1. College basketball finally got underway, but once again the big news was off the court. Fortunately, this time it was good news (at least for the first part of the Morning Five) as the NCAA cleared TaShawn Thomas to play immediately. Thomas, a transfer from Houston who averaged 15.4 points and 8.1 rebounds per game last season, had been waiting for the NCAA’s decision for six month. His presence makes Oklahoma a legitimate Final Four threat and a threat to end (at least temporarily) Bill Self’s dominance of the Big 12. Thomas’ performance yesterday (four points, three rebounds, and four turnovers) won’t exactly make anybody in Lawrence nervous, but we would give him a pass since he just found out that he was eligible less than 24 hours earlier.
2. Not all the off court news was positive as Pittsburgh announced that junior Durand Johnson will not play this season due to a suspension for as yet undisclosed reasons. Johnson, who averaged 8.8 points and 3 rebounds per game last season, was expected to play an increased role this season due to losses from graduation/injury. We are not sure what Johnson did to merit the suspension, but we assume it was something recent as beat writers said they had heard nothing of a potential suspension and Johnson was actually featured on the team’s opening game ticket. The situation at Akron is not much better where they suspended All-MAC senior forward Demetrius Treadwell indefinitely for a violation of the school’s code of conduct. Treadwell averaged 15.2 points and 8.6 rebounds per game last season so obviously this is a huge loss and puts the team in limbo until the matter is adjudicated.
3. Florida has its first test of the season later today as Miami comes up to Gainesville, but they have already had  some significant developments as Dorian Finney-Smith will be playing with a hairline fracture in his left, non-shooting hand and Dillon Graham announced that he will be transferring at the end of the semester. The significance of Finney-Smith’s injury is unclear as we will need to see how he adapts to the injury. In the long-term, Graham’s decision to transfer (Billy Donovan said his “heart wasn’t into it”) likely won’t matter, but the Gators have a depleted roster early in the season and will only have seven scholarship players available for tonight’s game and that includes an injured Finney-Smith. Once the Gators get back Chris Walker and Alex Murphy from suspension/transfer waiting period, they should be fine, but it could be dicey for the first few games.
4. Drake suspended seniors Gary Ricks Jr and Karl Madison for three games each for accepting impermissible benefits during the 2012-13 season. What these benefits were remains unknown and since it is Drake basketball (and the Charles Robinsons said of the world probably have no interest in digging into it) will probably remain so. Madison is a role player who averaged just 2.2 points in 16 minutes per game, but Ricks is the team’s top returning scorer at 12.3 points per game while adding 3.8 rebounds per game. The Bulldogs already lost the first of these three games (against Bowling Green) with two more games coming up against DePaul and Western Michigan then they should have the duo back for a home game against IUPUI on November 25.
5. It might seem early to start thinking about the 2015 Final Four, but the NCAA is already looking well beyond that as they announced the sites for the 2017-2021 Final Fours on Friday. None of the group–Phoenix (2017), San Antonio (2018), Minneapolis (2019), Atlanta (2020), and Indianapolis (2021)— is particularly surprising, but the omission of New Orleans (a favorite of many fans and writers–probably more the latter) and North Texas (aka Dallas-Jerry World, an area too spread out to make it practical) were notable. Otherwise the big take-home was the NCAA’s continued refusal to put the Final Four in the Pacific Time Zone. The last time they did so was 1995 (Seattle) and it has not been west of the Central Time Zone since then.

It’s been a fun run-up to the season here at the Big 12 microsite, with plenty of discussion on the strength and depth of the conference and whether any team is poised to knock Kansas from its perch at the top of the standings. We finish things off with the group’s selections for Big 12 Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year.

Player Of The Year

The new and improved Georges Niang will be the Big 12’s best player, according to three of our four experts. (Nirmalendu Majumdar/AP)

• Kory Carpenter: Georges Niang, Iowa State – I wanted to go with Juwan Staten here, but I think he’ll have to be even better than he was last season for the media to give him the award again. Niang averaged 16.7 PPG/4.5 RPG/3.6 APG last season and looks to have gotten into great shape this offseason while recovering from foot surgery. He lost about 25 pounds and re-tooled his diet. That, along with the wide-open attack of Iowa State, should lead to plenty of buckets for the svelter forward this season.
• Brian Goodman: Niang – A Cyclone will take home the hardware for the second straight year as Niang will pace Fred Hoiberg’s balanced attack. Though he may get more attention from opposing defenses with Melvin Ejim and DeAndre Kane now gone, he has a great ball-handler in Monte’ Morris who will be able to get him touches in spite of that. Niang will take care of the rest from there. I also look for the junior to deliver better rebounding numbers due to his improved conditioning. 

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With tip-off mere hours away, we enlisted the Big 12 microsite’s contributors — Kory Carpenter (@Kory_Carpenter), Brian Goodman (@BSGoodman), Nate Kotisso (@natekotisso) and Chris Stone (@cstonehoops) — to stake their claims on how the Big 12 will shake out.

Predicted Finish

The unique thing that has separated the Big 12 from other power conferences over the years is the fact that it hasn’t taken more than three seconds to pencil in a winner. The bulk of the work comes in identifying which team is going to finish behind Kansas, and from there, predicting which of those is going to be in the running for NCAA Tournament bids and in which order. Moving toward the bottom of the standings, we always hold out some hope that Texas Tech and TCU can field a roster capable of making us think twice about putting them in the cellar, but their time hasn’t come just yet. Here are our Preseason Big 12 Predicted Standings.

Insights

• No Surprise Here, Kansas is the Team to Beat: Between Bill Self’s track record and yet another top-notch collection of talent arriving in Lawrence, it’s a fool’s errand to bet against the Jayhawks now. It may take some time for Kansas to rise to its ultimate potential, but until proven otherwise, it is the unanimous alpha dog in Big 12 basketball. We’ll leave the bold picks to other outlets.

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1. We lead off with a pretty crazy bit of trivia. If you follow Friend of RTC, Fran Fraschilla, on Twitter, you may already know that Kansas freshman Svi Mikhailiuk won’t turn 18 until next June 10. But did you know that makes him eight years younger — to the day — than former Iowa State star DeAndre Kane, who played in the Big 12 just last season? We doubt they’ll be celebrating birthdays together, but remembering that Kane spent an extra year in prep school and had to sit out the 2009-10 season as a partial qualifier at Marshall, then looking at how Mykhailiuk became eligible as prospect from overseas just highlights the NCAA clearinghouse aerobics that can lead to such a bizarre circumstance.
2. The season is about to tip off, but the Iowa State brass is already hard at work preparing next year’s slate. The Cyclones will participate in the Emerald Coast Classic in Niceville, Florida, over Thanksgiving weekend just over a year from now. They’ll headline the eight-team event along with Virginia Tech, Illinois and UAB. We don’t know much about what Iowa State will look like by then, but with a quick glance at the Cyclones’ roster, Georges Niang will likely be around, as will Naz Long, Monte Morris and two of the three transfers we profiled yesterday.
3. Kansas steamrolled intrastate opponent Emporia State, 109-56, in its final tune-up before the first real game on Friday against UC Santa Barbara. Perry Ellis and Landen Lucas led the way with 13 points each, but eight other Jayhawks scored in double-figures, so it was very much a balanced attack. Perhaps the biggest takeaway, though, was how composed freshman Devonte’ Graham looked running the point guard position. As always, the quality of competition has to be taken into consideration, but a steady hand initiating the offense is one of just a few things missing from last season’s team that can really take this year’s squad to the next level.
4. For the first time since Blake Griffin was the BMOC in Norman, Oklahoma will open the season with legitimate expectations. Many of those come with the caveat of Houston transfer TaShawn Thomas becoming eligible, but they’re there nonetheless. Fortunately, the Sooners have an experienced head coach in Lon Kruger who knows a thing or two about resurrecting teams from the dead and getting them in position to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
5. College Basketball Talk‘s Rob Dauster wrote a piece that looks at the culture change Rick Barnes orchestrated with Texas that led the program to where it is today. We’ve discussed a few times how cleansing the program of selfish egos at the close of the 2013 campaign and the ensuing offseason set the team on a better course. While things like team chemistry and leadership can be tough to observe or quantify from an outside perspective, it’s not hard at all to spot when those things aren’t there, and that was definitely the case if you watched even just one game of Longhorns basketball in 2012-13.

This week, the Big 12 microsite will finish previewing each of the league’s 10 teams. Today: Oklahoma.

Strengths: Guards Buddy Hield, Isaiah Cousins, and Jordan Woodard return for the Sooners, giving them potentially one of the best backcourts in the Big 12. Hield averaged 16.4 PPG and shot 38.6 percent from beyond the arc last season, both major improvements from his freshman season. The 6’4″ junior was a second-team All-Big 12 selection and was second in the conference with 1.4 steals per game. Jordan Woodard saw significant minutes (28 MPG) as a freshman and landed on the Bob Cousy Award watch list heading into this season after averaging 10.3 PPG, 4.6 APG, and 2.2 RPG last season. Isaiah Cousins was named the team’s most improved player last season after averaging 11 PPG and 4.2 RPG, and along with Hield and Woodard will give the Sooners one of the most experienced backcourts in the Big 12. They will be joined by junior forward Ryan Spangler, who started every game last season and led the Big 12 with 9.3 RPG. There are definitely holes to fill from last year’s team, but a lineup with Hield, Cousins, Woodard, and Spangler in it is a good place to start for head coach Lon Kruger.

Lon Kruger has talent this season, but will depth become a problem?

Weaknesses: The loss of Cameron Clark could be huge for Oklahoma this season. Clark, a 6’7″ forward, might have been the most important player on last year’s team. He was certainly the most important big man. His departure leaves plenty of question marks down low for the Sooners. Spangler should be improved and will help, but that’s about it. There’s senior forward D.J. Bennett, I guess. But Bennett only averaged 9.1 MPG last season, so it’s hard to say what kind of impact he will have in 2014-15. The presumed fifth starter alongside Spangler looks to be Houston transfer Tashawn Thomas. That’s if he is ruled eligible by the NCAA. Thomas averaged 14.5 PPG and 8.7 RPG in three seasons at Houston. He elected to transfer this summer after Houston coach James Dickey left the program, and is waiting to see if the NCAA will let him play immediately for Lon Kruger. If that is the case, it would go a long way in solidifying an otherwise thin rotation for the Sooners. If not, we’ll see just how much of a load Spangler can carry.

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Welcome to conference preview season. In this, our fifth of eight conference preview RTC Podblasts that we’ll be rolling out before the dawn of the season, Big 12 microsite columnist Brian Goodman (@bsgoodman) joins us to discuss the key storylines, teams and players to watch among the 10 teams of the Big 12. As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) hosts the podblast, and the full rundown of topics is below. Make sure to tweet at us (@rushthecourt) if you have any opinion on which team should be the gang’s new favorite heading into the 2014-15 season.

You can find the entire series of 2014-15 Preseason Conference Podblasts here.

Make sure to add the RTC Podcast to your iTunes lineup so that you’ll automatically upload it on your listening device after we record. And don’t forget to check out our 2014-15 Preseason Storylines Podcast, and feel free to contact us through Twitter or email — we’re listening.

• 0:00-8:46 – Kansas Yet Again the Favorite
• 8:46-13:17 – Big 12 Best of the Rest
• 13:17-16:55 – Big 12 Surprise Teams
• 16:55-18:48 – Potential Underachievers
• 18:48-23:00 – Randy’s Favorite Team
• 23:00- 27:05 – First Team All-Big 12 discussion
• 27:05-28:18 – Under the Radar Players
• 28:18-33:30 – Bold Predictions & NCAA Tournament Predictions

It might seem that ranking non-conference schedules at this early juncture is a fruitless endeavor, and we understand that sentiment. Smart college basketball fans think they know who will be good and who won’t, but it’s all just educated guesswork until the season starts. That doesn’t mean evaluating non-conference schedules is foolish. Some teams will surprise and others disappoint, but the variance between preseason expectations and season-long success isn’t usually big enough to make schedule analysis worthless. In fact, given the weighty importance the Selection Committee places on non-conference scheduling when it determines the field of 68, analyzing schedules now may lead to clues about which AAC bubble teams could actually get in. We ranked all 11 team’s non-conference schedules from worst to first below, with the first installment featuring teams ranked #11-#6 today. All preseason rankings are courtesy of KenPom.com.

11. Houston Cougars

Kelvin Sampson is Likely Smiling Because Of All The Bad Teams The Cougars Play.

The sky is blue, the sun rises in the east, and the Houston Cougars play an aggressively terrible non-conference schedule – those are the only three things anyone can truly count on. After three seasons in a row of playing one of the worst such schedules in the country, nothing has changed in that regard. The Cougars play six opponents ranked #294 and lower, including such luminaries as Abilene Christian and Houston Baptist. Early games against Murray State and Harvard present important opportunities to notch good wins, but it’s a good thing the Cougars aren’t expected to contend for an NCAA Tournament berth because the committee might laugh this non-conference resume out of the building.

10. East Carolina. Aside from the unlikely chance that the Pirates walk into Chapel Hill and upset North Carolina, there are few opportunities for the team to get any other wins worth noting. East Carolina will ease into its new conference playing an inspired non-conference schedule that includes perennial powerhouses like North Carolina Wesleyan and Virginia-Lynchburg. They will play in the Gulf Coast Showcase, pitting them against a tough Green Bay team and perhaps Fresno State if they win, but the rest of this schedule is littered with opponents that won’t be relevant by the middle of December.

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1. Rustin Dodd of The Kansas City Star has a terrific extended profile on Kansas phenom Kelly Oubre. The piece details his upbringing from leaving New Orleans in anticipation of Hurricane Katrina, through his explosion on to the national recruiting scene at Findlay Prep, to where he is now, mere days away from making his debut for one of the most storied programs in college basketball. Oubre displays a maturity beyond his years through carefully-collected thoughts and a contemplative attitude. Given Kansas’ roster, it doesn’t look like he’ll have to shoulder a huge load during his freshman season, but he could very well be the Jayhawks’ X-factor in 2015.
2. The typical caveats of preseason games apply here, but Iowa State newcomer Bryce Dejean-Jones looked ready to take on a big role with the Cyclones as the team smoked Viterbo (La Crosse., Wisconsin) 115-48 on Friday night. Both Royce White and DeAndre Kane hit the ground running in their sole seasons in Ames under Fred Hoiberg, so it will be fun to see if Dejean-Jones will be able to do the same thing starting Friday in the team’s season opener against Oakland.
3. Oklahoma State knows that despite being picked to finish near the bottom of the Big 12, this season is an important one for the future of the program. As a result, the Pokes are trying to build chemistry by spending more time together off the court, according to The Tulsa World. The article brings up the notion that, with an egoless squad, both Travis Ford and the team are hopeful they can improve on last year’s massive disappointment. While that may sound like eye-rolling coachspeak, the tone isn’t all that dissimilar from the mindset Texas head coach Rick Barnes took after Julien Lewis, Sheldon McClellan, Ioannis Papapetrou and Myck Kabongo all left Austin in 2013. This year’s team doesn’t look nearly as good as last year’s Texas team, but the Cowboys are probably as good a bet as any team in the bottom of the Big 12 to outperform their expectations.
4. Bruce Weber‘s third season with Kansas State should bring increased expectations, according to Kellis Robinett of The Wichita Eagle. The Wildcats will need to replace about 30 percent of their scoring production from last season, but that should be doable given a roster featuring a stud guard in Marcus Foster and a promising trio of newcomers in Brandon Bolden, Justin Edwards and Stephen Hurt. Weber led Kansas State to its first back-to-back 20-win seasons since 1977, but early NCAA Tournament losses have prevented the program from getting a little more respect on a national scale.
5. Oklahoma sophomore Jordan Woodard cracked the preseason Bob Cousy Award watch list last week, and it’s not hard to see why. As a freshman, Woodard displayed advanced poise and confidence on his way to a fantastic debut season. With a year now under his belt, college basketball fans can expect him to make a big leap. While it will be a lot of fun to watch him lead the Sooners’ high-octane offense, the quality of Oklahoma’s defense is what will really need to improve this year.

Preseason award lists continued to roll in on Tuesday afternoon with the release of the 2014-15 Bob Cousy Award Watch List. For those unfamiliar, the Cousy Award is given annually to the top point guard in men’s college basketball. This year’s list is led by Preseason AP All-Americans and likely favorites Marcus Paige of North Carolina and Fred VanVleet of Wichita State. The list also exhibits the strength of the position in the Big 12 this year. Four of the league’s 10 teams are represented, including Iowa State’s Monte Morris, Oklahoma’s Jordan Woodard, Texas’ Isaiah Taylor and West Virginia’s Juwan Staten. No Big 12 player has won the award since going back-to-back in 2006-07 (Acie Law IV, Texas A&M) and 2007-08 (D.J. Augustin, Texas), but this crop of league point guards provides plenty of talent that can compete for the prize this year.

Despite being considered the favorites once again to win the Big 12, Bill Self and Kansas might have some question marks at the point guard position. (Getty)

• Monte Morris averaged 6.8 points and 3.7 assists per game for the Cyclones during his freshman season and projects to replace DeAndre Kane as the starting point guard in Ames as a sophomore. The challenge for him will be to maintain his NCAA leading assist-to-turnover ratio (4.8-to-1) and great three-point shooting (40.6%) as he transitions into the role of Fred Hoiberg’s primary ball-handler.
• Another sophomore poised to have an excellent season is Oklahoma guard Jordan Woodard. As a freshman, Woodard averaged 10.3 points and 4.6 assists per game as the Sooners made the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. He will, however, need to improve his two-point field goal shooting (35.2%) to become a more complete offensive player this season. According to Hoop-Math.com, he connected on only 29.0% of his shots away from the rim last season, which has to improve.

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1. Guys like Andrew Wiggins, Joel Embiid, Isaiah Austin and DeAndre Kane might be gone from the league, but the Big 12 could be as good as ever this season. As was pointed out here, this is the first season when four Big 12 teams have made an appearance in the Preseason AP Top 25. Those four teams are Kansas (#5), Texas (#10), Iowa State (#14), and Oklahoma (#19). The quartet of Baylor, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and West Virginia all received votes as well. Kansas was picked by Big 12 scribes to win the conference for the 11th consecutive year and the AP voters rightfully gave the Jayhawks the highest ranking of any Big 12 team. But as you can see, there isn’t much of a gap between Kansas and the other schools, which should make for a great conference race.
2. Former President Bill Clinton was campaigning for Democrats in Iowa over the weekend when he stopped at a coffee shop in Ames. “You have a very interesting team,” he told a small group of people, referring to Fred Hoiberg’s Iowa State team [see full video below]. It’s not every day when someone can talk hoops with a former president, and while Clinton didn’t give any amazing breakdowns during the conversation, it was still pretty cool to see. For someone who probably doesn’t watch a ton of Cyclones basketball, his wasn’t a terrible point to make. If the Cyclones are anything like what they’ve been in the past few years under Hoiberg, they’ll shoot well enough in some games to beat anybody and go cold in others, making them as upset-prone as nearly any team in the country.
3. If Houston transfer TaShawn Thomas becomes eligible this season, Crimson and Cream Review believes that Oklahoma might be able to knock Kansas off the top spot in the Big 12 for the first time in over a decade. That’s good news for their readers, who seem to believe that Thomas will receive a waiver to play soon. The Sooners winning the conference wouldn’t be a stunner on the level of a TCU or Texas Tech winning the Big 12 title, but getting past Kansas and Texas this year? I don’t know about that one.
4. Kansas freshman forward Cliff Alexander seemed to be a guy who might need a few weeks to get used to the college game. If you watched his high school clips, he basically did whatever he wanted inside simply because he was five inches taller and 50 pounds heavier than anyone else on the court. And while Kansas coach Bill Self recently told beat writer Gary Bedore that Alexander “had done great,” it still looks like he will need a month or so to get the hang of things in college. “Tarik averaged more fouls than rebounds and points until Christmas, and Cliff has the same potential to do that,” Self said. “But when he gets it, he’s going to be really good. I think by the end of the year, he could be one of the harder players to deal with in the league.”
5. CBSSports.com recently ranked its top 100 college basketball players heading into the season, and surprisingly (at least to this writer), incoming freshman Jahlil Okafor was their No. 1 player ahead of guys like Sam Dekker, Montrezl Harrell and Frank Kaminsky. The list’s top Big 12 player is Iowa State forward Georges Niang, who will have plenty of opportunities to showcase his talents this season with the losses of DeAndre Kane and Melvin Ejim from the Cyclones. He is joined in the top 25 by West Virginia’s Juwan Staten (#12), Kansas’ Cliff Alexander (#14), Texas’ Myles Turner (#16), Kansas State’s Marcus Foster (#20), Kansas’ Kelly Oubre (#21), Kansas’ Perry Ellis (#22), and Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield (#25). That’s not a bad collection of talent for what looks to be the second-best conference in the country, behind only the ACC.