If any team has an excuse to underachieve this year, it’s Texas A&M. Head coach Billy Kennedy has more important things to worry about after learning about his Parkinson’s diagnosis before the season, and Jason King caught up with him in the midst of the Aggies’ disappointing campaign. Kennedy’s story has been publicized for months now, but King tells the story better than anyone else yet has. His depth, detail and raw emotion helps bring out the best in Kennedy’s spirit. On the basketball court, Kennedy said his diagnosis has kept the Aggies behind the curve in the learning process. The 2011-12 season might be a little too late for him to salvage, but Kennedy will eventually get this program going again.
Halfway through the Big 12 schedule, it’s now time to reflect on the first nine games. This particular article doesn’t get very controversial, but the All-Big 12 team is debatable. The “honorable mentions” all have worthy arguments of making the squad, and point guard seems to be a really contentious issue. This writer chose Tyshawn Taylor, but Phil Pressey and Pierre Jackson are basically interchangeable there. And it’s also interesting to see no Marcus Denmon, since the senior guard has lost his swagger a bit during Big 12 play. Also, Ricardo Ratliffe may surprisingly have an argument over Perry Jones, especially considering how much he outplayed the NBA lottery hopeful in Waco. In the end, though, none of this matters. It’s just fun to argue about.
Oklahoma State has always been a basketball school. Nobody used to want to play at Gallagher-Iba Arena, one of the more intimidating venues in college basketball. Students rallied around hoops, not football, and the winter was the most important sports season. That’s not necessarily the case anymore. As with any university, fans will support the most successful team at any given moment. Right now, football has become king in Stillwater. That’s not inherently bad, but it’s also a little sad to see the dwindling support for basketball at OSU. Travis Ford doesn’t need to compete with football for attention, but he’s got to get this program back on track and make GIA a pit again. It’s good for the league, and it’s good for college basketball.
Missouri‘s football program earned a groundbreaking commitment from Dorial Green-Beckham on Wednesday, giving coach Gary Pinkel the top-rated recruit in the nation for the Class of 2012. Great for football, but we’re a basketball site. So why does this story matter? Read the final paragraph: “Green-Beckham said he met Missouri basketball coach Frank Haith during his weekend visit. Green-Beckham said playing basketball in Columbia was a “possibility” and that he would “probably” run track. He has said in the past it was unlikely he would play basketball in college.” Excuse me? Green-Beckham may not be as good at basketball as he is at football, but Rivals.com still rates him as a three-star small forward. And he’d take up a scholarship for football, not basketball. Sign him up if you’re Coach Haith.
Finally, on a lighter note, there seems to be a little bit of a friendly war between Missouri and Kansas students in light of Saturday’s Border War game in Columbia. After MU students created a cheesy but funny video called “We Are Mizzou” — which featured several nerdy rappers — Kansas mocked the MU version with its own rendition. They are both beyond ridiculous, but that’s the point of these things. It’s just sad to think this could be the final time KU and MU students get a chance to go at each other if this rivalry really does end after this season.
This Weekend’s Lede. In the season’s first non-football weekend (if you were watching the Pro Bowl, sorry, we can’t help you), we were left with a bunch of ho-hum games this weekend, but that doesn’t mean that they were unimportant. As of right now, there are approximately 60-70 teams that have a realistic shot at putting a run together the rest of the season to earn one of those elusive 37 at-large bids for the NCAA Tournament. Right now, it’s easier to find teams that don’t deserve an at-large than those that do, but that will probably change as teams separate themselves over the next six weeks. For the time being, here’s what we experienced this weekend…
Your Watercooler Moment. Iowa State RTCs Kansas.
In one of the more predictable situations of a hot team playing great basketball facing a hungry, up-and-coming team needing a statement win in its own building, Iowa State took it to Kansas in the last few minutes of their Saturday matchup, resulting in a major RTC and one of the biggest wins in recent Cyclones basketball history. The Mayor suffered an avalanche of criticism for his lack of coaching experience upon his hire two offseasons ago, but sporting a 5-3 Big 12 record and looking every bit the part of an at-large NCAA team for the first time since 2005, it now appears that it is he who will have the last laugh. The other takeaway from this game is that NPOY candidate Thomas Robinson may have met his Kryptonite, at least at the college level, in the form of ISU’s Royce White. The beastly Cyclone big man outplayed Robinson in both of their matchups this season (18/9/5 assts vs. 13/7 yesterday; 18/17/4 assts vs. 11/14/3 blks two weeks ago), and that’s not an easy task to perform. For our money we’d love to see a Round Three in March in Kansas City at the Big 12 Tournament.
Five More Weekend Storylines.
The Goaltend That Wasn’t. With Syracuse up two in the closing seconds of a hard-fought game with West Virginia on Saturday, the Mountaineers’ Truck Bryant fired up this wayward shot from the outside:
After losing ground in the Big 12 title race by losing to Kansas and Missouri in the span of five days last week, Baylor got back to the basics on Tuesday night in a 77-65 win at Oklahoma. This didn’t look like the same team that lost the rebounding battle in its two previous games, and it didn’t look like the team that showed serious several defensive deficiencies. Instead, the Bears outlasted a pesky Sooner squad by refocusing and playing tougher basketball. Early in the game, Perry Jones looked like a completely different player as he brought more aggression and assertiveness against a decent group of bigs. Thanks to Pierre Jackson‘s penetration skills, Jones got a lot of high-percentage looks and converted nine of 15 field goal attempts on the way to a double-double (21 points, 12 rebounds). That’s the key for Baylor: Great guard play, team ball movement and a big game from Jones.
Scott Drew's Team Rebounded in a Big Way On Tuesday
This was a vintage performance from Baylor offensively, but Scott Drew‘s team’s new commitment to defense and the boards Tuesday night made all the difference. And that’s why any talk of a Baylor collapse this season is unfounded, even after two losses to the league’s best teams last week. Oklahoma’s lack of scorers and three-point shooters kept it from pulling the upset, but the Sooners’ tough night from the perimeter had a lot to do with Baylor’s defense. The Bears’ guards forced Steven Pledger to settle for a lot of threes, and they got a little lucky when Andrew Fitzgerald missed several gimmes in the first half. Romero Osby did his work on the boards, but he’s one of the better individual rebounders in the conference. Otherwise, as a team, Baylor did a better job limiting Oklahoma’s damage on the boards with a +4 margin overall.
For the second time in less than a week, all eyes will be on the Big 12. Missouri and Baylor, both ranked in the top-five, will square off in Waco on Saturday afternoon in college basketball’s prime matchup. Elsewhere, Oklahoma will look to win its third straight game as it heads to College Station, while Kansas will renew its rivalry with Texas in Austin.
GAME OF THE WEEKEND
Missouri at Baylor, Saturday, 1:05 p.m. CT (ESPN)
Baylor Will Look to Celebrate Again When it Hosts Missouri(AP/C. Riedel)
The Ferrell Center will host two top five opponents for the first time on Saturday, and it’s not a stretch to say this may be the most important home game in Baylor history. Now in his ninth season, it’s amazing that Scott Drew has built a program prestigious enough to play a game with this kind of national attention. His Bears have not lost at home this season, and Missouri’s only loss came on the road at Kansas State. The Tigers quieted the critics a bit by winning at Iowa State, but they did not look comfortable in Manhattan and fell out of contention in that game immediately. Kansas State’s physical bigs held Ricardo Ratliffe to just one field goal attempt, forcing him into foul trouble and taking him out of the game entirely. And here’s the bad news for Missouri: The Bears’ big men are even more athletically intimidating. Ratliffe and Steve Moore are the only two scholarship forwards on this Missouri roster, but they’ll have to somehow deal with Perry Jones, Quincy Miller and Quincy Acy, not to mention players like Cory Jefferson and Anthony Jones off the bench. If you’re counting, that’s five players taller than 6’7”, and most of them can dunk like they’re playing with a Fisher Price basket. The Tigers simply cannot compete with that kind of size. Perhaps we’ll see a lot of 2-3 zone out of Frank Haith, something he’s not opposed to doing. In fact, Missouri has zoned opponents on many occasions this season, and it’s been effective at times. The problem is, Baylor has the guards this year to deal with any kind of defense. Brady Heslip can burn teams who pay too much attention to the paint, and Pierre Jackson has changed the entire dynamic of this team with his ballhandling, penetration and passing skills. If Heslip can knock down some shots and Baylor dominates the paint, this game could be over by halftime. However, the Bears have trouble holding on to the ball sometimes, and they also did not play very well defensively in a loss to Kansas on Monday. Also, while Missouri may not have played very well in Manhattan, Waco is hardly the same environment. Yes, it’s an enormous game this weekeend. The crowd will not be weak, not by any means. But they don’t make many places like Bramlage Coliseum, and MU has never played well there. It won in Ames, and it should not be taken lightly on the road at the Ferrell Center.
The key individual matchup is… Missouri’s guards against Baylor’s forwards. Missouri is mismatched with every single team it plays. That’s just what happens when you start four guards. Against Baylor, though, that mismatched is magnified. The Bears start Jones, Acy and Miller on the frontline, and they almost always have three bigs on the floor at the same time. Missouri rarely even has both Ratliffe and Moore in the game at the same time. In fact, it’s be physically impossible for the Tigers to play three forwards unless they inserted walk-on Andy Rosburg or former football player Andrew Jones, and that’s not going to happen. But Missouri has compensated all year for this lack of size. On Saturday, it’ll be especially important for Marcus Denmon to try to take advantage of his favorable matchup with his quickness. It’s also important for the Tigers to rebound well as a team and make up for their lack of size with extra effort and energy on the boards.
Big 12Alley-Oops and Airballsis a weekly article examining what’s hot and what’s not in Big 12 basketball.
A lot can change in ten weeks of basketball. Pundits who wrote off Missouri after the loss of forward Laurence Bowers are eating their crow. Texas A&M has gone from Big 12 championship contender to a conference bottom dweller, playing with the offensive ability of my 1998 YMCA team. And at the same time, many things haven’t changed. Kansas is still unstoppable at Allen Fieldhouse, Frank Martin is still fiery, and J’Covan Brown continues to score almost all of his team’s points. Hard to believe, but Selection Sunday is only seven weeks away.
Will the Tigers be Celebrating in Waco This Weekend? (Photo by Chris Lee / clee@post-dispatch.com)
Alley-Oops
A Fear of Phog’s: Monday night’s marquee matchup of Baylor at Kansas proved that no matter how the Jayhawks roster is shaped up, they will always be the favorite when playing in front of the raucous crowd of Allen Fieldhouse. The previously undefeated Baylor Bears were the latest team to learn this, as they fell 92-74 in front of a revved-up group of Jayhawk faithful. Kansas has not lost since the Davidson debacle in Kansas City, and looks to continue its eight-game winning streak this weekend in Austin.
Top 7 Heaven: Yes, I’m biased, but I truly believe the Big 12 is getting overlooked in the “best conference” discussion. The Big 12 has the most schools in the Top 10. In fact, they have three schools in the Top 7, with Missouri, Baylor and Kansas. All three teams have players on the Wooden Award finalists list (Marcus Denmon of Missouri, Perry Jones of Baylor, and Thomas Robinson from Kansas), and all appear to have the necessary utensils for a deep tournament run come March.
National Love: On Monday, A&M and Missouri squared off on ESPN in the late afternoon. Later that night, Kansas hosted Baylor in a highly anticipated matchup, one that had college basketball pundits examining it all weekend. Every source of media you go to, you’ll see the college basketball experts writing about Kansas, Missouri and Baylor. This weekend is another highly anticipated ESPN matchup, when #5 Missouri visits #3 Baylor. Heck, even A&M is getting love on ESPN, being mentioned as the 2011-12’s biggest disappointment. Too soon?
Airballs
Oklahoma State: While some folks are still saying it is not time to write off the Oklahoma State Cowboys, I’m going to go ahead and do so, especially after Saturday’s embarrassing 106-65 loss to Baylor. I don’t see the Cowboys finishing .500 in conference play.
Texas’ Postseason Streak: The Texas Longhorns, who haven’t been left out of the field of 64 65 68 since the 1997-98 season, are in jeopardy of not dancing. While I’m ready to give up on the Pokes from Stillwater, I think Texas still has an opportunity and the ability to continue their dance marathon. However, they will need to learn to not rely on J’Covan Brown so heavily, and if Myck Kabongo and the other burnt orange youngsters are going to mature their game this season, now is the time to do so.
Fred Hoiberg has injected new life into the Iowa State program this year as the Cyclones and Royce White in particular are starting to make headlines with their pesky play. They nearly knocked off Missouri at home, and they led Kansas at the Phog for a stretch during the second half. But don’t expect a celebration for moral victories in Ames any time soon. As Scott Christopherson puts it, “Oklahoma State does not care that we played Kansas tough at Kansas… Actually, nobody really cares.” That’s harsh, but it’s the mindset Christopherson and ISU need to have for the rest of the season. Hanging tough isn’t good enough in major Division I basketball– that’s what gets coaches fired and players scrutinized.
Three Big 12 basketball players have made the Mid-Season Watch List for the Wooden Award, and none of the names will surprise you: Perry Jones (Baylor), Marcus Denmon (Missouri), and Thomas Robinson (Kansas). Overall, 25 players made the list, and the vote will not take place until March. Compared to Denmon and Jones, Robinson probably has a better shot at this national award, but all three will be in the mix for Big 12 Player of the Year and All-Conference honors.
A little SEC news may have some collateral damage for the Big 12. Apparently, the SEC may be interested in using Kansas City as a possible host for the men’s basketball tournament in March. Obviously, that would conflict with the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament, which is slated to stay in the city for the time being. There’s no definitive answer on this issue right now, but it underscores a larger point: conference realignment is taking a toll on every team in every conference, and the arguments aren’t over at this point.
With all of its injuries and personnel issues, it’s easy to forget about Oklahoma State. At 2-2, though, it’s not as though the Cowboys’ Big 12 season has been a disaster thus far. Yes, the 41-point loss to Baylor does not look good, but Travis Ford‘s teams have made a habit of storming back during his tenure. That’s not to say this Oklahoma State team will replicate that success, of course. Ford’s early teams had an emotional leader in Byron Eaton and a never-say-die attitude. Perhaps Keiton Page is the next candidate to lead Oklahoma State to the promised land– the NCAA Tournament– in his senior season.
In desperate need of quality wins right now, Texas will travel to Kansas State in a game both teams need to win to salvage their seasons. The Longhorns are in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time in more than a decade. They will have to deal with Kansas State’s energetic home crowd, and the Wildcats cannot afford to drop another home game. At 1-3, it’s already been a rough start for Frank Martin‘s team. Things could get ugly in Manhattan if that record falls to 1-4.
Less than five minute into his team’s 92-74 victory over Baylor on Monday, Kansas forward Thomas Robinson shook Allen Fieldhouse with one of the more memorable dunks of the 2011-12 season. Throwing down an alley-oop with athletic force that seemed almost inhuman, Robinson’s message to the Bears was clear.
Robinson's High-Flying Play Announced That Kansas Is Still Kansas (credit: @KUGameday)
The Jayhawks were not going to lose at home on this night.
Not to an undefeated top-five opponent, a team which figures to be a primary competitor in the Big 12 this winter. All night, KU bullied BU’s NBA-caliber front line, out-rebounding it by 15 boards. That rebounding margin is all you need to know about Monday’s game: Blue-blood Kansas came to play, ready to defend its Big 12 title. Baylor, on the other hand, crumbled in the face of the Phog. Robinson, by the way, finished with 27 points and 14 rebounds. Jeff Withey recorded a double-double and blocked three shots, and point guard Tyshawn Taylor played his finest game of the season on the biggest stage. For all of the offensive concerns Bill Self has expressed about his team this year, the Jayhawks got every shot they wanted on the offensive end. No matter what defensive look Baylor gave Kansas, the Jayhawks attacked Scott Drew‘s bigs and knocked down threes when it needed to.
To understand the magnitude of tonight’s Big 12 showdown between Baylor and Kansas, we must backtrack more than six decades into history. In 1950, the Bears won the Southwest Conference under coach Bill Henderson, cementing itself as a national power by reaching its second Final Four in three seasons. The Jayhawks, still five years away from moving into Allen Fieldhouse, shared the Big Seven title with Kansas State and Nebraska.
Sixty-two years later, Kansas has won 28 additional conference championships (along with two national titles). Since 2005, it has earned at least a share of the Big 12 title, as it has not finished worse than 2nd since the turn of the millenium. Baylor, on the other hand, never won another SWC title. And since the inception of the Big 12 in 1996, only Scott Drew‘s Elite Eight team in 2009-10 has even sniffed a championship when it tied for second. In the other 14 seasons, the Bears finished in the upper-half of the league just three times.
Bill Self and Kansas Are No Strangers To Championships
So that’s where we stand on Martin Luther King Day in 2012. With the whole world watching on ESPN’s Big Monday, Baylor has a chance to erase 62 years of history and knock Kansas from the throne of this conference. That is, if it can handle the Phog, where Baylor has never won. Hardly anybody does, after all. But if the first two months of the season has taught us anything, it’s that the Bears aren’t going to roll over on the road. This isn’t the same team that collapsed in 2011-12. With better guard play and a more unselfish offensive attack, Drew’s team has already won at BYU and Kansas State, two of the tougher home venues in college basketball.
The Bears beat Oklahoma State by 40 points on Saturday. They’re undefeated. They have NBA lottery picks up and down the bench and more long, athletic forwards than they know what to do with. But as every hoops analyst has repeated time and time again, “The road to the Big 12 title goes through Lawrence.” That’s why this may be of the more important mid-January games you will see in college basketball.
Did you know that Baylor is apparently “for real”? This lovely website had no less than three articles about the matter — one from yours truly — and now Yahoo! Sports is in on the fun with another piece on the Bears’ early success. It’s pretty easy to see why we’re all so high on Scott Drew‘s team after their win at Kansas State. These Bears appear to be having fun this season, and they’re playing together. Like they really want to win this season, despite all of the future NBA accolades for Perry Jones and everybody else on the roster. Pierre Jackson and Brady Heslip have made major impacts in their first seasons at the guard position, and this team plays its tail off defensively. Final Four, here they come. Why not?
Staying with that BU/KSU game for a moment, Rodney McGruder looked pretty darn good on Tuesday night. He scored 30 points and seems to have emerged as a star, even though he did not get a chance to win the game on the final possession. Frank Martin drew up a play for him, but BU’s defense denied him the ball. Next time KSU is in that situation, you’d better believe it will make sure McGruder has the basketball in his hands. As a strong but explosive wing player, he is a tough matchup for every team, and there’s nothing holding him back from making the All-Big 12 team.
And finally, one last note on that game from Tuesday: Frank Martin is awesome on television. Sure, he’ll violate some FCC rules every once in a while, but Martin’s postgame interview with Fox Sports Net is golden. This blog post we linked to also did not show you the halftime interview, in which Martin seemed almost speechless after his team played poorly for the half’s final six minutes. Hopefully, Martin sticks with this whole coaching thing for a little longer, because we couldn’t bear the thought of missing his interviews.
Nobody noticed Bedlam on Monday outside of the state of Oklahoma, and some people aren’t happy about how the series has collapsed lately. The Oklahoma/Oklahoma State basketball game was actually scheduled near the same time slot as the BCS National Championship game, which shows you how far the rivalry has fallen. It began at 6:00 PM CT on ESPNU; the football game started at 8 PM CT and had hours of pregame coverage beforehand. If you flipped to the game on Monday, you did at least see a decent crowd turn out in Stillwater. So Bedlam has that going for it.
Depending on how old you are, it’s highly probable that you have fond memories of Kansas‘s 2002 Final Four team. Well, members of that team will attend KU’s game with Iowa State on Saturday, but some of the most notable names haven’t confirmed they’ll attend yet. Wayne Simien will be there, but there’s no word on Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison or Drew Gooden. And what about Roy Williams, people? I’m going to go out on a limb and say the coach won’t be in Lawrence this weekend. Just a hunch. Even if UNC weren’t playing, he might not be so welcome, unless he wears his Jayhawk shirt again.
After 40 minutes of overwhelming deflections, steals and disruptions, it was fitting that Quincy Acy sealed fourth-ranked Baylor‘s 75-73 victory over Kansas State on Tuesday by swatting an inbounds pass away. The undefeated Bears may have allowed KSU to shoot 50% from the field, but they also rattled the Wildcats on their home floor with their superhuman length and athleticism. At one point during the second half, Baylor turned three steals near midcourt into dunks and layups at the other end in the span of four possessions. And before Acy’s final swat as time expired, it was another deflection by Baylor that prevented a potential game-tying layup by Angel Rodriguez, who could not convert a wide open look when a trailing defender tipped the ball out of bounds.
Baylor's Active Hands Helped It Seal a Road Win (KC Star)
Baylor turned the ball over 18 times itself, but KSU finished with 20 turnovers and looked uncomfortable all night long, especially in the second half. Scott Drew has mostly played some form of 2-3 and 1-3-1 zone during the past few seasons, but tonight he went strictly man-to-man in the second half. It paid off. Though KSU found open perimeter looks against BU’s zones, the switch to a man look let the Bears’ defenders hound the opposing guards. It’s scary to imagine what could happen if Baylor continues to defend at this level.
