Apologies that we are a bit tardy in rolling out our Top 25; with the holidays behind us and the New Year officially upon us, we plan on hitting 2013 running. A fairly light week of hoops resulted in little movement in the RTC25. Duke remains #1 for the sixth straight week, Minnesota cracks the Top 10 for the first time, and NC State jumps back into the poll after making a departure for several weeks. In perhaps the most exciting game of the week, Gonzaga shot back up to #10 after a big road win in Stillwater against Oklahoma State. The Quick n’ Dirty after the jump.

Quick n’ Dirty Analysis.

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For the Big 12’s sake, let’s hope Gonzaga is as good as their No. 10 ranking suggests. Because with their win against No. 22 Oklahoma State Monday night, the Bulldogs have completed a 5-0 run against the Big 12 this season. They opened the season with a 34-point walloping of West Virginia at home, beat Oklahoma in the Old Spice Classic in Orlando, defeated Kansas State in Seattle, held off Baylor at home last week, and traveled to a riled up Gallagher-Iba arena Monday night to escape with a 68-67 win.

Baylor was just another victim of Gonzaga in their run through the Big 12. (James Snook/USA Today Sports)

While a win Monday night would have been great for Oklahoma State’s NCAA Tournament resume, it should have solidified most people’s thoughts that this is a two-team race in the Big 12. Because going forward, are the Cowboys any better of a team if freshman point guard Marcus Smart had made both of his free throws with eight seconds left to tie the game? Not really, but the narrative would have been much different about the Cowboys if he had dropped both attempts in. Smart had 23 points and six assists in the loss and the Cowboys risk dropping out of the next Top 25 on Monday, leaving only Kansas at #6 to represent the Big 12. As for OSU, they attempted 23 three-pointers in each of its losses this season. For a team that shoots just a paltry 32.5% from deep, that number is too high, especially with a distributor like Marcus Smart and a talented slashing guard like Le’Bryan Nash capable of creating opportunities at the basket. It seems to be an easy teaching point for head coach Travis Ford: if we settle for too many long jump shots, we will lose. Of course, it is rarely that easy. The Cowboys shot 22 threes (making eight) in their upset of then No. 6 North Carolina State in November.

As long as they don’t fall in love with the three-ball, the Cowboys can challenge Kansas for the Big 12 regular season championship. That is a big “if,” though. They have attempted over 20 three-pointers in seven of their 12 games this season. When they shoot fewer than 23 three-pointers, they are 7-0. When they attempt 23 or more treys, they are 3-2. There are not enough consistent shooters on the roster to shoot so many threes a game. It certainly isn’t the primary strength of their perimeter players such as Smart, Nash, and Markel Brown. The sooner they realize that, the sooner they can approach their ceiling, which is a legitimate shot at the conference title and a subsequent deep run in March.

1. Burnt Orange Nation always does a terrific job breaking down the nitty-gritty and statistics of Texas hoops, but this week’s entry has some interesting numbers relevant to the Big 12 as a whole. Read toward the bottom of the article and look at some of the surprising statistics with regard to Oklahoma State‘s defense. As the article explains, the Cowboys have blocked 16 percent of their opponents’ shot attempts in the paint. That’s not a statistic you often hear about, so it is difficult to put that in perspective. Still, blocking almost one out of every six shots from up close seems impressive. And it is also odd to consider that Oklahoma State’s opponents are shooting a lower percentage from the field in transition than in a half-court setting.
2. Speaking of Oklahoma State, the Cowboys blew a golden opportunity to really arrive on the national scene in a one-point loss to Gonzaga Monday night. No shame in a loss to the Zags, though, who have ripped through non-conference play with a 5-0 record against the Big 12. That’s quite bizarre in the aggregate, but not at all that surprising when you dig deeper to see how it happened. In order, Gonzaga has now defeated: West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas State, Baylor, and Oklahoma State. Maybe the basketball gods can arrange a showdown between the Bulldogs and Kansas in the NCAA Tournament to see Gonzaga really is King of the Big 12 this season.
   
3. Bear with us as we analyze the Gonzaga/Oklahoma State match-up one more time. As disappointing as Travis Ford has to feel in letting one slip away at home, simply competing with the Zags in a down-to-the-wire, nationally televised game has to mean something. They will kick you out of the coaching profession for praising a team for a moral victory, but even Ford can admit he liked what he saw for the most part. “We did some good things,” he said. And he’s right. He learned that Marcus Smart is a gamer in big contests, and he learned that his team can really defend. If only the Cowboys didn’t have to play a front line like Gonzaga’s on this particular night.
4. And your Big 12 Player of the Week hails from… Texas Tech, in a surprise selection. It’s Jaye Crockett, who emerged as a real playmaker in Big 12 action a year ago, and this year he is taking over as the primary scoring option. In fact, he is leading the team in scoring. Meanwhile, Jordan Tolbert has not been quite as effective after a stellar freshman season. As a sophomore, he is not getting to the free throw line as often as he did last year, so it helps that Crockett, Dejan Kravic, and freshman Josh Gray have all picked up a bit of the slack.
5. We will leave you on a heartwarming note that has nothing to do with men’s basketball. Instead, here is a video of an Iowa State women’s basketball player being proposed to at center court. Our only complaint: Why pull this stunt after a non-conference game against Alabama State? If the dude was really bold, he would wait until Brittney Griner were in town and ask his girlfriend at halftime then in front of a packed house.

Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

Tonight’s Lede. Conference Play Rocks. Analyzing and prognosticating and laying out bold analytical claims about teams is a fun debate this time of year. Teams are assigned permanent labels. Players earn reputations, rightly or wrongly, that stick around far longer than they should. All of this is premature – the best advice in November and December is to reserve judgment. Because once conference play begins, teams’ identities shine through, and many of the perceptions and conclusions we make are rendered useless. Two of the best leagues in the country, the Big Ten and Big East, kicked off their conference slates Monday in grand fashion. And if you got a taste of Pittsburgh-Cincinnati, or Indiana-Iowa, or Michigan State-Minnesota, you can already infer the obvious: conference competition entails a whole new level of competitiveness and intensity. With that, it is now time to get into your first weekday of league play, with a hope that the rest of the reason brings the same if not more entertaining hoops action.

Your Watercooler Moment. Minnesota’s Good; Michigan State’s Almost There. We Knew That Already.

The Big Ten is a cluttered jumble of Tournament hopefuls and championship contenders.What Minnesota showed monday is that its nonconference work was no anomaly (photo credit: AP Photo).

For anyone who watched Minnesota and Michigan State play any portion of their nonconference schedules, this game was a perfect precursor for the type of gritty, hard-nosed, highly-competitive Big Ten showdowns that should play out in high frequency over the next two months. Minnesota’s win also confirmed what most already knew about the Gophers: this team is a serious threat to vie for the Big Ten crown. Loaded and Top-heavy as the Big Ten is this season, Tubby Smith’s team has it all: Andre Hollins is a heady lead guard with a wide arsenal of perimeter scoring skills. Trevor Mbakwe belongs in the NBA today. Rodney Williams is one of the two or three best pure athletes in college basketball. And Austin Hollins is a stingy on-ball defender who’s offensive game isn’t all that far behind. Put it all together, and what you get is Tubby Smith’s best team at Minnesota. The way both teams have looked so far this season, Michigan State taking the Gophers to the wire at the Barn is not an altogether bad outcome. The Spartans are still sorting out their frontcourt rotation, still trying to leverage all of Gary Harris’ creative intuition and still searching for the defense-and-rebounding identity that Tom Izzo’s teams gradually assume over the course of a season. Basically, the Gophers’ win confirmed most every empirical insight we had about both teams coming in. That’s comforting for my basketball brain, if anything.

Your Quick Hits…

• Hoosiers Flaunt Road Chops. The biggest skeptics of Indiana’s preseason No. 1 ranking were fairly unanimous on one perceived flaw: Indiana can’t win on the road. And you know what? They’re weren’t totally off their rockers. The Hoosiers did take their lumps last season when away from cushy Assembly Hall and the enormous home field advantage it awards them – particularly in Big Ten play, where they pulled out just three of nine road tests. There’s no telling how last year’s Indiana team would have responded to Monday’s road date at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, where a retooled and vastly improved Iowa squad gave the Hoosiers their best shot. In the end, Indiana’s immensely talented and deep roster overcame Iowa’s very best efforts, and that’s a huge relief if you’re an Indiana fan. If the Hoosiers can go into tough environments like Iowa and win the games they just weren’t ready for last season, there’s nothing standing in the way of a Big Ten regular season title. Read the rest of this entry »

Brendon Mulvihill is the head curator for @SportsGawker and an RTC contributor. You can find him @TheMulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

College hoops heads into 2013 with the opening of conference season in some of the major leagues set to begin . The slate of games scheduled for New Year’s Eve is not to be missed, as the Big East and Big Ten seasons both get underway. However, it is one final non-conference match-up that leads our breakdowns. Happy New Year!

Game of the Week

#16 Gonzaga at #21 Oklahoma State – 6:00 PM EST, Monday on ESPN2 (*****)

Le’Bryan Nash and company look to stop Gonzaga’s winning ways against the Big 12. (AP)

• A win against Oklahoma State today will make Gonzaga the best team in the Big 12. Obviously, Gonzaga is still in the West Coast Conference, but they are already 4-0 against Big 12 teams this season with wins against West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas State, and Baylor. Monday’s game against the Cowboys, however, is their first true road test against a Big 12 opponent. The other games have either been at home or on neutral courts. The Zags usually have a size advantage against their opponents, but Oklahoma State can match their size and even has that advantage at the guard position. The Pokes have four guards who contribute heavily to the offense that are 6’3″ or taller, including 6’7″ Le’Bryan Nash. With Bulldog guards Kevin Pangos and Gary Bell, Jr. measuring at 6’2″ and 6’1″, respectively, it will be very important to watch how Mark Few’s squad chooses to defend the perimeter size of the Cowboys. Much of that defensive pressure could actually fall on the Zags’ frontcourt. The Oklahoma State guards do most of their damage inside the three-point line because they are not much of a threat from the outside. Keep an eye on how this defensive responsibility affects Gonzaga’s offense inside. The Bulldogs will still need to pound the ball down low and get to the line because it’s their best chance of winning. If they can get to the line like Virginia Tech did against Oklahoma State, they can win this game in a tough road environment.
• No team has shot over 50% eFG in a game against Oklahoma State this season, but the Cowboys face a Gonzaga team that is lethally efficient from two-point range. The GU frontcourt’s two-point shooting breaks down like this – Elias Harris shoots 58.8%, Kelly Olynyk shoots 72.3%, Sam Dower shoots 59.7%, and Przemek Karnowski shoots 65.3%. These player will put considerable pressure on Cowboys center Phillip Jurick and freshman forward Kamari Murphy. The key will be how OSU head coach Travis Ford uses his big guards on help defense to stop the Gonzaga low post attack. If Oklahoma State can figure this out, they will pick-up an important non-conference win as they head into Big 12 play.
• Non-conference home losses are few and far between for Oklahoma State under Travis Ford. It’s hard to believe that Gonzaga can actually go 5-0 against the Big 12 this season, especially on the road in front of the Cowboy faithful at Gallagher-Iba Arena. This game will be extremely fun to watch, but the edge has to go to the Cowboys at home.

Other Games to Watch

#10 Cincinnati at #23 Pittsburgh – 12:00 PM EST, Monday on ESPN2 (****)

• Pittsburgh is a very flimsy 12-1. The only good team they’ve play this season is Michigan and they lost that game. We’ll know very quickly if Pitt is any good against a tough and tested Cincinnati squad. However, the Bearcats have shot the ball quite poorly over the last three games. They cannot afford to continue to do so if they expect to win this one, especially at the “Oakland Zoo” in Pittsburgh. The match-up between Tray Woodall and Cashmere Wright should be great to watch all night. Expect Cincy to get back on track and win this game, though, from behind the three-point line. However, if they are shooting bricks like they have been in the past few outings, Pitt will get a great win to start off the Big East season.

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1. They’ve been gearing up for New Year’s Eve in Stillwater for months, and not because they particularly care about the calendar flipping or watching the ball drop in Times Square. Instead, they’ve been gearing up for tonight’s showdown between Oklahoma State and Gonzaga. It’s not only a Top 25 battle — the local media and fans are also billing it as a Game of the Century of sorts, the kind of program-defining game Travis Ford must win to re-establish the Cowboys as a relevant Big 12 program. Good news is, Oklahoma State earned some respect already by demolishing North Carolina State and winning the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. Ford isn’t desperate for a marquee victory, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t help. The Zags, on the other hand, are no stranger to the Big 12. They’ve already knocked off four teams from this league this year alone: West Virginia, Baylor, Oklahoma and Kansas State, all by an average of 20 points.
2. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” The man who penned that quote — a Scottish author named Ian Maclaren — died in 1907. And yet the inspirational phrase applies to Ben McLemore more than a century later. As you’ve watched McLemore this season, you’ve seen him blossom as a scorer and leader for Kansas. You probably didn’t know he has an older brother in a maximum-security prison. You probably also didn’t know his older brother missed McLemore’s first college basketball game and might not ever get to see him play. The freshman wouldn’t expand on how his brother got to prison five years ago, and it’s also unclear how long he’ll be there, but the KU freshman was able to make a visit during the Christmas holiday. This has been McLemore’s life throughout most of his adolescence, and it’s something to think about the next time you see him step on the court at Allen Fieldhouse.
3. During each of Kansas State‘s televised games, announcers have repeatedly mentioned Bruce Weber‘s motion offense and how it will take time for his new team to adjust to his philosophy. Unlike most of what comes out of commentators’ mouths, they’re right on this one. Weber is famous for his fine-tuned motion offense, and it’s more strict than what Frank Martin required on the offensive end. Defensively, though, nothing has changed. This team still needs to defend to win. As Weber puts it, “We have to guard. We’re good at it. We showed last week, if we can play at the right level, we can be OK offensively enough to win.”
4. It’s been very difficult to see the downfall of Royce White after such a marvelous season with Iowa State in 2011-12. White’s issues with the Houston Rockets have been extensively publicized, and now there’s a new chapter: White has declined to play for the Rocket’s D-League team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. Nobody’s quite sure where he’ll go from here, but White claims the organization will not do enough to accommodate his mental health issues. He issued a statement as well, explaining his stance and calling information released by the Rockets’ “misleading” and, at times, “totally inaccurate.”
5. Upon hearing that former Oklahoma (among other schools, most famously Indiana) coach Kelvin Sampson could become a candidate for the Brooklyn Nets’ head coaching job, we have to ask the question: Do the Nets have an unlimited calling plan? Cheap shot. We know. Still, it’s wild to consider Sampson may get the full-time gig in Brooklyn after impermissible phone calls landed him in hot water with the NCAA in 2008. He’s actually under a “show-cause” penalty until 2013, which means he can’t get back into the college game until next year. So why not coach the pros? He already coached on an interim basis for 13 games this season during the absence of Kevin McHale, finishing a modest 7-6.

David Cassilo is an RTC columnist who also writes about college basketball for SLAM magazine. You can follow him at @dcassilo.

With the lack of college games lately, I’ve been catching up on some NBA action. To tie in with my article, I focused mostly on players who have won the Wooden Award over the last decade. To no one’s surprise, Anthony Davis is already starting to be a force in the NBA, but that’s not the case for most. There are stars (Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin), starters (Jameer Nelson, Evan Turner and Andrew Bogut), role players (J.J. Redick, Tyler Hansbrough and Jimmer Fredette), and T.J. Ford, who was forced out of the league due to injury. Overall, being the top player in college means little more than likely getting drafted. There’s still a lot of work to do.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

10. Anthony Bennett – UNLV (Last Week – NR)
2012-13 stats: 19.5 PPG, 8.5 RPG

While Mike Moser and Anthony Marshall were supposed to lead UNLV, that responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of Bennett. He’s been more than up to the task and is our first freshman on this list since the preseason. This week: December 29 at North Carolina, January 3 vs. Chicago State

9. C.J. McCollum – Lehigh (Last Week – 9)
2012-13 stats: 24.9 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 3.1 APG

Lehigh’s C.J. McCollum will need to keep lighting it up.

With his injury, McCollum will go 21 days between games. He’ll need to shake off the rust quickly to move back up the list. This week: December 29 vs. Bryant

8. Michael Carter-Williams – Syracuse (Last Week – 8)
2012-13 stats: 12.4 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 10.3 APG, 3.4 SPG

While Carter-Williams does a lot while he’s on the court, it will be hard to get much higher than No. 8 until he improves his shooting. Over his last two games, he is 4-for-23, 1-for-9 from three-point land and 16-for-25 from the line. This week: December 29 vs. Alcorn State, December 31 vs. Central Connecticut State, January 2 vs. Rutgers

7. Deshaun Thomas – Ohio State (Last week – 5)
2012-13 stats: 20 PPG, 6.8 RPG

Two of Thomas’ worst games this season have come in titanic tilts against Duke and Kansas. He’ll need to play better in big games, as the Buckeyes will have plenty of them come conference play. This week: December 28 vs. Chicago State, January 2 vs. Nebraska

6. Jeff Withey – Kansas (Last week – 7)
2012-13 stats: 14.1 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 5.0 BPG

While Thomas struggled in the game against Kansas, Withey put together his second straight double-double. It’s a promising sight, as Withey has never been a dominant rebounder despite his size and athleticism. This week: December 29 vs. American

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1. Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com is back with his first Bracketology of the year. He predicts his field as if the season ended today, not based on how he thinks teams will do the rest of the season. The Big 12 has six teams in Palm’s field: Kansas (#1 seed), Oklahoma State (#6), Kansas State (#8), Baylor (#11) Oklahoma (#12) and Iowa State, a #12 seed playing in one of the four play-in games. As Palm notes, the Jayhawks are the only #1 seed remaining from his preseason bracket. Duke is the overall No. 1 seed.
2. Bill Self turned 50 on Tuesday. Self is one of the best coaches in the country and is relatively young compared with what he has already accomplished. He will surpass 500 wins this season and is on pace to win his 900th game in about 15 years, according to Kansas City Star beat writer Rustin Dodd in this article yesterday. But Self shot down any talks of catching Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski someday. “I don’t think that I’ll want to coach near that long,” Self told Dodd. While it seems natural for a coach as successful as Self to stay on the sidelines for another two decades like Coach K, Jim Boeheim or Jim Calhoun, those instances of great coaches staying in the game well into their 60s and 70s are few and far between. If Kansas fans have Self patrolling the sideline for another decade, they should be ecstatic.
3. The idea of playing four games simultaneously next season in Cowboy Stadium looks to be dead, the Detroit Free Press and Matt Norlander of CBSSports.com have reported. It was the original plan of Michigan State Athletic Director Mark Hollis, the creator of the first aircraft carrier game last season. Being in Dallas, the Texas Longhorns seemed to be one of the eight teams who would participate, but there were just too many obstacles to overcome. It would have been a television nightmare (a television nightmare I would have watched, admittedly) and like college athletics have shown us recently, if it won’t work on TV, it probably won’t work at all.
4. Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated gave us his top five freshmen wings in a video segment last week, and Kansas guard Ben McLemore came in at No. 5. “Self has made clear,” Davis said. “That he (McLemore) is the one that needs to carry Kansas deep into March.” Davis is spot on. While Elijah Johnson, Jeff Withey, and Travis Releford provide senior leadership for the Jayhawks this season, it will be the play of McLemore that will determine if Kansas makes the Final Four. They might not make it deep into March with McLemore playing well, but they are certain to not advance if he plays poorly.
5. Many people might have forgotten about former Iowa State coach Larry Eustachy by now. He was fired in 2003 after a night partying in Columbia, Missouri, following a loss at Mizzou. He sat out a year, went to rehab, and landed at Southern Mississippi, where he took the Golden Eagles to the NCAA Tournament last season. Now at Colorado State, he has guided the Rams to a 10-2 start while coming up on a decade of sobriety. It is hard to imagine the coach in both of the stories linked are the same man.

1. After beating eighth-ranked Florida on Saturday, Kansas State made its debut in the AP Top 25 poll on Monday, coming in at #25. Oklahoma State jumped from #24 to #22, and Kansas\’ road win at Ohio State vaulted the Jayhawks from ninth to sixth in this week\’s poll. With the Cowboys off this week and only American and UMKC on the schedules of Kansas and Kansas State, respectively, all three teams should remain ranked into the new year.
2. Last week, Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated wrote about his favorite college basketball stories of 2012. Not surprisingly, Kansas\’ 87-86 overtime win over Missouri on February 28 made the list. Missouri won the first meeting at home and held a 19-point second half lead in Allen Fieldhouse, shocking the 16,300 Kansas fans into silence. As everyone remembers, Kansas came back, forced overtime, and won possibly the greatest game the border rivals had ever played. Now with Missouri in the SEC, that rivalry is on hold probably until the teams are someday matched up in the NCAA Tournament.
3. Jeff Goodman and Gary Parrish listed their 10 National Player of the Year Candidates yesterday on CBSSports.com, and Kansas center Jeff Withey came in currently at No. 4. They call him \”arguably\” the best defensive big man in the nation, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone in the post better defensively. He is averaging 8.3 RPG and 5.0 BPG to go along with his 14.1 PPG. He leads the country with 3.9 blocks per foul and has yet to commit more than three fouls in a single game this year, meaning that he\’s on the floor when KU needs him the most.
4. High school superstar Shabazz Muhammad has yet to live up to his preseason hype, but he finally cracked the CBSSports.com Freshman of the Year watch yesterday at No. 5. The Big 12 has two of the five representatives on the list: Kansas guard Ben McLemore is second after scoring 22 points and six rebounds in Saturday\’s 74-66 win over Ohio State. He is averaging 16.5 PPG on the season. Oklahoma State guard Marcus Smart follows McLemore at third, averaging 12.5 PPG, 6.4 RPG, and 5.1 APG. He is also averaging 2.7 SPG and has led the Cowboys to a 10-1 record so far this season.
5. Jay Bilas has never been afraid to voice his displeasure with the NCAA, and Saturday\’s broadcast of Texas-Michigan State was no different. Before the game the NCAA had announced that sophomore point guard Myck Kabongo\’s season-long suspension had been reduced to 23 games. As usual, Bilas held nothing back with his criticism, noted here in a USA Today article from the weekend. Kabongo will be eligible to return on February 13 against Iowa State, and whether that is too late to mesh with his teammates remains to be seen.

David Cassilo is an RTC columnist who also writes about college basketball for SLAM magazine. You can follow him at @dcassilo.

The holidays are always a good time to take a breath and reassess the entire country in college basketball. What is out there is a lot of uncertainty, especially in terms of title contenders. Is there really much that separates No. 1 Duke from No. 9 Kansas or even No. 24 Oklahoma State? But in terms of our races, it’s pretty clear that the field is chasing Mason Plumlee for Player of the Year, Anthony Bennett for Freshman of the Year and Mike Krzyzewski for Coach of the Year. All three have been nothing short of stellar from the opening tip. While parity is fun, there’s nothing better than watching the field try to hunt down the favorite.

And now, a look at those fields.

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

10. Brandon Paul – Illinois (Last Week – 10)
2012-13 stats: 18.8 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 3.5 APG

Paul showed his versatility for a guard by grabbing a season-high nine rebounds against Eastern Kentucky last Sunday. The craziest thing about the Illinois senior is that while he would be a frontrunner for the top player in any other conference, it’ll be a fight to even make the All-Big Ten team. This week: December 22 vs. Missouri

9. C.J. McCollum – Lehigh (Last Week – 6)
2012-13 stats: 24.9 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 3.1 APG

Not much to write as McCollum missed his only game this week with an ankle inury. He’s day-to-day, so he shouldn’t miss much time. This week: None

8. Michael Carter-Williams – Syracuse (Last Week – 8)
2012-13 stats: 12.3 PPG, 5 RPG, 10.7 APG, 3.4 SPG

Michael Carter-Williams Has Been a Revelation This Season

It was a typical two games this week for Carter-Williams. The assists were there but so were the missed shots and turnovers. The fact that Jim Boeheim is tolerating the latter two is a good indication of how special this kid is. This week: December 22 vs. Temple

7. Jeff Withey – Kansas (Last Week – 8)
2012-13 stats: 14.1 PPG, 8.1 RPG, 5.4 BPG

Despite all the defensive accolades he receives, Withey’s offense cannot be overlooked. Make no mistake, he is a focal point of what the Jayhawks want to do, as he’s attempted at least eight shots in all but two games this season. The senior had 17 points and 13 rebounds against Richmond on Tuesday. This week: December 22 at Ohio State

6. Cody Zeller – (Last week – 3)
2012-13 stats: 15.7 PPG, 8.3 PPG

The loss against Butler is the type of game Zeller is supposed to take over and will his team to victory. Instead, he made just four shots from he floor and grabbed five rebounds. It’s safe to say that he has not taken a leap forward in his sophomore season. This week: December 21 vs. Florida Atlantic

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