If you look at uniforms objectively, they are literally nothing more than clothing. Technically, Duke’s uniforms are just as much an item of clothing as the 6th grade basketball team’s uniform at the local middle school. Sure, the quality of the material is better, but when it boils down, you’re left with a pair of shorts and a sleeveless jersey.  What makes uniforms special is not the actual uniforms, but the image they represent. When we see the argyle on the side of North Carolina’s jerseys, we are reminded of the prestige of its program, the rich history of winning the Tar Heels have earned throughout history.  However, uniforms do more than just remind us of past glory. A new uniform can represent a change in a program, especially if the past has been comparatively muddy. Recall when the Denver Nuggets drafted Carmelo Anthony and the Cavs drafted LeBron James — both teams got new uniforms to represent the ushering of their organizations into a new era.

Here, I’ll rank the uniforms of the Big 12 from worst to first. Today, we will knock out the worst three, and in coming days, I will complete the list.  There are three categories to rank the team’s aesthetics — its history, color scheme, and jersey script.

#10. Iowa State 

Condiments!

History: 2. These jerseys are relatively new. I don’t see them becoming relatively old.

Color Scheme: 1. Ketchup and Mustard. If Ronald McDonald was an AD, these uniforms would be his preferred threads.

Script: 3. Points for the bold font attempt. Unfortunately, the font is difficult to read, due to the yellow-white-ketchup combination.

Final Score: 6.

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1. More proof the season has almost arrived: the Big 12 announced its preseason awards last week, and at first glance, there are only a few points of controversy. Keeping in mind that preseason speculation means essentially nothing, it’s worth debating whether or not Texas guard J’Covan Brown should make the All-Big 12 team after starting zero games for the Longhorns in 2010-11. Also, Baylor’s Pierre Jackson and KU forward Kevin Young have decent arguments for Newcomer of the Year over Royce White, and Texas guard Myck Kabongo could push LeBryan Nash for Freshman of the Year honors. In the end, though, it’s all meaningless. Wake us up when the real awards come out in March.
2. In your Surprising Realignment News of the Day, it appears Air Force actually told the Big 12 it was not interested in joining the league. In one of the more candid quotes of the week, AFA athletic director Hans Mueh said he simply “can’t recruit against Texas, Oklahoma [and] Oklahoma State.” Mueh’s programs would probably have trouble recruiting in any power conference, but the Big 12 likely won’t shed any tears after losing out on Air Force. That is, unless the rest of the Big East leftovers turn it down.
3. For now, it doesn’t look like the Miami firestorm surrounding Missouri coach Frank Haith has affected his staff’s recruiting efforts much. Haith’s Tigers picked up a verbal over the weekend from Negus Webster-Chan, a 6’7″ forward from Huntington, W.V., and most of the credit for this commitment goes to assistant coach Tim Fuller. Webster-Chan pledged to Louisville originally, but when Fuller left the Cardinals for Columbia, he backed out of his commitment. Webster-Chan is the fifth recruit to verbal to MU for the Class of 2012, and while none are traditional blue-chip recruits, it’s at least a sign that players aren’t terrified of Haith’s job status. By the way, may as well throw this out there: Webster-Chan attended the same high school as former USC superstar O.J. Mayo. Counts for something, right?
4. SLAM magazine published an article on Friday about Baylor’s Perry Jones, and the sophomore stud made some interesting comments to the magazine. He addressed last season’s suspension from the NCAA and also discussed his future plans for the NBA, saying he wants to be a “superstar.” As the preseason Big 12 Player of the Year, he certainly has a chance to nab that title.
5. All anyone ever wants to talk about with realignment is who may be joining; but what about how many should join? Tom Keegan at the Lawrence Journal-World has some advice: and that’s for the Big 12 to stay at 10 teams. After 15 years of having 12 schools, Keegan argues further expansion would disrupt the balance of the league and cause many of the same problems that have plagued the Big 12 since its inception: losing out on BCS bowls because of a league championship game (see: Missouri, 2007) and unbalanced basketball scheduling.  Interesting argument.

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences and a frequent contributor.

For more than a year now, college sports fans have looked on with some mixture of fascination, excitement, disgust and horror as conferences and their member institutions have played a game of chicken with all-out conference-realignment Armageddon. Last June, following Nebraska’s announcement that it was leaving for the Big Ten, the Big 12 was on the verge of extinction when a quartet of teams led by Texas strongly considered a move west to form the first superconference, the Pac-16. However, after a weekend on the edge of the wire, they backed away and recommitted to the Big 12. But now, with Texas A&M’s slow-motion defection from the Big 12 to the SEC all but finished, the Big 12 is in another fight for its survival, with athletic directors and conference commissioners around the country considering their options should the Big 12 dissolve.

The Latest Domino Falls...

The first big domino here is obviously Texas A&M. They formally announced last week that they intend to leave the Big 12 Conference by July 2012, and the school is expected to announce later today that the SEC is their landing spot. Reportedly the 12 existing SEC schools voted 10-2 Tuesday night in favor of inviting the Aggies to its league, but a formal announcement could potentially hit a snag if any of the other nine remaining Big 12 schools chooses to not waive its right to litigate against the SEC for tortious interference with its conference affiliation.

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Walker Carey is an RTC contributor.

Given all the media and fan attention on the NCAA Tournament, it’s sometimes easy to forget that there were 32 other teams (several pretty good ones) playing on (mostly) the off days.  The NIT is the grand-daddy of postseason basketball, so let’s get you briefly caught up on where that tournament is at the quarterfinal stage.

Alabama Bracket

The first two rounds in the Alabama Bracket have seen the top seeds advancing in each game, which sets up a quarterfinal game between top seeded Alabama and second seeded Miami (FL) Wednesday night. Alabama has used solid performances from guards Tony Mitchell and Trevor Releford, as well as from big man JaMychal Green to breeze past Coastal Carolina and New Mexico in home games. The Hurricanes have gotten solid guard play from Malcolm Grant and Durand Scott to earn victories over Florida Atlantic and Missouri State in Coral Gables. The quarterfinals will come down to whether Frank Haith’s team can find scoring options against one of the better defensive teams still playing basketball this season.  The winner advance to the semifinals in New York City.

Colorado Bracket

The first round of the Colorado Bracket gave us two of the biggest upsets of the tournament thus far. After getting their bubble burst on Selection Sunday, second seeded Saint Mary’s was upset at home by seventh seeded Kent State after blowing a 13-point lead. The first round also saw third seeded Colorado State lose at home to sixth seeded Fairfield. The Golden Flashes topped the Stags in the second round to advance to the quarterfinal. In the top half of the bracket, Colorado has used strong performances from standouts Alec Burks and Cory Higgins to easily defeat Texas Southern, California and Kent State in succession.  The Buffs are playing like a team with a chip on its shoulder, and will advance to NYC to await the winner of the Alabama-Miami (FL) game.

Boston College Bracket

The first round of the Boston College Bracket saw all the top seeds advance and do so fairly convincingly. However, things changed in the second round, as top seeded Boston College was blown out at home by fourth seeded Northwestern. The Wildcats used a balanced attack led by John Shurna and Michael Thompson to throttle the Eagles. Elsewhere in the second round, Washington State used a strong performance from star guard Klay Thompson to get past third seed Oklahoma State by a 74-64 margin. The second round results set up a quarterfinal matchup between fourth seed Northwestern and second seed Washington State. Considering that the game will be played in Pullman and Klay Thompson might be the best player in the NIT this year, Wazzu should advance to the semifinals in Madison Square Garden next week.

Virginia Tech Bracket

The first round of the Virginia Tech Bracket contained the top individual performance of the tournament thus far. College of Charleston guard Andrew Goudelock netted 39 points to lead the sixth seeded Cougars to an upset victory over three seed Dayton. The Cougars remained hot in the second round by knocking out star guard Norris Cole and the Cleveland State Vikings. The top half of the bracket saw top seed Virginia Tech and fourth seed Wichita State advance to the second round where the Hokies and Shockers battled in an overtime classic. In the end, Wichita State was able to ride a balanced scoring effort to defeat the Hokies and overcome Malcolm Delaney’s 30 points. Both the Cougars and the Shockers are on a roll heading into the quarterfinal Wednesday night, making it a tough game to predict, but if Goudelock catches fire for Bobby Cremins’ squad then College of Charleston will enjoy a trip to New York as the sole mid-major representative next week in Manhattan. 

Throughout conference tournament weekend, we’re going to pop in with some BGTD-style analysis at least twice a day.

• Kemba’s Childress Moment.  He may not win the NPOY award due to a bit of a slump in the middle of the season, but there is no other player in America who we’d rather have with the ball in his hands and the clock winding down.  Like the former Wake Forest assassin, Randolph Childress, Kemba Walker has built a reputation this season for making the big shot down the stretch, and his double-crossover move into a step-back jumper that found the bottom of the net was a thing of beauty.  Somewhere Pitt’s Gary McGhee is still trying to figure out how to untangle his legs after getting twisted and turned into a spinning mess of fall-down — Fran Fraschilla’s call that Walker “has a mismatch” is comedic in just how prophetic he was.  UConn has now won three in a row in the Big East Tournament so you start to wonder about fatigue, but if anybody has the stones and wherewithal to do something crazy like win five games in five days, it would be Walker.

• Pitt’s Presumptive #1 Seed.  The great thing about the Big East Tournament is that there are so many good teams beyond the first round that when a top team loses, as Pitt did today, it’s considered a “good” loss and will only marginally impact that team’s NCAA seeding.  As the regular season champions of the toughest and deepest conference in America, Jamie Dixon’s Panthers probably could have lost to South Florida or DePaul and still been a strong favorite for a #1 seed, but it says here that the Selection Committee is unlikely to hold a loss to UConn, a name program with a NPOY candidate, against it.  Pitt will still be a top seed come Sunday evening.
• Miami’s Absurd Comeback. It was overlooked because the game involves two teams that are going nowhere this postseason, but the Miami comeback against Virginia this afternoon was one of the best we’ve ever seen.  With 42.5 seconds remaining, the Canes were down 53-43 before hitting a Durand Scott three-pointer.  Two missed Wahoo FTs led to another Miami three, which was followed up by two consecutive steals and layups to tie the game at 53-all with 13.9 seconds left.  To those of you at home, that’s a 10-0 run in a mere 28.6 seconds, a remarkable achievement.  UM actually stole the ball again with under a second to go and had a shot at the buzzer to win, but it was off.  Capitalizing on their momentum, though, they took care of the Cavaliers in overtime and will move on to face UNC on Friday.
• Fabulous Melo.  Has Jim Boeheim been holding his freshman center back all season so as to unleash him on an unsuspecting Big East Tournament in March?  Doubtful, of course, but there’s no question that Boeheim’s usage of the big man is now paying dividends.  After a ten-point game against DePaul on Wednesday, Melo came back with a 12-pointer today, including two gigantic layups down the stretch that effectively won the game for his team.  His point total and minutes (22) are both career highs, and he’s yet to miss a field goal attempt in two games in the postseason (10-10).  This is a big if, as freshman bigs are notoriously inconsistent, but if Melo can continue to play substantial minutes and make these kinds of contributions, Syracuse suddenly vaults from a top twenty team to a top ten caliber team.  Let’s see how he handles UConn on Friday.
• Kansas Sleepwalks But Escapes.  Speaking of presumptive #1 seeds, KU acted like they were already settled in for Selection Sunday today, as they sleepwalked through a game that they probably should have lost this afternoon in Kansas City.  Had Marcus Morris’ long three at the end of the shot clock not found the bottom, we think the Jayhawks would have been upset today.  Travis Ford agreed, saying that the shot was the biggest of the game, even bigger than the terrible 30-footer that his team attempted to win the game at the buzzer (rather than driving the ball to the hole).  For KU fans intent on getting back to the Final Four and winning another title, though, today had to have been reminiscent of last year’s Northern Iowa debacle; a game where for all intents and purposes it appeared that the Jayhawks simply weren’t mentally into it.  Bill Self better get his team’s attention or another meltdown might be imminent.
• BYU Appears Shaky.Against a team that in TCU that only won a single Mountain West regular season game this year, we’d have liked to see BYU shake off some of the residual tentativeness from losing its big man, Brandon Davies, to the Mormon code.  Didn’t happen.  In fact, TCU hung around until the final few minutes as The Jimmer had trouble finding his shot, going only 7-21 from the field.  Maybe it was some of the same first-game doldrums that Kansas experienced today against an inferior opponent, or maybe this is a serious signal that the Cougars are not going to be able to recover from the loss of Davies.  We know this much — BYU will need to bring  a much better game to play tomorrow against New Mexico or Colorado State.
• Minnesota’s Train Wreck of a Season.  With today’s Gopher loss to Northwestern, Minnesota’s train wreck of a second half of the season mercifully came to an end.  The team that had beaten UNC, West Virginia and Purdue earlier this season finished up by losing ten of its last eleven games, essentially becoming a shell of its former self when point guard Al Nolen went down with a broken foot in late January.  With Tubby Smith’s seemingly endless cattle call of injuries, suspensions and transfers over the last few years, we’re starting to wonder if he’ll ever put together the kind of sustained success that the Golden Gopher program expected when they hired him out of Kentucky a few years ago.  How bad is it?  This year is only the third in eighteen seasons that a Smith-coached team did not win at least one conference tournament game.  Ouch.
• DJ Kennedy’s Knee.  Hate, hate, hate to see this.  In a play somewhat reminiscent of Da’Sean Butler’s injury against Duke in the Final Four last season, St. John’s guard DJ Kennedy crumpled down in pain after twisting his knee on an early drive in today’s game against Syracuse.  At this point, the injury is described as a “serious knee injury,” but the lingering sense surrounding this is that Kennedy might be out for the rest of his senior season.  If so, Steve Lavin would be without one of his best players and team leaders in the NCAA Tournament, a real shame considering how far he and his team have come this year.
• And Then There’s This.  From the Big East Tournament…

• Bubbling Up.  Memphis, after hanging on against Southern Miss…  Colorado, after knocking out Kansas State… USC, after ripping apart Cal… BC, by virtue of taking care of business against Wake Forest…  Georgia, ditto against Auburn…  Michigan State, outlasting Iowa (anyone surprised?)…
• Bubble Popping.  UAB, after dropping a terrible overtime game against East Carolina…

Games #179-180.  The Jayhawks and Wildcats hit the hardwood in Kansas City to take on two winners of Wednesday’s opening round matchups.

12:30 pm – Kansas vs. Oklahoma State. After winning the Big 12 for the seventh straight season, the Kansas Jayhawks received a first-round bye in the conference tournament and now draws the Oklahoma State Cowboys. OSU ended any realistic chance of Nebraska making the NCAA Tournament with a 53-52 victory on Wednesday. Bill Self’s team is a sure thing for a number one seed, but must keep up its momentum if it wants the tournament’s top overall spot. KU won the first meeting in blowout fashion, 92-65, in Lawrence two weeks ago, but Travis Ford’s team is eager to play spoiler.

3:00 pm – Kansas State vs. Colorado. The second game will pit Kansas State against Colorado. The Wildcats have used a month-long surge to return to its preseason status as a team that no one wants to play in a tournament situation. The Buffaloes need a high-profile win to strengthen their case for a tournament bid, and while Kansas State is hot, Colorado beat them in both regular season meetings. We’ll also be treated to a matchup of high-level individual scorers with Jacob Pullen and Alec Burks sharing the court.

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1. The Mountain West has received a lot of attention this year due to the excellent play of top ten teams San Diego State and BYU and, of course, the NPOY candidacy of the Cougars’ Jimmer Fredette.  Yesterday the attention on the league was of a different sort, though, as Wyoming, dead last in the league standings at 1-8, fired head coach Heath Schroyer after three-plus seasons at the helm.  This move comes after the Cowboys lost its seventh consecutive game on Saturday, a three-point home loss to Colorado State.  Schroyer was 49-68 during his tenure in Laramie, with his best season coming in 2008-09 as Wyoming went 19-14 (7-9 MWC) and made the NIT.
2. Ugh.  Oklahoma State forward Darrell Williams was charged with three counts of rape and one of sexual battery on Monday stemming from an incident in December where he allegedly assaulted two women at a party.  The junior college transfer has given head coach Travis Ford a solid season, averaging 7/7 in twelve starts and around 21 minutes per game, but according to the coach, he will be held out of the lineup and practice until his legal issues are resolved.  His preliminary hearing is scheduled for the first week in March, which probably means that Williams’ season is effectively over.  OSU has been playing better of late, beating Missouri and Oklahoma to get back to the middle of the Big 12 pack, but any further push will be that much more difficult without the sometime-starter available to bang bodies down low.
3. Dan Wiederer delves further into the phenomenon known as Kendall Marshall going for a record sixteen assists in UNC’s destruction of Florida State over the weekend.   We didn’t know, for example, that Marshall has a tendency to pull a Bill Russell during halftime of games, but we do now and we’re quite sure that Roy Williams will provide the rookie with his own four-year supply of barf bags if he keeps dropping double-figure dimes the rest of the season.
4. A new Monday meant another version of Seth Davis’ Hoop Thoughts.  In this week’s edition, he deplores the fly-by-night departure of Larry Drew II from the program (blaming Drew’s mother more than his famous father), St. John’s as the most interesting bubble team at this point, and a Kyrie Irving update that you haven’t seen anywhere else.
5. The ten final candidates for the Bob Cousy Award given to the nation’s top point guard were announced on Monday, and there were a couple of surprising omissions.  The complete list is below, but as Mike Miller at Beyond the Arc points out, there’s really no legitimate excuse for leaving out Xavier’s Tu Holloway and Wisconsin’s Jordan Taylor.  Both players have been outstanding for their respective teams, and outside of the NPOY candidates Fredette, Smith and Walker, arguably better than any of the other names on this list.

• Norris Cole, Cleveland State
• Corey Fisher, Villanova
• Jimmer Fredette, BYU
• D.J. Gay, San Diego State
• Brandon Knight, Kentucky
• Demetri McCamey, Illinois
• Mickey McConnell, St. Mary’s
• Nolan Smith, Duke
• Isaiah Thomas, Washington
• Kemba Walker, UConn

The Lede.  It’s really been a great week of college hoops, and tonight’s slate was no different.  We were thrilled and bedazzled with another 40-point performance from the modern-day JJ/Chris Jackson/Steph Curry, depending on whom you ask; a Big East team that seems to have nine lives this season finding another one hanging around at the top of the backboard; and, an emotional evening in Oklahoma centering on a tragedy from a decade ago that people in that area still feel heavily in their hearts.

SDSU: Not the First, Nor the Last (Deseret News/S. Johnson)

Your Watercooler Moment. Jimmer Carries BYU to Knock SDSU From Unbeatens.  It wasn’t the prettiest game you’ll watch all season, but for many folks around the country it was their first chance to get a nationally-televised look at the one they call The Jimmer.  And he didn’t disappoint, especially in a scorching first half of action where you may have wondered if he was ever going to miss a jimmer, er, jumper (20 points on 8-12 shooting including 3-3 from behind the arc).  He ended the game with another ridiculous night — 43/4 on 14-24 shooting — in scoring over 60% of his team’s points and generally setting the crowd of 22,000+ at the Marriott Center and the millions more watching at home into apoplexy every time he appeared to face up to the rim for a look at the basket.  With Kemba Walker in the east, Jared Sullinger in the midwest, and Jimmer Fredette in the west, the national college basketball landscape this season has a trio of NPOY candidates with completely different skill sets who add incredible value to their teams.  It’s going to be a wild six weeks to finish out the season and determine who will take the award, but Fredette proved again tonight that despite playing in relative obscurity beyond the lights of a major conference and regular TV appearances, he deserves every bit as much attention as the other guys.

As for the game itself, San Diego State played well considering that the only real production Steve Fisher’s team had tonight was from a sick Kawhi Leonard (22/15).   And we mean sick as in illness rather than our typical usage of that word.   His frontcourt mates Malcolm Thomas and Billy White struggled shooting the ball (combined 7-20 FG) and the Aztecs’ lack of three-point bombers other than DJ Gay (who was cold as Utah snow tonight, 0-7 FG) really hurt them.  Of course, nobody truly expected SDSU to run the regular season table undefeated, but from a long-term perspective, the Aztecs are not going to be able to beat three or even four good teams in the NCAA Tournament on neutral floors if they can’t find a way to regularly make some outside jumpers.  They’re at 33% on the season out there, and they were even worse at 5-20 from beyond the arc tonight.  Is it a fatal flaw?  Yes, in the sense that when they play a really good team that can match their interior play, they’ll be forced to make some Js — when that doesn’t happen (we’re thinking back to the 2009 Oklahoma team with Blake Griffin), it’s lights out.  Still, with the right matchups, SDSU can make a run to the Elite Eight — they’ll just need to play the right teams along the way.

Tonight’s Quick Hits…

• Just Go Ahead and Order It.  You know you want to have one in your closet if or when Jimmer and BYU make a run in March just so you can wear it around and tell all your friends you’ve had it for “years.”

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Zach Hayes is RTC’s official bracketologist.

Last Four In: Butler, Colorado State, Oklahoma State, UCLA.

Last Four Out: Dayton, Colorado, Wichita State, UAB.

Next Four Out: Washington State, George Mason, UCF, Kansas State.

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Pittsburgh, as Syracuse most recently learned, is a contender to win the national championship because they do one thing incredibly well and a lot of other things at a pretty high level. The one excellent thing they do is crash the offensive boards. They lead the nation in offensive rebounding rate, which is the driving force behind their current position as the most efficient offense in the country.  The Panthers do a lot of other things well– shooting, defensive rebounding, controlling turnovers– but nothing they do, in terms of advanced stats, really jumped out at me until I noticed that they are second in the nation in assists to field goals made. 69.8% of Pittsburgh’s field goals are assisted. This is interesting and pretty cool, but I began to wonder if it even mattered.

Assists are really weird, because in a way that’s not true of any other individual stat, they don’t really measure individual performance at all. To get a credited assist, the passer’s teammate has to knock down shots. Surround a healthy Kyrie Irving with four clones of someone who shoots as well as I do, and as crisp, creative, and well-timed as his passes are, he is not going to get too many assists, solely because, well, I am a terrible shooter.The box score for this game will show he got no assists. Did Kyrie have a bad game? Were his passes worse than usual?

Jamie Dixon's Team Moves the Ball Well

No, probably not, and that’s a tricky question. From close to the beginning of basketball box scores, assists have been tracked. In fact, in the early days of individual statistics, assists were really about the only thing tracked besides points and rebounds. Why do we even track assists? Maybe just because we always have. On some level, it’s easy to see what assists are supposed to do: assists are supposed to be a measure of play-making through passing. But as I mentioned, assists really aren’t all that great at measuring true ball movement because the statistic is hopelessly tangled up with field goal percentage. A team that makes more shots should generally have more assists. We don’t keep track of who made a great pass that led to a missed shot, and that really throws off our view of skilled passing and playmaking, which, after all, assists are supposed to measure.

There are more problems than that. We largely assume that assists are almost always positive. Passing is good. The problem is that sometimes it isn’t. Let’s suppose that we are on the fast-break, and I have the ball and my man beat. It would be easy for me to hit an uncontested layup. Instead, I drop the ball back to you, and you hit a slightly more difficult uncontested mid-range shot. I decreased the chance of us scoring with that pass, but got credited with the assist. That was a bad assist and these happen all the time. If you don’t believe me, watch Rajon Rondo “gun” for assists the next time you watch the Boston Celtics play.

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