It can’t be a good feeling watching your season flash before your eyes, but that’s exactly how Bill Self must have felt when freshman guard Ben McLemore dropped to the floor late in Kansas’ 61-44 win over Baylor Monday night. Gary Bedore of the Lawrence-Journal World reported it was a grade one ankle sprain, and Self said he is hopeful that McLemore will only miss a few days, theoretically giving him enough rest before the Jayhawks’ next game against Texas on Saturday. The 6’5″ guard from St. Louis is averaging 16.4 PPG and 5.4 RPG this season and has shot up NBA Draft boards recently, even being discussed as the possible #1 overall pick in next June’s draft.
Speaking of Bill Self, he will be inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in August, KUAthletics.com reported Monday. Self grew up in Edmond, Oklahoma, and later played at Oklahoma State from 1982-85. He was named the Oklahoma High School Player of the Year in 1981 and was named to the All-Big 8 Freshman team a year later. He worked under Eddie Sutton from 1986-93 and began his head coaching career in the same state, first at Oral Roberts and then at Tulsa until 2000. He recruited the bulk of the 2004-05 Illinois team that made the national championship game, won the 2008 national championship at Kansas, made another appearance in the title game last season, and is on his way to a ninth consecutive Big 12 regular season championship. Hall of Fame worthy? Yeah.
It’s not as if a coach would ever admit to losing control of his team, but for what it’s worth, Rick Barnesrefuted any such claims Monday. “We have a group of guys who want to be good,” Barnes told the Austin American-Statesmen. “They are willing to work. I’m not worried about ever losing them.” They may want to be good, but the Longhorns are far from a good team right now. Barring a big upset, they will be 0-4 in Big 12 play after Saturday’s game against Kansas. Myck Kabongo is still out for nearly another month, and leading scorer Sheldon McClellan played just one minute in Saturday’s 20-point loss to Iowa State.
Kansas State senior guard Angel Rodriguez is good, but his coach just wishes he were more consistent. He is second on the team with 9.5 PPG and leads the Wildcats with 4.4 APG, but he is prone to boneheaded plays, like fouling out 90 feet away from the basket against Oklahoma State, as Kellis Robinett of the Wichita Eagle points out. Bruce Weber insisted to Robinett that Rodriguez can’t play the game like he is by himself on the court. “He’s part of the team,” Weber said. “He’s got to keep it in the system.” Even with his inconsistent play at times, Rodriguez has helped lead the Wildcats to a 13-2 record and #16 overall ranking. They face TCU tonight and Oklahoma on Saturday before a big home game against Kansas next week.
Korie Lucious had his two highest turnover games in the first six weeks of the season, committing seven TOs on opening night to Southern and seven more in a loss to intrastate rival Iowa on December 7. He also had six turnovers in a losing effort to Cincinnati on November 23. The senior guard has settled down since then, turning the ball over more than four times just once since that game against Iowa. Not surprisingly, the Cyclones are a banked three-pointer away from being 6-o since facing the Hawkeyes. “I like the way they flow,” Rick Barnes told the Des Moines Register last Saturday. “They share the ball. They do a lot of good things.” The Cyclones are sixth in the country with 82.5 PPG and 15th with 16.9 APG, both largely credited to improved play from Lucious.
The AP and Coaches Polls were released Monday, and Kansas climbed into the top five (#4 to be exact) in both polls. The Jayhawks jumped Michigan and Arizona this week, who lost to Ohio State and Oregon, respectively. Kansas State continues to climb in both polls as well, jumping to #18 in the Coaches Poll and #16 in the AP. While both teams from Kansas are climbing, the rest of the Big 12 is nowhere to be seen. Oklahoma State has been dropping fast while losing three of their last four games, and Iowa State and Baylor are still a few weeks worth of wins away from making appearances of their own.
I’ve never been a big Rick Barnes fan. I’ve always thought that Barnes has underachieved with the amount of talent he has had at Texas and has never been held accountable because Texas fans are more worried about the third-string quarterback than the basketball team. But C.J. Moore of Basketball Prospectus began to change my mind today. It’s an eye-opening piece with plenty of noteworthy statistics. Moore does a solid job of rebuking the claim that Barnes should have advanced further into March during his one season with Kevin Durant on the roster in 2006-07, when the Longhorns lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Maybe Moore is right — maybe Barnes is better than we think.
A quick update on West Virginia sophomore guard Juwan Staten, who missed Saturday’s game against Kansas State for disciplinary reasons: Bob Huggins said during a teleconference on Monday that Staten will travel with the team for its game at Iowa State on Wednesday night. It is still uncertain whether he will play, though. Huggins seemed to infer that this week’s practices leading up to the game will decide Staten’s fate for that game as the Mountaineers will look to improve to 2-2 in the Big 12. Staten is second on the team with 10.5 PPG and leads the team with 2.9 APG at this point in the season. He played sparingly last week against Texas in logging just 13 minutes, but just the week prior he had 17 points in a home win over Eastern Kentucky.
Kansas guard Ben McLemore has been getting the most attention of any freshman in the Big 12, but Iowa State freshman forward Georges Niang is quietly putting up impressive numbers for the Cyclones as well. He is third on the team with 11.5 PPG and is shooting 35.5% from beyond the arc. Fred Hoiberg told the Associated Press that he loves Niang’s footwork, and I think he has a high enough basketball I.Q. to mask his athleticism with smarts while he continues to develop his body at Iowa State. He scored 18 points in Saturday’s blowout win over Texas and has scored double figures in six of his last seven games. He has a very European style of game for a big man, shown in last week’s near-upset of Kansas. He drew shot-blocking extraordinaire Jeff Withey out of the paint with his ability to knock down jumpers, opening up the lane for his driving teammates.
Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com updated his latest bracketology on Monday. The Big 12 received six bids: Kansas (#1 seed), Kansas State (#6), Oklahoma (#7), Oklahoma State (#9), Baylor (#11), and Iowa State (#12). Who would have guessed before the season that Oklahoma would be projected as a higher seed than Oklahoma State and Baylor? There is obviously still a bunch of games to be played, but the Sooners are positioning themselves for a good day on Selection Sunday. On a different note, I wouldn’t want to be a #6 seed paired with Baylor in the first round (Boise State in this particular bracket). The Bears are far from a great team but, as in recent years, they have the talent to win a few games in the NCAA Tournament.
Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn.
The Weekend’s Lede. Embrace a New National Champion. The hustle and bustle of conference play boils down to one of two objectives: 1) scramble and fight and scrap your way into the NCAA Tournament; or, for the elite teams, 2) pile up enough evidence to be deemed worthy of a favorable draw and seed. The goal that ties those two together is reaching the championship game and, ideally, winning it. Kentucky made it look easy last season, and based on the way Calipari reloaded with another top recruiting class (albeit less heralded than the 2011 group), it was not unwise to believe he could do it again. That avenue remains open, in the crude sense that the Wildcats are still eligible for postseason competition. In actuality, the fate of their title defense season was sealed this weekend, when Kentucky allowed Texas A&M – a low-rung team in an uncharacteristically weak SEC – to deliver the Wildcats’ second home loss of the season. Given the talent at his disposal, and his experience in grooming, molding and motivating said talent, John Calipari could well propel his young team back into the national conversation. I just don’t see it. Saturday’s loss marked the unofficial retirement of UK’s faint repeat hopes. But don’t worry, next season’s rejiggered squad, anchored by what some are calling the greatest recruiting class of all time, can bring everything full circle. The championship trophy will not return to Lexington in March. That’s not official; it’s what my eyes tell me. There will be a new champion in 2013, and the weekend’s action shed more light on the race for that top prize.
Your Watercooler Moment. Number One Goes Down. (Wheelchair, Ahoy!)
The hyperbolic reviews surrounding Duke’s sterling nonconference performance were completely warranted. The Blue Devils navigated a minefield of ranked opponents, including three top five teams in a two- week span, and the conquest of an absolutely loaded Battle 4 Atlantis Field. Few teams have ever pieced together a November and December stretch with so many quality wins against so many good teams – wins that, in regard to Minnesota, VCU, Temple, Clemson and Santa Clara, are looking better and better by the week. The totality of accomplishment is almost immeasurable. The Blue Devils were thrust atop the polls and praised for their offensive efficiency. Mason Plumlee seized the early lead in the National Player Of The Year race. Seth Curry’s toughness (he has battled chronic leg pain all season) and resolve was eulogized. The outpouring of national praise almost made it feel like Duke was the only real team that mattered in the ACC. UNC had fallen off the map. NC State got tabbed with the “overrated” tag. Florida State was a sinking ship. What many seemed to conveniently forget was that the Wolfpack – the same team that (gasp!) lost to Oklahoma State on a neutral floor and at Michigan, causing large swaths of college hoops fans to write them off as a specious product of the preseason hype machine – were selected by the coaches and media in separate preseason polls to win the league outright. Those two early-season losses threw everyone off the Wolfpack bandwagon, which, come to think of it, might just be the best thing that ever happened to NC State’s season. While the nation fawned over Duke’s top-50 RPI wins and Plumlee’s double-doubles and Rasheed Sulaimon’s youthful verve, the Wolfpack were slowly, surely, methodically rounding into form. When the opportunity presented itself Saturday, as a Ryan Kelly-less Blue Devils team strolled into Raleigh, the Wolfpack did what every coach and media member predicted they’d do before the season began. They took care of the gaudy Blue Devils, and afterward, in the midst of a delirious post-game court-storming, the Wolfpack reveled in the culmination of their roller coaster season.
Also Worth Chatting About. Take Your Pick: Indiana or Michigan.
The Hoosiers’ offense didn’t miss a step in Saturday’s home win over Minnesota (Photo credit: AP Photo).
It required less than two weeks for conference competition to slay college basketball’s remaining unbeaten teams. Michigan had looked flawless in its first two Big Ten games, blowout wins over Northwestern and Iowa, generating all kinds of national championship hype along the way (the home win over Nebraska wasn’t as pretty, but it didn’t discredit the Wolverines’ glowing stature). Ohio State, meanwhile, exposed real flaws in a 19-point blowout loss at Purdue earlier in the week. Their faint hopes of pulling an upset at home against Michigan were, well, exactly that: faint. Michigan’s seeming invincibility, Ohio State’s disproportionate offense – any discussion of the Buckeyes invariably panned to a common concern over a lack of complementary scorers to supplement DeShaun Thomas – and the matchup advantages that implied, conveniently glossed over the fact that the Big Ten is a ruthless, rugged, unforgiving road, particularly when rivalries are involved. Ohio State’s victory proved, if nothing else, that the most extreme evaluations of each team to date – that Michigan is the best team in the country, and Ohio State a middle-pack-to-lower-tier Big Ten outfit – were a bit ambitious on both ends. In fact, the former trope may have been discredited before Michigan even took the floor Sunday, because Indiana, in its first real test since losing to Butler in early December, reminded everyone why the national consensus settled so firmly on the Hoosiers as the preseason number one team in the country. The final score at Assembly Hall Saturday will skew the reality of Indiana’s home toppling of Minnesota. The first half showcased an overwhelming offensive onslaught, fueled by rapid ball movement, aggressive and attentive defensive work, can’t-miss shooting aggressive and a booming home crowd. It was the epitome of Indiana’s basketball potential, bottled up into a 20-minute segment, unleashed on one of the nation’s best and most physical teams (Minnesota). An informal poll measuring the Big Ten’s best team following this weekend would favor Indiana, but I’m not so sure we can make that assumption based off two critical games. The conference season is a long and enduring grind. We’ll gather more evidence and draw that distinction later this winter. Deal?
Welcome to the first Conference Call of conference play! We are one full week into the Big 12 season and you can already put each team into one of four boxes: the you’ll-know-how-they-finish box (Kansas, TCU and Texas Tech), the disappointment box (Texas, West Virginia), the surprise box (Kansas State) and the don’t-know-where-to-put-them box (Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Baylor and Oklahoma). Today, we discuss the futures for some of these teams, some of the disappointing players and much more.
Things have been a-ok for Bruce Weber and Kansas State (Associated Press)
Two of the league’s biggest disappointments, West Virginia and Texas, played an ugly basketball game Wednesday with the Mountaineers prevailing in OT. Which team will hear its name called on Selection Sunday?
Iowa State was a bank shot three away from picking up a huge win vs Kansas in Lawrence. What do we make of the Cyclones this season?
If you were to stop the season right now, which Big 12 coach would be the first to get fired?
Which player has been the biggest disappointment this season?
Divisional round of the NFL playoffs are Saturday and Sunday. Who ya got?
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1. Two of the league’s biggest disappointments, West Virginia and Texas, played an ugly basketball game Wednesday with the Mountaineers prevailing in OT. Which team will hear its name called on Selection Sunday?
KC: Both teams will hear their names called on Selection Sunday when the NIT picks the scraps off the table. Even if you assume Myck Kabongo will return to his old self immediately next month, the Longhorns will be lucky to be above .500 at that time and Kabongo isn’t good enough to change that ship’s course. And again, that’s assuming he will be great from the get-go, and I don’t think that will be the case. With no marquee wins on the schedule, West Virginia probably needs 12 more wins this season — giving them 20 — to make the dance. You have to jump through a few mathematical hoops to find 12 more wins on their schedule at this point.
DS: I’d be surprised if either West Virginia or Texas even make the NIT. The first half of the season has been a disaster for both squads. It’s been so bad, in fact, that both teams are ranked outside of the top 100 in the RPI. I mentioned earlier this week that it’d be silly to even attempt to determine what Texas must do from this point forward to make the NCAA Tournament. That’s how far off the bubble the Longhorns are right now, and the same goes for West Virginia. Look at the Mountaineers’ “resume,” if you even want to call it that. There’s that one-point win against a Virginia Tech team that has lost four straight games by a combined 96 points. Oh, and Bob Huggins‘ team also beat a better-than-you-might-think Eastern Kentucky team at home. So there’s that, too. Texas, meanwhile, is hanging its hat on a home win over a North Carolina team that’s crumbling by the day, and Myck Kabongo won’t return from suspension until mid-February. There are Great West teams with more compelling CBI resumes than Texas and West Virginia right now. Well, almost.
NK: Regardless of how this season was going to turn out for the Mountaineers, they weren’t going to be anything like last year’s team. That squad had Tournament-tested guys like Darryl “Truck” Bryant and Kevin Jones. Now with those players gone, Deniz Kilicli, Aaron Brown and Jabarie Hinds were supposed to assume bigger roles this season, but in turn, they are having worse seasons this year than last. For some reason, I can’t close the door completely on Texas. Javan Felix has proven he is more than just a back-up point guard in Kabongo’s absence. Though he needs to make shots at a higher percentage, Sheldon McClellan is a better number one option than anyone West Virginia has. I don’t think either team will make the Tournament now but I’d say Texas has better odds of making it than WVU.
The NCAA released its RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) on Tuesday. The RPI isn’t the only factor used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee, and it certainly isn’t the best metric, but it is a consideration nonetheless. Simply put, the RPI is derived from three things: a team’s winning percentage, its opponents’ winning percentage, and its opponents’ opponents’ winning percentage. They also began factoring in home, away, and neutral site games in 2004, so road wins are better than home wins and home losses are worse than road losses. It has its limitations — if it determined a national champion like in college football, we would all be in trouble. But it’s not a terrible way to assist in determining the NCAA Tournament field and where teams should be seeded. Like any numbers-based ranking system, it doesn’t always jive with a human poll, and that’s OK. There should always be a human element with a mixture of strictly numbers, as both sides can veer too far in one direction at times. (Example: The RPI has Colorado ranked sixth, too high, and San Diego State 40th, too low).
The Good
Kansas is #2 after surviving a (much needed) close game against Temple at home on Saturday. The Jayhawks have solid wins against teams like Colorado (#6), Belmont (#21), and the aforementioned Temple (#28). Last month’s road win against Ohio State (#41) made it four wins against top 50 teams in the non-conference season. Bill Self has mastered the art of scheduling non-conference games at KU. You don’t think he knows winnable home games against teams like Belmont and Temple will help his RPI come Selection Sunday? The good coaches know which teams to schedule and where to schedule them, and Bill Self is no different in that regard.
Oklahoma at #19 surprised me as well. The Sooners have wins over Texas A&M (#65), UTEP (#85), two wins over West Virginia (#105), and Oral Roberts (#115). On paper, their loss to Stephen F. Austin looks bad, but the Lumberjacks are #53 in RPI. Their other two losses came to top 100 teams as well, at Arkansas (#94) and Gonzaga (#5) on a neutral floor. With Oklahoma already so high, it bodes well for the Big 12 getting five teams into the NCAA Tournament.
Oklahoma at #19? Just One Of The Eccentricities Of The RPI
The Bad
Baylor‘s two-point loss to Colorado on Nov. 16 doesn’t look so bad now that the Buffaloes are #6th, and a win in Rupp Arena over Kentucky is never a bad thing. But the Bears are #35 in RPI right now. That’s what losses to Charleston and Northwestern will do to your resume. I almost put this in the “Good” category because head coach Scott Drew has done a masterful job of sinking his team’s expectations once again this season. But with one of the best point guards in the nation in Pierre Jackson and plenty of talent elsewhere, there is no reason the Bears should be as low as #35 right now. Read the rest of this entry »
Sad news from the Oklahoma State family as Patsy Sutton, the wife of former basketball coach Eddie Sutton, passed away Tuesday at the age of 74. From everything I have heard about the late Mrs. Sutton, Patsy was loved and respected by just about everyone she has come in contact with. The Tulsa World gives a proper obituary for a woman described by her son Sean as “the steady hand” through “a lot of challenging experiences” for the family. Oklahoma State has been through a lot of heartache since the new millennium so we would like to send along our thoughts and prayers to the Sutton family.
If you look at the conference schedule last night, you’ll find there was just one game, pitting Baylor against Texas Tech. The reality is after tip-off, it wasn’t much of a game. The Bears dominated from start to finish. Pierre Jackson filled up the stat sheet, Brady Heslip was hitting treys, and Cory Jefferson was once again controlling the paint. Jefferson would get my vote for the conference’s Most Improved Player award if such an honor existed. With Scott Drew’s two-game suspension now over, the Baylor coach will return for Saturday’s game against TCU.
CBSSports.com has updated their freshman power rankings and you will find something fascinating about this week’s list — it’s the exact same as last week. Marcus Smart and Ben McLemore have had amazing seasons to this point, but the play of UNLV forward/”Monstar” from Space Jam Anthony Bennett kept the Big 12 representatives from climbing up the ladder. Smart (24 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 4.5 apg last week) won Big 12 frosh of the week honors Monday while McLemore (11 ppg, 4 apg) struggled a bit in Kansas’ two games last week.
My memory of the Jim Wooldridge era at Kansas State is when he had surgery to remove a bulging disc in his neck and literally coached his team with a neck brace on. While I laughed at how ridiculous he looked on the sideline, I knew it was definitely worse to watch for Wildcat fans. So what’s he up to now? Now he’s the head man at UC-Riverside, a program that has only been in the NCAA since 2001. The progress he has made as Highlanders coach doesn’t jump off the page but is noteworthy considering the circumstances. Plus, looking at the last 6 1/2 years, him not coaching at K-State anymore was probably for the best.
Robert Whetsell of Cowboys Ride For Free are growing concerned about the state of the basketball team, specifically about one of their superstars. Le’Bryan Nash has disappeared in the last four games (7.5 points per game on 11-for-35 FG) and since the step up in competition his absence has been more apparent. Whetsell has become so frustrated with the play of Nash that he has put his concerns into song form, which fortunately (or unfortunately) is only available in the form of lyrics and not a YouTube video.
Ken Pomeroy is considered a statistical genius when it comes to tempo-free college basketball analysis. He has been publishing his findings on his website since 2003, which is convenient in this case because we have 10 years of data to look into. He explains some of his ratings here, such as Adjusted Offensive and Defensive Efficiency. Unlike KenPom, there is not much science in the following numbers, but more of an interesting look at trends between KenPom’s numbers and NCAA Tournament success. More to that point, the numbers from each year are not where a team was at this exact point in the season, but rather after the season was finished, so some teams may appear much better in the end-of-season analysis than they would if we compared them are a similar point in the season. Still it gives us a decent idea of where teams need to be if they want to have a good chance at making the Final Four.
Oklahoma State Has Struggled Lately, But Its Defense Could Lead to NCAA Tournament Success (Credit: AP)
Since Pomeroy began publishing his rankings in 2003, there have been 40 Final Four teams:
Only five of those teams finished the season outside the top 15 in Pomeroy’s ranking. They were 2003 Marquette (16th), 2006 George Mason (23rd), 2010 Michigan State (23rd), 2011 Butler (41st), and 2011 VCU (52nd).
Eight teams finished outside the top 25 in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency: 2012 Louisville (103rd), 2011 Butler (50th), 2011 VCU (32nd), 2010 Butler (50th), 2010 Michigan State (28th), 2006 UCLA (28th), 2006 LSU (50th), and 2006 George Mason (49th).
Only five Final Four teams finished outside the top 25 in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency: 2011 Butler (49th), 2011 VCU (86th), 2010 Michigan State (30th), 2003 Texas (44th), and 2003 Marquette (101st).
All 10 National Champions finished in the top 10 of Pomeroy’s end of year ranking with an average ranking of 4.1.
Six of those championship teams finished at No. 1: 2012 Kentucky, 2010 Duke, 2009 North Carolina, 2008 Kansas, 2006 Florida, and 2005 North Carolina.
Only two champions finished outside the top five: 2011 Connecticut (10th) and 2003 Syracuse (7th).
According to Pomeroy’s rankings, the best Final Four in the last decade was the 2008 edition, which is not surprising. It was the first time all four No. 1 seeds made the Final Four: Kansas (1st), Memphis (2nd), UCLA (3rd), and North Carolina (4th) were the four best teams according to Pomeroy’s rankings that year. Not only did Pomeroy’s ranking mirror the Final Four that season, but it played out exactly how he ranked all four teams.
The worst Final Four? 2011. It was the only year that two teams (Butler, 41st, and VCU, 52nd) were outside the top 25.
The Big 12 offices have announced the player and freshman of the week awards for the first weekend of conference play. POTW went to Kansas State’s Rodney McGruder, who locked up the award by scoring 26 of his 28 points in the second half of Saturday’s win against Oklahoma State. It is hard to believe, but this is McGruder’s third such honor in the last six weeks. FrOTW honors went to another repeat winner: Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart. All he did was average 24 points, 4.5 rebounds, four assists. and two steals per game in losing efforts to Gonzaga and the aforementioned Wildcats last week. It’s not a crazy prediction to say Smart and McGruder will win these awards again before the season ends.
Last season, Anthony Davis dominated both ends of the court to take home National Player of the Year honors. But as Eamonn Brennan points out, Kansas’ Jeff Withey is hosting a bigger, more impressive “block party” so far this season than Davis did in 2011-12. Through the first 13 games of last year, Davis had 58 blocked shots while committing 29 personal fouls. Currently, Withey has 68 blocked shots and has committed only 16 personal fouls. To be a consistent shot blocker while avoiding contact and foul calls is pretty incredible. Davis finished last year with 186 blocked shots and 78 fouls, so we will definitely keep our eyes on Withey’s numbers going forward.
Kansas Statereceived a verbal commitment from 2013 forward Neville Fincher this week. The Teaneck, New Jersey, native describes his game to the Kansas City Star as a defensive-minded player who blocks shots and rebounds with “a few [offensive] moves on the block.” According to ESPN, the three-star Fincher joins an already solid class with four-star point guard Marcus Foster and three-star shooting guard Wesley Iwundu coming to Manhattan as well. Fincher decided on the Wildcats over Marshall, Duquesne, Seton Hall, Houston, and Western Kentucky.
Iowa State has been able to regroup and recover over the past three weeks as they have only played one game, but at what cost? They will have to travel to Lawrence, Kansas, tomorrow for their conference opener against a Kansas team that is again the overwhelming favorite in the conference. As Cyclone Fanatic writes, if the Cyclones can weather the storm on Wednesday, they have the opportunity to start 5-1 in the Big 12 with subsequent games against Texas, West Virginia, Texas Tech, TCU, and a home date with Kansas State, which even he admits is “optimistic.”
Are you ready for some NIT bracketology? Yes, there is such a thing. Big Apple Buckets released its NIT S-Curve this week and two Big 12 schools made the cut. Iowa State is considered a #1 seed while Texas is slated as a #7 at this point. To put this in perspective, Iowa State is probably seen as a team that just missed the NCAA Tournament, and with its name recognition Texas was able to slide into an NIT bid despite a shaky record. What’s even scarier is that West Virginia of all programs isn’t even considered to be NIT material. I thought NIT bracketology would be kinda fun but now it’s just depressing.
Non-conference play is a beautiful thing: it marks the start of a new season, is littered with many early season and holiday tournaments in places where one would more likely find a beach and surfboard than basketball hoop, and pits teams against one another that would otherwise never play. However, there is nothing quite like the beginning of conference play as rivalries are rekindled and teams seemingly play with a little extra juice. Duke remains atop the RTC25 for the seventh consecutive week, while Michigan closely follows as the Wolverines picked up nine #2 votes—it is very clear to pollsters who the top two teams in America are. A disappointing team that continues to fall each week is Ohio State, who may be one more loss away from dropping out of the RTC25 altogether.
Amidst the hoopla of the NFL wildcard playoffs, Sunday afternoon gave us a sneaky good game with Kansas taking on Temple in Lawrence. At halftime, KU held on to a six-point lead while in the locker room, Bill Self laid into his seniorTravis Releford, who had committed two turnovers and two fouls in 12 first half minutes. “He [Self] got into me. I can’t relay the message over an interview. He let me know I need to change it because I didn’t come ready to play early on,” Johnson said in a post-game interview. Whatever Self said must have worked. He finished a perfect 5-of-5 from the field including a key three-pointer with 35 seconds left to finish off the victory. It’s scary how good of a coach Self is. Score 2,945,967 for Self. (WARNING: scoring may be unofficial but probably isn’t.)
Moving back one day to the first Saturday of the conference slate, we got a showcase of two nationally-ranked teams and a couple of the best players in the Big 12. For Oklahoma State, it could have gone better. The Cowboys went into the locker room with a narrow 32-30 lead but later lost it as Kansas State erupted for 43 points in the second half to run away with a 73-67 victory. Maybe this mini-slide from OSU was to be expected. We know that they’ve longed for the tougher part of their schedule to arrive but since they have now lost to Gonzaga and K-State in back-to-back games, maybe they aren’t who we thought they were either. It’s not time to panic just yet, as OSU has TCU, rival Oklahoma and Texas Tech in their next three (all winnable) games. Hopefully winning those three games is what they need to get back on track.
On the other side, it’s time we officially welcome back Rodney McGruder as a premier player in this league. He had a 22-point effort against USC Upstate on December 2 but then went a combined 7-of-27 in the two games afterward. Now it seems that he’s learning to flourish in Bruce Weber’s motion offense. In the last five games, McGruder is averaging 19.8 PPG which includes making nearly half of his field goal attempts (49%). Kansas State is now 2-2 against ranked opponents and should now see their national ranking improve. I know the Wildcats can’t afford to overlook opponents but I can. January 22 vs the Jayhawks in the Octagon? Can’t wait.
I guess West Virginia has become an unexpected punching bag in the Big 12. A program that made the Sweet Sixteen in 2008 and then a Final Four two years later lost to Oklahoma for the second time — 67-57, this time — in its conference home opener. I didn’t expect the Mountaineers to contend for an NCAA Tournament bid this year but I thought Bob Huggins would at least be able to get this team to overachieve and make things interesting down the stretch of the season. A 7-6 record just one game into January? If I’m Huggins, I believe it’s time to see what you have to develop this season and start looking towards 2013-14.
A day before the Longhorns fell to Baylor in overtime Saturday, Texas received its first verbal commitment for the Class of 2013. Isaiah Taylor, a 6’2″ point guard out of The Village School in Houston, was evidently the only point guard offered by UT. Barking Carnival describes the three-star prospect as a guard with “elite quickness” who “excels at breaking guys down off the dribble and dishing for easy shots.” That sounds like just about every starting point guard at Texas since T.J. Ford. According to ESPN, Taylor chose Texas over Alabama, SMU, Fresno State, and Creighton, among other schools. Texas still has one scholarship available for next season.
