhawks started winning. And a regular season finale loss to Baylor notwithstanding, they haven’t stopped, going 11-1 since February 9. With two more RPI top 50 wins under their belt after beating Iowa State and Kansas State this weekend, the Jayhawks have put themselves in a good position to grab a #1 seed this afternoon. I said going into the weekend that Kansas and Louisville could jump Gonzaga if both teams won their respective conference tournaments, and I still believe so. But Duke’s loss to Maryland in the ACC quarterfinals Friday gives us more questions to answer. But let’s assume Indiana and Louisville are locks for top seeds. That leaves three teams that have separated themselves from the potential #2 seeds but haven’t quite earned the “lock” title given to the Hoosiers and Cardinals. That would be Kansas, Duke, and Gonzaga. Here is what the resumes look like:

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Danny Spewak (@dspewak) is a Big 12 microsite writer. He filed this from the Big 12 Championship game in Kansas City.

Clank, clank, clank. In an arena jam-packed to the rafters and charged with as much emotion as any game in college basketball this season, the most prominent sound during the first half of the Big 12 Tournament title game at the Sprint Center was the sound of those clanks that Kansas State heaved repeatedly at the basket. After taking an 11-8 lead against Kansas with 11:55 to play in the half, the Wildcats did not make another field goal during the next 17 possessions. They were 0-of-11 from the field during that stretch. Five turnovers. Heroically, they trailed by just eight points at the break, but they were already buried. Once the Jayhawks found their groove offensively in the second half, Kansas State never kept pace and eventually fell, 70-54.

Kansas Added More Hardwood To Its Collection

You don’t want to see the final statistics for Bruce Weber’s team. “The best thing we did was shoot free throws,” Angel Rodriguez said, “and we shot 50 percent. That says a lot.” Rodney McGruder had a simple diagnosis for the anemic offense. “It wasn’t really their defense,” McGruder said. “We missed easy baskets at the rim.” The second part of that statement is correct. Kansas State missed more open shots than an overweight, middle-aged man trying to play a game of H-O-R-S-E, especially during the drought in the first half. But McGruder is wrong about the first part — there’s another reason his team couldn’t score, and it wasn’t self-inflicted. “Our first shot defense was about as good as it’s been all year long,” coach Bill Self said. As always, it was a collective effort for Kansas. Jeff Withey, the Big 12’s leading shot blocker, finished with only one block, but he teamed with Kevin Young and Perry Ellis to bother the Wildcats’ on the interior with their length.

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Danny Spewak (@dspewak) is a Big 12 Microsite writer. He’s in Kansas City covering the Big 12 Tournament this weekend.

Kansas and Kansas State tied for the Big 12 regular season championship. Technically. “We’re conference co‑champs,” coach Bruce Weber said. Fair enough. Both teams finished 14-4 in league play. Identical record means co-champs. Awards all around, everybody gets a trophy, let’s all go get some pizza after the game. Still, co-champ label or not, any person with even the slightest bit of logical reasoning can figure out who really won this league. Kansas won the regular season title. It played Kansas State at home and won. It played Kansas State on the road and won. That’s two games, both at two different sites, and two victories for the Jayhawks. If ever there were a tiebreaker to crown a true champion, that’d be it. Of course, it allowed Kansas to seize the top seed in the Big 12 Tournament, so it’s not as though those two victories were meaningless.

It’s Part Three of Jayhawks and Wildcats in KC Tomorrow Night

So it’s settled. The Kansas Jayhawks are the Big 12 champions. For now, at least. That could change on Saturday afternoon, when the two teams face each other in the Big 12 Tournament title game at the Sprint Center on national television. This is an unprecedented event for Kansas City. If you’re not from the area or not familiar with the makeup of the sports culture here, allow us to break it down for you. There’s Missouri, Kansas and Kansas State, all within two hours of driving distance from Kansas City. They all bitterly compete for media coverage, and it’s a rite of passage as a fan to complain about the lack of attention from the newspapers. Kansas fans call the Kansas City Star the “MU Star”. Missouri fans call it the “KU Star.” Those two teams don’t play each other anymore, but there’s been talk among fans that the programs should set up a series at the Sprint Center on an annual basis. Good luck with that, folks.

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Danny Spewak (@dspewak) is a Big 12 microsite writer. He’s in Kansas City this weekend for the Big 12 Tournament.

Iowa State Looked Dead and Buried Late In the Game

1. Budding Rivalry: Kansas needed a rival when Missouri bolted to the SEC. Most figured it’d be Kansas State — and it is. A potential showdown with the Wildcats tomorrow night would make for an electric atmosphere in Kansas City. But there’s room for more than one rivalry, and if we’re in the business of anointing new conference feuds, we’ve got to think that Iowa State and Kansas will carry some bad blood into next year. For starters, there’s the sheer point differential of the two regular season games. The two teams needed overtime in both contests this season. First, in Lawrence, a miracle bank shot by Ben McLemore at the end of regulation helped the Jayhawks escape. In the rematch in Ames, an officiating controversy marred KU’s narrow win. That all led up to Round Three on Friday, and for much of the game, the intensity lived up to the hype. Kansas eventually ran away with the victory, but in the first half, you could tell this was more than just your run-of-the-mill semifinal between the top seed and five seed. Ben McLemore picked up a technical foul for jawing at Georges Niang on the bench after he knocked down a three-pointer, which then skyrocketed the tension in the arena. An irate Bill Self pranced up and down the sidelines, and minutes later, the officials then whistled his bench for a technical foul after they argued a no-call. Self seemed as fired up as ever. It seemed to spark his team after a competitive and highly entertaining first half.
2. Defense and Rebounding: Iowa State’s inability to get a stop in the second half doomed the Cyclones. That’s not a new trend this season for Fred Hoiberg’s team. However, their poor effort on the boards was surprising. Kansas outrebounded ISU by 12, and at one point it grabbed five offensive rebounds on a single possession. Talk about demoralizing. In every way, the Jayhawks pulled away for the win by being the tougher team. It didn’t help that Iowa State’s shots weren’t falling from the perimeter, but Self had his team ready to punish the Cyclones in the second half. Read the rest of this entry »