1. After Kansas’ loss to Kansas State on Monday, Bill Self said that Jayhawks center Joel Embiid could miss some time to focus on recuperating from knee and back injuries. Embiid played just 18 minutes in the loss at Bramlage Coliseum, and the Wildcats exploited his health problems to attack the paint effectively. Embiid hasn’t officially been ruled out for Saturday’s game against TCU, but Self noted Tuesday that “he has no strength” and “he winces when he moves.” The Jayhawks will need their future lottery pick back and at 100 percent if they are to live up to expectations, but it appears they have a little bit of wiggle room to take it easy with their big man in the short term as they face a relative lag in the Big 12 schedule with the Horned Frogs and Red Raiders next on the docket.
2. Speaking of the Wildcats, Kansas State head coach Bruce Weber is doing a fantastic job of shaking the critics who believe that the second-year head coach can’t win with his own players, and guard Marcus Foster might be the poster boy for the campaign. The Texas native took home National Freshman Of The Week honors for his 34-point outburst against Texas last Saturday, and legitimized it by following up that game with a team-leading 20 points against the Jayhawks on Monday. The Wildcats aren’t a Tournament lock just yet, but they’re getting close, and their standout freshman is a big reason why.
3. Texas took it to the short-handed Oklahoma State Cowboys throughout an 87-68 win that wasn’t even that close. Javan Felix led the way for the Longhorns, scoring 27 points and hitting six out of eight three-pointers. Perhaps even more impressive was the fact that Texas led comfortably despite being without leading scorer Jonathan Holmes, who missed Tuesday’s game with a knee injury. With the win, Texas picked up a half-game on Kansas in the league standings, while the Cowboys fell firmly onto the bubble. We can only assume that Travis Ford is counting the hours until Marcus Smart can return to game action.
4. Suffice it to say that Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg has had better weeks. Following a gut-punching blowout at the hands of West Virginia, the Cyclones lost out on the services of Rashad Vaughn, a highly-touted guard prospect from Henderson, Nevada. Vaughn opted to stay close to home, announcing his intentions on Tuesday to attend UNLV and play for Dave Rice. While the Cyclones will lose DeAndre Kane at the end of the season, they still still figure to be in good shape moving forward with Matt Thomas, Monte Morris, Naz Long and Sherron Dorsey-Walker comprising what should be a highly formidable backcourt.
5. TCU has an opportunity to turn their 0-10 ship around when the Horned Frogs welcome Baylor to Fort Worth tonight. Trent Johnson’s team has been outrebounded in nine of its last ten games, but Baylor’s rebounding core has left a lot to be desired, considering the athleticism of guys like Isaiah Austin and Rico Gathers. Both teams could use a kickstart; The last time either team won consecutive games, Oregon and Ohio State were undefeated, Spencer Dinwiddie was healthy, and Michael Cobbins had only missed one game due to his torn Achilles.

It seems rare when a team that comes back to force overtime in the manner that Kansas did ends up losing the game, but that’s exactly what happened in Manhattan against Kansas State last night. The Wildcats held a nine-point lead with under two minutes remaining (sound familiar, Kansas fans?) but some Jayhawks’ layups, putbacks, and a pair of costly Kansas State turnovers sent the game to overtime. No matter. The Wildcats continued to dominate the paint and won for only the fourth time in the series’ last 52 games, 85-82. Here are four takeaways from last night’s action in Bramlage Coliseum.

Marcus Foster has been a big reason for Kansas State’s improved play as of late.

1. Kansas State is putting together a solid NCAA Tournament resume. After losing three out of five in the middle of January, the Wildcats now have back-to-back wins over top 15 teams. Their resume includes impressive victories over Gonzaga, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas. Last night’s win puts them at 17-7 and just two games back of Kansas in the Big 12 standings.
2. Marcus Foster is legit. The Wildcat freshman guard had 20 points on 5-of-10 shooting and added a pair of late free throws in overtime to ice the game with 22 seconds left. He came into the game averaging 14.7 PPG but has been especially hot lately, scoring over 20 points in four of his last five games. He’s averaged 27 PPG over the last two games in wins over #7 Kansas and #15 Texas. Read the rest of this entry »

1. The Big 12 moved swiftly in the aftermath of Saturday night’s altercation between Marcus Smart and Texas Tech fan Jeff Orr by handing down a three-game suspension to Smart. The suspension also keeps Smart away from game day activities and team travel, although he will be allowed to continue practicing with Oklahoma State. It may not be easy for the sophomore, but some time away from game action could do him some good. Though it’s hard to count on it at this time, it would be quite the story to see Smart regroup and lead the Cowboys to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
2. By the incredibly high standards of a Bill Self-coached team, Kansas came into last week struggling on defense, entering last Tuesday’s game against Baylor with the nation’s 39th-ranked defense according to KenPom.com. Just two games later, however, Kansas’ defense has improved considerably and is now up to 22nd in the country after bottling up the Bears and stifling West Virginia. Naadir Tharpe and Wayne Selden are still prone to lapses, but as was detailed in Luke Winn’s power rankings last week, Selden did a very good job of putting the clamps of long-range bomber Brady Heslip.
3. Kansas State freshman Marcus Foster is on a certified hot streak, having nailed 23 of his last 32 shots over his last two games. In a conference stacked with talented freshmen, Foster has flown relatively under the radar, but it’s safe to say the secret is out. Tonight, he will have to keep it up against a Kansas team that locked him down to a 3-of-12 shooting dud earlier this season. It stands to reason that with the home crowd behind him, he’ll fare a little better this time around.
4. Lost in the shuffle of everything that went down with Marcus Smart was a rather impressive win by the upstart Texas Tech Red Raiders in front of a packed house. Over 15,000 fans showed up to United Spirit Arena for the first time in seven years to see their team pull the upset, and many of them rushed the floor when the final buzzer sounded. With high-energy guys like Jaye Crockett, Dejan Kravic and a heck of a ballhawk in Robert Turner, don’t be surprised to see Tubby Smith’s team make some more noise before the season is over.
5. Baylor‘s struggles to this point and the stretch run facing the Bears were the focal points of an article over the weekend by ESPN‘s Andy Katz. Without a marquee win since a December victory over Kentucky, Scott Drew’s team has more work cut out for it than it imagined having when the season started. With eight games left, plenty of opportunities remain, but whether the Bears capitalize on them is a completely different question.

1. Early in the non-conference portion of the season, it looked like Kansas State was destined for a difficult season in year two of Bruce Weber’s reign as head coach in Manhattan. After losing talented players like Rodney McGruder and Angel Rodriguez from a season ago, many believe Shane Southwell would be the one to fill the scoring void. Absent from any top 100 recruiting list was Marcus Foster, a freshman guard from Texas. In an article on Bleacher Report Monday, Foster told Southwell last fall he thought he could score around six points a game this year for the Wildcats. Southwell set the talented newcomer straight, explaining that he could average at least 13 or 14 this year. That claim appears to be spot on as Foster has averaged exactly fourteen points a game and has been a huge reason why Kansas State has far exceeded most expectations this season.
2. In yesterday’s Big 12 Morning Five, we discussed Marcus Smart‘s antics on Saturday in reference to an article in the Tulsa World. Smart issued an apology via Twitter saying Saturday was not one of his prouder moments and he lost his composure, something that wouldn’t happen again. A trio of ESPN college basketball writers discussed on Monday whether an apology from Smart was necessary heading into the Bedlam rivalry at Oklahoma last night. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget just how young some of these players are and that like everyone else, they’re subject to mistakes from time to time. Moving forward, for Oklahoma State to truly maximize their potential, Smart has to avoid falling into a similar frustration as he’s simply too valuable to the success in Stillwater.
3. For Kansas, the magic number to claiming a 10th straight Big 12 title is ironically enough now 10. That means that some combination of Kansas wins and/or losses by those teams sitting at second place equaling the number 10 is what the Jayhawks would need to win or share another conference title. The Kansas City Star took a look at remaining schedules among the league’s elite in an effort to handicap the race for the conference title. While there is still the entire month of February to be played, after Oklahoma State’s loss at Oklahoma last night, if Kansas beats Iowa State at home at Texas on the road this week, this one might be all but over.
4. For as good as Baylor was early in the non-conference portion of the season, the Bears have been equally as bad as of late. Neutral site wins over Colorado and Kentucky seem like a thing of the past for a team that has started 1-5 in league play. For Scott Drew, he’s using last season’s downfall where Baylor started 5-1 and finished 9-9 as an example for how quickly things can change in college basketball. And, as Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News explained, Tuesday’s home game against West Virginia is about as must-win as it can get for Scott Drew and company this early in the season.
5. Andrew Wiggins‘ best offensive output of the season came Saturday night in Fort Worth as the Jayhawks avenged the shocking loss they suffered a season ago at the hands of TCU. Wiggins scored 19 points in the first half and finished with 27 for the game, and did a much better job of attacking the rim drawing 10 free throw attempts for the game. Given his athletic ability, this is something that should be a staple in Wiggins’ offensive diet, but could Bill Self do a little more to make it easier for his star player to get to the rim? In a post on the Kansas SB Nation site, Self’s offensive spacing (or lack there of) is discussed in more detail and shows just how difficult it is at times for Wiggins to get to the basket. Perhaps as the season rolls on we will see more isolation calls for the talented guard because when he’s at his best attacking the rim, Kansas becomes that much more difficult to contain.

This week has been highly entertaining for Big 12 fans. Whether it’s Kansas winning in a return to Hilton Coliseum, Kansas State putting the clamps on Oklahoma‘s high-energy offense, or the most recent development — Texas Tech springing the biggest upset of league play by beating Baylor on Wednesday night — storylines have emerged with each passing game. No school has played more than four games yet, but the Jayhawks are the only team still unscathed in conference play. After a quiet Thursday and Friday, the action resumes tomorrow with four match-ups that will have big implications on the conference race as well as teams’ NCAA Tournament resumes going forward.

It’s been a long time since a visiting player won two games in Allen Fieldhouse. Will Marcus Smart pull it off? (Stephen R. Sylvanie/USA TODAY)

Oklahoma State at Kansas (4:00 EST, CBS) – Remember way back in October when Marcus Smart had some interesting — if correct — things to say about Andrew Wiggins? It feels like ages ago, but two of the conference’s best players will finally get a chance to battle it out on the court. Most recently on Wednesday, Smart continued to make his case as the Big 12 POY with a great night against TCU (20 points, eight rebounds, five assists) as the Cowboys rolled the Horned Frogs, while Wiggins posted 17 points and 19 rebounds against Iowa State in a performance that still left some wanting more. Kansas will have its massive homecourt advantage behind it in this one, and the Jayhawks’ frontcourt has to be licking its chops at the idea of battling the Michael Cobbins-less Oklahoma State forwards on the glass. If Brian Williams and Kamari Murphy can’t get comfortable inside, the Cowboys will need to make up for the shortfall in other ways, whether through Smart rising to the occasion,  Phil Forte raining threes, Le’Bryan Nash putting up one of his patented hyper-efficient scoring nights, or some combination of the three.

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Before I start, a quick shout-out to the Big 12 schedule makers for giving us great match-ups seemingly every night conference games occur. They deserve raises.

It’ll be a contrast in styles when Lon Kruger’s Sooners take on Kansas State. (Jason Bean/AP Photo)

You’ve seen and heard this before: The Big 12 has the best conference RPI in the country. In his latest bracketology, Jerry Palm has seven teams from the Big 12 making the field of 68, more than any other league. So the next biggest Big 12 Game of the Week of the Night gives us Oklahoma at Kansas State, the result of which will go a long way in figuring out how soft the NCAA Tournament bubble will be in two months. The Wildcats and Sooners are polar opposites of each other. Literally. Oklahoma leads the Big 12 in points per game (87.0 PPG) while Kansas State is dead last in that category (67.2 PPG). K-State is tops in the league in scoring defense (59.8 PPG) while Oklahoma sits at the bottom of the conference (79.2 PPG). It’s one of those “something’s gotta give” games.

Oklahoma’s four-guard lineup has been confusing for opponents to defend, as the Sooners run the floor, shoot from long range (38.4 percent from three as a team), and rebound well (fourth in the Big 12). Ryan Spangler, the lone ranger on the interior, is currently the second-best rebounder in the conference (9.2 RPG). Kansas State, on the other hand, appears to be more conventionally constructed with two bigs and three guards. The one-on-one match-up on which to focus tonight is Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield versus Kansas State’s Marcus Foster. Hield is averaging 20.6 points and 5.6 rebounds per game in Big 12 play while Foster was recognized as the Big 12 Newcomer of the Week a week ago.

Before Saturday’s loss to Kansas, the Wildcats were on a 10-game winning streak which included wins over George Washington, Gonzaga and Oklahoma State. They are fortunate enough to have another important and winnable game at home here, but going forward, they’ll need to add additional credible road wins to their portfolio. The Sooners, despite a soft non-conference schedule, already have two marquee wins in Big 12 play: at Texas on January 4, and Saturday’s home win against Iowa State.

You can watch the Sooners and Wildcats tangle tonight at 7:00 ET on ESPN2. Something’s gotta give.

If you spent the last few days listening to media types in northeast Kansas, Saturday’s rendition of the Sunflower Showdown was supposed to be different. Kansas State entered the game on a 10-game winning streak after stumbling out of the gate. The Wildcats were surging behind a much improved defensive effort, and freshman guard Marcus Foster was making a strong case as one of the best players in the league. Kansas, on the other hand, was a confidence-stricken team that already had four losses on the season. A little less than a week ago, San Diego State had waltzed into Allen Fieldhouse and snapped Kansas’ 68-game non-conference home winning streak. The overwhelming youth and inexperience residing in Lawrence had Bruce Weber believing his team could steal a win against their intrastate rival. Kansas was supposed to be vulnerable.

Andrew Wiggins threw down this monster dunk on his way to a 22-point performance. (Nick Krug/KUSports.com)

Instead, what followed in Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday afternoon mimicked what we’ve seen so often in this Sunflower State rivalry. Kansas jumped out to a 17-point lead off of a 14-assist, zero turnover effort in the first half. The second half featured more of the same, as the Jayhawks outscored Kansas State by nine on their way to and 86-60 victory behind Andrew Wiggins’ 22 points on 7-of-13 shooting from the floor. The previous five games between these two teams in Lawrence have followed a similar pattern, with Kansas winning by an average of 19 points per game during that span.

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1. It’s been a big week for Kansas State‘s Marcus Foster: the guard won Big 12 Newcomer of the Week honors and CBSSports.com named him National Freshman of the Week. Now The Wichita Eagle has details on Foster’s high school career at Hirschi High in Wichita Falls, Texas. He played all five positions and helped Hirschi to an appearance in the state quarterfinals in his junior year. There, his recruiting stock rose quickly. Foster held scholarship offers from Kansas State, Creighton, Texas, Baylor and Colorado among others. In the summer before his senior year, Foster gained a lot of weight. He appeared slow in his AAU games and those who offered him retracted their scholarships save for Creighton and Kansas State. That drove Foster to get back into shape and have a Parade All-American season before deciding to play college ball for the Wildcats. It’s a fascinating story that also makes you think twice about recruiting services. Talent is everywhere, even if they aren’t ranked on a list.
2. As we enter the first weekend in which everyone has entered conference play, CBSSports.com released their list of top 30 conference games to watch. Included are five Big 12 match-ups: both Kansas-Oklahoma State games, Kansas-Iowa State, Iowa State-Oklahoma State and Iowa State-Baylor. There are other intriguing Big 12 games that could have made the list, but you have to understand that there are games from nine other leagues that make up the 30. If anything, five of 30 ain’t too shabby for the Big 12.
3. Kansas is planning on building a brand new apartment complex that would serve men’s and women’s basketball student-athletes. The complex would be similar to Kentucky’s Wildcat Coal Lodge, completed in 2012, in both amenities and finances. The projected cost for the complex is $17.5 million and it would also accommodate 34 students who are non-athletes, in compliance with NCAA bylaws. “We have one of the very elite basketball programs in the country, and we want to do everything we can to stay there,” Kansas associate athletic director Jim Marchiony told the Kansas City Star. “Not only that, we need to, and housing is part of that.” I guess it is, to keep up with the Joneses’, but you were able to get Andrew Wiggins with what you have now. So yeah.
4. Wednesday’s seemed like a breakthrough game for the entire Kansas team with Wayne Selden have a career night. The same could be said for backup point guard Conner Frankamp. He came into Wednesday’s game on an eight game scoreless streak, three of those being games where Frankamp didn’t see any playing time. He checked in against the Sooners and scored five points in 13 minutes which doesn’t seem like much at first glance. But those five points came within the last 2:09 of the first half which helped turn a deficit into a halftime lead for the Jayhawks. Kansas wouldn’t trail for the remainder of the game. Sometimes confidence is all a player needs to perform and Frankamp appears to have it now.
5. More bad news to report for West Virginia’s basketball team: Bob Huggins announced the appeal for Jonathan Holton to play this season was denied by the NCAA on Thursday. Holton, who previously played at Rhode Island and later Palm Beach State Community College, would have been an immediate contributor for the Mountianeers this season. Holton averaged 17.5 points and 14.1 rebounds for Palm Beach State CC who went 29-3 last year. The NCAA said that Holton will have two years of eligibility remaining, starting with the 2014-15 season.

1. Just how good is Iowa State? That’s the question Rob Dauster over at College Basketball Talk is asking after the Cyclones pulled away from Baylor in the second half to win the battle of top 10 teams, 87-72. DeAndre Kane had his best game on the biggest stage of the season to date: 30 points, eight rebounds, nine assists and five steals. Dauster believes the Cyclones are a very good team but not a top 10 team. His points are valid — the Michigan and BYU wins don’t have the same cachet now as they did in November, and their best wins (Iowa and Baylor) came at the impregnable Hilton Coliseum. Regardless of what anyone thinks about them, the Cyclones are now one of only five undefeated teams in college basketball along with Arizona, Syracuse, Wisconsin and Wichita State.
2. When a team commits 18 turnovers in a conference game, it usually spells doom for the road team. Kansas State was that road team on Tuesday night and still somehow emerged with an 18-point win over TCU, 65-47. The difference for the Wildcats was winning the rebounding edge over the Horned Frogs by 16 boards. “They are not a good rebounding team,” forward Thomas Gipson said. “They play hard and everything, but we really wanted to emphasize our rebounding against them. I feel like we did a good job with that.” Now Kansas State’s winning streak is at 10 games, its longest since the Elite Eight season of 2009-10. Their buddies from Lawrence will be their next opponent on Saturday.
3. Jerry Palm’s latest bracketology has seven Big 12 teams in the field of 68. Think about that: 70 percent of an entire conference is projected to make the NCAA Tournament. What a number, considering that the Big East’s 11 bids in 2011 accounted for 68.8 percent of that conference. According to Palm, Kansas State and Texas were selected as First Four teams headed to Dayton, Ohio. If they were picked as two of the final teams in, I wouldn’t be so sure if I’d take both. While Kansasa State has recorded its best wins (Ole Miss, Gonzaga, George Washington, and Oklahoma State) within the state of Kansas, those wins are collectively better than Texas’, which pretty much starts and ends with North Carolina in Chapel Hill. But that’s why the season doesn’t end on January 8. Who knows, maybe at season’s end the Big 12 will have seven resumes that are worthy of NCAA Tournament bids.
4. On Monday, Kansas State’s Marcus Foster picked up Big 12 Newcomer of the Week honors, but the accolades don’t stop there. In a collaboration between the Wayman Tisdale Award and CBSSports.com, Foster has won the Wayman Tisdale National Freshman of the Week for his play against George Washington and Oklahoma State. This is certainly a breath of fresh air when you consider that the award seemed like it’d be passed around between Jabari Parker, Aaron Gordon, Tyler Ennis, Andrew Wiggins and the Kentucky freshmen. Hooray for three-star recruits!
5. West Virginia has missed some opportunities to rack up important wins in non-league play but leading scorer Eron Harris is encouraged by the team’s 2-0 start in the Big 12. Yes, those two wins came against Texas Tech and TCU both of which have worse overall records than the Mountaineers. It doesn’t seem to make a difference to Harris. “I don’t care what team you’re playing in the Big 12, it’s a tough conference,” Harris told MetroNews. “It’s significant.” Their first non-Texas opponent will come Saturday when WVU takes on Oklahoma State in Morgantown. We’ll see if things really are different.

1. It’s been a long two weeks for Kansas, and the Jayhawks took another lump on Tuesday night, dropping their second straight game and their third in the last 11 days, in a loss to Florida.  Andrew Wiggins was fantastic, leading all scorers with 26 points, or put another way, roughly one point for every time a draft analyst has changed his mind about him. The freshman phenom just didn’t get the help he needed as the Kansas guards turned the ball over at an astronomical rate, giving the Gators enough extra possessions to reel off a 21-0 run over eight-plus minutes in the first half. The Jayhawks made a run and got as close as five points from tying the game, but couldn’t get over the hump. We’ll have more on Kansas’ struggles later today, but while we aren’t jumping ship on Bill Self’s team, it’s tough not to look ahead and wonder how KU’s non-conference losses will impact their NCAA Tournament seeding no matter what happens in Big 12 play.
2. We’ve yet to hit winter break, but West Virginia has really painted itself into a corner after losing to Gonzaga last night. The Mountaineers have no quality wins on their resume to counteract losses to Virginia Tech, Wisconsin, Missouri, and now the Bulldogs. They’re essentially out of opportunities to make an impression in non-conference play, which makes their margin for error razor-thin. According to KenPom, WVU has a top-50 offense and top-100 defense but their at-large hopes will rest on their ability to do damage against the top half of the Big 12 while avoiding losses to the league’s bottom-dwellers.
   
3. Oklahoma‘s improvement this season has been one of the more overlooked stories around the conference, but the Sooners were dealt a blow at practice Tuesday morning when guard Je’lon Hornbeak broke a bone in his left foot. The sophomore will miss four to six weeks, and if that timetable holds true to form, it pegs his return a few games into conference play. While Hornbeak is sidelined, the Sooners should be fine against Tulsa and Texas-Arlington, but their match-ups against Texas A&M, Louisiana Tech, Texas, Kansas, Iowa State and Kansas State just got a little more challenging. Hornbeak didn’t start for Oklahoma, but Lon Kruger’s team will need to find some extra depth on their bench to bide the time – either that or hope for a surprisingly early return a la Melvin Ejim.
4. Five days after squeaking by Ole Miss, Kansas State pulled another escape job at home, toughing out a 65-62 win over South Dakota last night. Freshman guard Marcus Foster led the way with 18 points, but needed 20 shots from the floor to get there. The Wildcats just aren’t getting the balance they need offensively to show that they can compete with the better teams in the Big 12; Foster and Shane Southwell combined to take 34 of Kansas State’s 62 shots on Tuesday, and were actually outshot by the Coyotes to boot. While they’ll happily take the win, the Wildcats did very little to instill much confidence going forward.
5. After all of those downers, let’s end today’s M5 on a happy note, shall we? With Finals Week lightening the slate, it’s a good time to evaluate how teams are doing, and perhaps no unit has been as impressive as Iowa State‘s offense. The Cyclones lead the nation in points per game and are second in assists per contest, and as we noted yesterday, three different players on Fred Hoiberg’s roster have taken home Big 12 Player Of The Week honors. They aren’t without their shortcomings — poor offensive rebounding and a defense that hasn’t shown much interest in turning other teams over — but for all the talk of Oklahoma State and Kansas being the alpha dogs this season, it is Iowa State that owns the league’s only undefeated record.