In a big-picture sense, the Big 12 provided us with no surprises this season. Kansas won the league again, TCU finished in last place, five teams made the NCAA Tournament, and all was right with the world. It wouldn’t have taken Nostradamus to make those predictions. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an interesting six months, however. There were flops–most notably from the state of Texas. There were overachievers–most notably from the state of Oklahoma. There were thrilling finishes, blown calls, standout freshmen and that one time Kansas somehow lost to TCU. Oh, and one team even won a championship this season in, well, the wrong tournament.

Game of  the Year: Kansas 68, Oklahoma State 67 (February 20)

This showdown in Stillwater was simultaneously the best and worst game of the Big 12 season. How’s that for logic? After the Cowboys stunned Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse earlier in the winter and literally celebrated by doing back flips on the court, this revenge game took on even more importance in the league standings. Had Oklahoma State won, it would have seized the proverbial driver’s seat along with Kansas State and would have made the Jayhawks’ path to the regular season title very difficult. We had drama. We had overtime. Two, actually. And we had a game-winner in the final minute of regulation by Naadir Tharpe, who shook off a rusty performance to hit the go-ahead jumper with 16 seconds to play. Instant classic, right? Certainly. The problem was, it was perhaps the ugliest game ever played by two top-15 opponents on the same floor. Kansas did not make a field goal in the first overtime and it did not make a field goal in the second overtime until Tharpe’s game-winner. That’s almost 10 minutes of basketball without a basket. In overtime! Overall, the two teams combined to shoot five for 32 from beyond the arc. Ben McLemore played 49 minutes, missed nine of 12 shot attempts and finished with seven points after barely touching the ball in the overtime periods. And that’s the best game of the year? We still stand by our decision. This was the game that changed the complexity of the Big 12 title race, and two free periods of basketball is never a bad thing.

Bill Self Won Another Big 12 Title (Photo credit: AP Photo).

Honorable Mentions:

• Kansas 108, Iowa State 96 (February 25): Asterisk on this one. Kansas beat Iowa State in Ames — where the Cyclones hadn’t lost in more than a year — but it needed a blown call at the end of regulation to get the opportunity. You remember the situation. Elijah Johnson‘s charging toward the basket with five seconds left in the game, his team trailing by two points. Georges Niang sets his feet and takes what appears to be a pretty standard charge. But there’s no call, the ball bounces on the floor and the officials eventually blow the whistle on Niang during a scramble. That allows Kansas to tie the game and win in overtime behind Elijah Johnson’s epic 39-point performance. The Big 12 would later admit its referees should have called a charge, but that’s a moot point right now. It’s a shame we’ll remember this game as the No-Call Game as opposed to the Elijah Johnson Game.
• Oklahoma State 74, Baylor 72 (March 14): The Bears needed a victory in this Big 12 quarterfinal to give themselves a chance for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament. Then they fell behind by 20 points. Dead in the water. Except Pierre Jackson started raining jumpers and floaters all over the place, and Baylor inexplicably tied the game in the final minute of regulation. But the officials made a controversial foul call (that’s a trend this year, across all conferences) and sent Phil Forte to the line, where he made both. That’s an exciting finish in and of itself. But it got even better: Nobody’s quite sure how it happened, but with just seconds left on a desperation, mad-dash possession, Jackson dribbled straight through two Oklahoma State defenders and found himself absolutely, completely wide open from three-point land. He had a chance to win at the buzzer. No hands contesting him, no defender in sight. He missed. That sent the Bears to the NIT, and at least they won that tournament. But Jackson’s failed buzzer-beater signaled the end of Baylor’s tourney chances, and it was another dark moment during an underachieving season.

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1. More news surfaced yesterday of Iowa State’s internal investigation stemming from a number of impermissible phone calls over the last couple of years. According to this Associated Press article, a former undergraduate assistant under Fred Hoiberg, Keith Moore, was caught talking to high school recruits at an AAU Tournament in 2011. Hoiberg saw Moore at the event and confirmed he was illegally contacting players. Moore was subsequently fired and the Iowa State Athletic Department began an investigation. It was then turned over to the NCAA, who audited phone calls and text messages over a three-year period and found the impermissible contacts. Are the illegal phone calls or texts much different than what happens at other schools? Probably not. But the moral of the story is to not give the NCAA a reason to start digging.
2. With less than 15 months to go, NBADraft.net released its latest 2014 mock draft here. The top five players are all incoming freshmen, led by top recruit Andrew Wiggins, who is expected to decide between the Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Florida State in the next few weeks. Incoming Kansas freshman guard Wayne Selden is projected to go #7 to the Sacramento Kings. Other Big 12 players include Oklahoma State’s Markel Brown (#22) and Le’Bryan Nash (#44), Texas’ Myck Kabongo (#23), and Baylor’s Cory Jefferson (#47).
3. Beware Kansas and Iowa State fans: The following link won’t be good for your NCAA Tournament recoveries. Matt Norlander over at CBSSports.com ranked the 10 best NCAA Tournament games, and both Big 12 schools made the cut. Kansas’ epic overtime collapse against Michigan, led by Trey Burke’s 30-footer at the end of regulation, came in at #5. As Norlander points out, playing against the eventual AP Player of Year and a team that nearly won the national title makes the Jayhawks’ collapse a bit easier to take. But with less than two minutes left, Ken Pomeroy claimed that Kansas had a 99.4% chance of winning. As for Iowa State, it was another heartbreaking loss on the season. Aaron Craft probably should have been called for a charge late in the game to give the Cyclones the likely win. He wasn’t, and they didn’t. Craft’s three-pointer with 0.2 seconds left gave the Buckeyes the 78-75 win.
4. For Kansas State head coach Bruce Weber, winning the Big 12 regular season championship and earning a #4 seed in the NCAA Tournament earned him a one-year contract extension, theoretically keeping him in Manhattan until the 2017-18 season. He will earn $1.75 million next year, a raise of $250,000. For a school that hadn’t won a regular season conference title in over three decades, the move makes sense. But for a coach that has a history of winning with another coach’s players before struggling to stock up on players himself, it’s a bit puzzling. I would have waited until more of Weber’s recruits make their way to Manhattan before extending his deal.
5. If you were wondering which team (subjectively) is the best NCAA Champion of all-time, ESPN has you covered. They ranked all 74 champions heading into this season. The 1945 Oklahoma State team (then known as Oklahoma A&M) comes in at #67, followed by the 1946 edition at #51. Clyde Lovellette and the Kansas Jayhawks’ 1952 team are #60, just behind ‘Danny and the Miracles.’ The 1988 Jayhawks won the title as an #6 seed and come in at #57. The 2008 Kansas team fails to crack the top 20, coming up just short at #22.

1. In a move that surprised absolutely no one, Kansas freshman guard Ben McLemore announced his intention to enter the NBA Draft yesterday. McLemore apparently told coaches in February that he was coming back, but Bill Self was having none of it. “If he told me he wanted to come back, I would have told him, ‘We need to look at this again,'” Self told the Associated Press. As a near-lock to be a top-three pick, there was little chance McLemore would return for his sophomore season. While it would have obviously helped next year’s team, having a four-star player turn into a top five pick in the NBA Draft will boost Kansas recruiting down the line. Ultimately, McLemore leaving early is a benefit to all parties.
2. Iowa State has been playing basketball for over 100 years but it wasn’t until this season that the Cyclones led the nation in a statistical team or individual category. They made a remarkable 9.9 three-pointers per game this season, tops in the country, thanks in large part to Tyrus McGee. The senior guard led the country in three-point field goal percentage, knocking down 46.4 percent from deep this season. The Cyclones’ small lineup made them one of the toughest match-ups in the country this season. They spread the floor and could knock down shots from anywhere on the court, making double-teams useless and forcing defenses to defend well past the three-point line.
3. The final USA Today/Coaches poll was announced yesterday and not surprisingly, Kansas led the Big 12 representatives at #8. The Jayahwks were #3 in the final pre-NCAA Tournament AP poll, but a disappointing Sweet Sixteen loss to Michigan deservedly dropped them a few spots. Kansas State, the only other Big 12 school to make the cut, also dropped from its final AP ranking. The Wildcats were #12 a few weeks ago but a Second Round loss to La Salle dropped them to #20 in this final poll.
4. Because we can’t get enough college basketball and the dullness of mid-summer baseball is staring us down more with each passing day, the CBSSports.com crew unveiled their way too early Top 25 (And One) rankings. Kentucky, Michigan State and Louisville top the list, but there isn’t much love for the Big 12. Kansas comes in at #20, and it’s hard to argue the Jayhawks should be any higher. All five starters are gone and at least five new freshman are coming to campus. As far as the Big 12 goes, though, that’s it. The conference isn’t supposed to be very good next season as schools like Iowa State, Oklahoma State, and Baylor all lose key cogs from this year’s teams.
5. One surprise team next year could be the Texas Longhorns, who struggled mightily this season with one of the youngest rosters in the country and spending a large portion of the season without point guard Myck Kabongo in the lineup. With most of the rotation returning — except for Sheldon McClellan, who will transfer — next season likely hinges on the draft decision of Kabongo and whether he will stick around Austin. Most people seem to think he is NBA bound as a likely late first rounder.

As we move into Final Four weekend, it’s time for us to reveal our National Player, Freshman and Coach of the Year Awards. As mentioned in yesterday’s RTC All-America teams, we tend to believe that the postseason is an integral part of a player and team’s overall season, so unlike the other awards, we include everything up to this point. This season, our NPOY and FrOY awards were near-unanimous choices, but our COY selection had some dissent. Here are the choices:

National Player of the Year

Trey Burke is the RTC NPOY (AP Photo)

Trey Burke, SO, Michigan (18.8 PPG, 6.8 APG, 1.6 SPG, 3.1 A/TO). After a promising freshman campaign when he averaged 14.8 PPG and 4.6 APG and was unanimously named to the Big Ten’s All-Freshman team and voted by the media as the Big Ten Freshman of the Year, expectations were high for Trey Burke and Michigan heading into the 2012-13 season. Compound a strong nucleus of returning players with a talented incoming freshman class, and the Wolverines were picked by many as a preseason Top 10 team. For Burke individually, there certainly was unfinished business to take care of as he struggled in Michigan’s opening round NCAA Tournament loss to Ohio as a #4 seed shooting just 5-of-15 from the field and hitting only two long-range attempts. As Burke goes, so does Michigan, and the Maize and Blue have produced a 30-7 season and advanced all the way to the Final Four this year thanks in large part to his masterful play. He has scored in double figures in every game this season except Michigan’s opening game against South Dakota State in the NCAA Tournament, and his offensive rating and assist rate both rank among the nation’s top 50 players. Burke will be most remembered this year for his clutch play in the waning minutes against Kansas in the South Region semifinals, though. Michigan trailed 74-69 with just over a minute remaining in regulation, and Burke scored 13 of the Wolverines’ next 18 points to lead the team to the Elite Eight, and ultimately, to its first Final Four in 20 years. Not only does Burke have all the tools to excel at point guard, but he also has the “it” factor. No player has arguably meant more to his team than he this season, and he is an appropriate choice for the 2012-13 RTC National Player of the Year.

Others Receiving Votes: Russ Smith, Louisville.

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As the season winds down and Big 12 teams continue to find themselves eliminated from the post-season, we’re taking a look back on a team-by-team basis at the 2012-13 season. Next up: Oklahoma State.

Final Record: 24-9 (13-5)

The Expectations: Oklahoma State was considered a mixed bag before the season began. There were whispers that Travis Ford should worry about his job status, and even though he’d brought in stud freshman Marcus Smart, Ford had gained an undesirable reputation as the Guy Who Recruits But Can’t Coach. Everybody universally agreed that with Smart, sophomore Le’Bryan Nash, Markel Brown and several other returning contributors, this team had good enough individual players to compete near the top of the Big 12. But would they be the right assortment of pieces? This had been a bad team a year ago, and heart-and-soul guard Keiton Page had graduated. Luckily, scouts and opposing coaches raved about Marcus Smart in the preseason. They told us he wasn’t a typical freshmen — that he was mature beyond his years and the missing piece that would help Nash reach his expectations as a scoring wing. He wasn’t necessarily a natural point guard, though, so there were questions as to whether he’d be effective in that position.

The Actual Result: Smart can play point. Pretty freakin’ well, actually. So well that he was named Big 12 Player of the Year. As the team’s top defender, top scorer, top assists man and second-leading rebounder, Smart was that rare freshman leader who demanded respect from his teammates and completely revamped the attitude within his program. He opened up more opportunities for Nash, and that was evident right away. In the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, the Cowboys dismantled North Carolina State thanks to 43 combined points from Smart and Nash — the Wolfpack were ranked in the top-10 at the time. The Cowboys struggled from a New Year’s hangover and lost four of six games from December 31 to January 21. They couldn’t close the deal at home against Gonzaga in one of the more anticipated home games at Gallagher-Iba in quite some time, and then they lost three road games at Oklahoma, Kansas State and Baylor. That’s when the light truly went on in Stillwater. On February 2, the Cowboys won at Kansas and rode into mid-February with a seven-game winning streak. With a chance to take control of the league and sweep Kansas on February 20, Oklahoma State dropped a double-overtime heartbreaker to the Jayhawks an in ugly game that set basketball back by at least five decades. It couldn’t break KU’s hold on the Big 12, but it prevented Kansas State from winning the league outright by knocking off the Wildcats at home in the regular season finale. KSU returned the favor by handling OSU fairly easily in the Big 12 semifinals the next week. Then, the NCAA Tournament selection committee decided to play a cruel joke on Oklahoma State, rewarding its 24-win season with a #5/#12 match-up against Oregon. The Ducks, ranked in the Top 25 for much of the year, were probably under-seeded by at least four lines. At least. Guess what happened? Oklahoma State lost.

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1. Your move, Texas Tech. Five-star recruit Keith Frazier just tentatively committed to play for the Red Raiders, but he wants to play for interim head coach Chris Walker. That means Tech might need to keep Walker on as the permanent coach for Frazier to stay true to his word. Is it worth it? Frazier is, after all, a consensus top-25 recruit with the potential to change the entire landscape of this program. The shooting guard from Dallas is a McDonald’s All-American. Fan interest in Lubbock could be at an all-time high if he does indeed step on campus, but it appears that will hinge on Walker’s status. As the interim coach, Walker didn’t win very many games, but don’t judge him on the mess he inherited from Billy Gillispie. He kept things together fairly well, knocked off Iowa State at one point and avoided a complete catastrophe. Frazier or no Frazier, Chris Walker isn’t a bad candidate as the permanent head coach of this program.
2. Amath M’Baye‘s short stay at Oklahoma is over. The swingman announced he’ll skip his senior year to enter the NBA Draft, a decision made partly because he needs to financially support his family overseas. He also feels he’s mature enough to make the move, considering he’s now almost 24 years old. The former Wyoming transfer was a solid addition for Lon Kruger this year, but he wasn’t an elite player and a few heads were scratched with his decision to forgo his senior year. M’Baye has a life to live, though, and his choice makes sense on a lot of levels. It’ll leave the Sooners looking for a versatile wing to fill the void, since M’Baye did a lot of different things with his blend of size and athleticism in the frontcourt.
3. You’ve probably heard of Andrea Hudy before. She’s already been featured on ESPN, but here’s another look at the woman behind the magic at Kansas. Hudy is the strength and conditioning coach for the Jayhawks, and she’s built quite a reputation as a fierce motivator and frightening trainer. In the background of all this is her role as a female trainer in a largely male world of men’s college basketball. It’s admirable that she’s able to do her job — and do it well — without complaint from either the players or Bill Self’s staff. It’s proof that regardless of gender, a trainer’s a trainer. And they’re almost all as scary as Andrea Hudy. Judging by Self’s dominance of the Big 12, it looks like Hudy’s a step above her competition.
4. Oklahoma State‘s roster will depend on whether Markel Brown, Le’Bryan Nash and Marcus Smart all return to school. That’s huge. But here’s a more detailed look at exactly what Travis Ford might have to work with next year. We know Philip Jurick is gone. Ford will miss that big body, but he ran into legal trouble before the season and isn’t irreplaceable. Michael Cobbins could be primed for a big year up front, as could Kamari Murphy, who’ll be a sophomore. Oklahoma State returns a good group of guards, too, including Phil Forte and Kirby Gardner. Beyond that, the Cowboys will welcome five newcomers who could get big minutes if the OSU Big Three decide to leave for the NBA.
5. Let’s get this over with. You probably don’t like the NIT, but you need to know that Baylor knocked off Providence to advance to the semifinals at the Garden. The Bears will now face BYU, a team it defeated in Waco earlier in the year. That was an odd game, as it turned out — Baylor fell behind early, then went on a masterful run to seize control of things and win fairly easily. At that time, it seemed like that might be the win that could turn the season around. Instead, Scott Drew’s team is playing BYU in the NIT. So much for that.

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.

Bennet Hayes (@hoopstraveler) is the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Region correspondent.

The Midwest Regional begins Friday night in Indianapolis with Louisville vs. Oregon followed by Duke vs. Michigan State. The East Region Reset and West Region Reset published earlier today, and be sure to look out for the South Region Reset later this afternoon. Also make sure to follow RTCMWRegion for news and analysis from Indy throughout the week.

New Favorite: #1 Louisville. When you are the #1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, win your first two games by a total of 57 points, and now have to travel just 115 miles to the regional site, you aren’t going to lose your pole position. The Cardinals are still the team to beat in Indianapolis.

Lucas Oil Stadium Is Where The Midwest Will Be Won

Horse of Darkness: #12 Oregon. It’d be hard enough to make a case for a #1, #2, or #3 seed as a dark horse, and harder yet when the programs occupying those seed-lines are Louisville, Duke, and Michigan State. So while Oregon certainly fits the bill here, they also are winners by default. We knew the Ducks were underseeded and dangerous on that #12 line, and they went out and played like it last week. At this point, nobody would blink an eye if the seed next to the Ducks’ name was a #4 instead.  Louisville would be advised to view Dana Altman’s team through that lens, because Oregon is talented enough to knock off the Cardinals, even in their own backyard.

Biggest Surprise (1^st Weekend): #4 Saint Louis. Clearly, this wasn’t the good kind of surprise. Saint Louis entered this NCAA Tournament as a legitimate Final Four sleeper. They played along with the hype in the Second Round, where they clinically dispatched New Mexico State in winning by 20. At that point, a deep run still felt very possible and at least one more win a near-certainty, which made the resounding defeat they suffered at the hands of Oregon a bit of a shock. Let’s keep in mind that this was a Saint Louis team that had lost just once in regulation since November, and the 17-point margin of defeat to the Ducks was the Billikens’ largest of the season. 2012-13 was a proud, inspiring season for SLU, but few could have predicted the abruptness with which it would end.

Completely Expected (1^st Weekend): #3 Michigan State. Chalk prevailed almost across the board in this region (thank god for Oregon!), so take your pick here, but I’ll go with the Spartans. Armed with a virtual home court advantage in Auburn Hills, Tom Izzo’s crew made quick work of Valparaiso before dismantling Memphis in the Third Round. These wins were completely expected not only because it’s Sparty playing March basketball in its home state, but also because both their opponents loomed as favorable match-ups for this Michigan State team. As expected, Valpo was outmanned and Memphis not tough enough. The result, equally anticipated, is another Spartans visit to the Sweet Sixteen.

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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.