1. We now have repeat winners representing this week’s Big 12 Player and Newcomer of the Week. Baylor’s Rico Gathers takes Player of the Week after sharing the honor with K-State’s Nino Williams two weeks ago. It’s hard to deny the award to a guy who averaged 15.5 points and 17 rebounds in wins over TCU and West Virginia but that’s exactly what Gathers accomplished for the Bears. Oklahoma State’s Anthony Hickey wins his second Newcomer of the Week award after taking home the honors for the week of December 15. Hickey’s 15 points in a win at Texas and 15 more vs Kansas were instrumental in the Cowboys’ climb up the Big 12 ladder. Better make room in your trophy cases, fellas.
2. Is Travis Ford the Big 12’s Coach of the Year thus far? ESPN’s Myron Medcalf thinks so and makes a compelling argument for the Oklahoma State coach. When you have the week the Cowboys have had sweeping the regular season series from Texas, a double-digit comeback victory versus Kansas and taking care of the also-streaking Baylor Bears, a question like this is bound to pop up. We have to remember that today is only February 11. Chaos has been commonplace nearly everywhere in the Big 12 except for the very top of the league and with six games to go, it’d be silly to expect the status quo to remain the status quo. We have to also remember that the only anxious people in Stillwater is, well, everyone because they’ve tasted fleeting success under Ford before only to see season after season end in disappointment. Who knows, maybe this is the year the Cowboys finish stronger than they usually do and Medcalf’s case makes a lot of sense. But at the same time, we wouldn’t be having this conversation seven days ago. Life can come at you fast.
3. Down two of their top four scorers in Manhattan, Texas and coach Rick Barnes needed a spark. As Chris Hummer of Horns247 notes, Barnes went with a three-guard starting lineup for the first time all season and it worked out beautifully. With Javan Felix and Jonathan Holmes‘ statuses still up in the air as of now, this experiment by Barnes would be worth trying out again. The trio of Isaiah Taylor, Demarcus Holland and Kendal Yancy, spacing on offense was as good as it has been all year long. Taylor was at his best, keeping the K-State defense off balance by driving and finding teammates. At 4-6 in conference play, it could be time to tinker with the lineup even if Felix and Holmes are ready to go. The Longhorns may not have much time to right the ship completely before the Big 12 Tournament but they must turn it around to ensure a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
4. The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal came out with a list of the 20 best players in the Big 12 earlier this week. In a league as talented as this one, you can’t possibly find 20 credible names without leaving some good ones off the list but there are a couple (Kenny Chery, Jonathan Holmes). As for the rankings themselves, I’d have some guys higher (Nash, Forte) and some lower (Spangler) but it’s not half bad. I’m curious to know what the thinking was by putting Kyan Anderson on the list. I’m all for showing TCU love whenever it warrants it but they haven’t done a lot of winning since the calendar turned to 2015. If you replace Anderson with Marcus Foster, who has been up and down for K-State, I wouldn’t see much change in the overall quality in the rankings. Then again, it’s just a list so whatever.
5. Now at 12-12 on the season, Kansas State has now found itself playing the spoiler role. The Wildcats could throw a monkey wrench in the Big 12 race as they face West Virginia tonight and five other teams in the hunt for the NCAA Tournament — Oklahoma, Baylor, Kansas, Iowa State and Texas — before season’s end. A lot of said monkey wrench throwing depends on whether or not Marcus Foster and Malek Harris are taken off suspension in time for tonight’s game (sources told Kansas.com that they’d be both out vs West Virginia). This is the reality that Bruce Weber and his team must face.

1. Texas fell to Oklahoma in its Big 12 home opener on Monday night, and the 21-point margin of defeat was unexpectedly large, causing both head coach Rick Barnes and his players to afterward challenge the team’s effort and pride. Effort and pride may certainly have played a part in the defeat, but the loss to Oklahoma may be symptomatic of a larger problem for a Longhorns squad that shot just 30.o percent from the field. Texas hasn’t shown an ability to score at an elite level this season, posting an adjusted offensive efficiency of 106.0 that ranks 61st nationally, according to KenPom. Part of the problem? According to Barnes, the players can’t remember their plays. “I don’t even know if we can be a good offensive team or not,” Barnes said. “We can’t even remember the play half the time.” That responsibility, of course, falls on the head coach who will need to give his players some mnemonic devices or other forms of memory training in order to make a deep run in March.
2. While Texas struggled, Oklahoma continues to improve. Lon Kruger pulled off what may turn out to be the most important transfer move in the Big 12 this year with the addition of senior TaShawn Thomas. He has provided the Sooners with a legitimate inside threat and is becoming an increasingly important part of the Oklahoma offense. He finished with 12 points and 11 rebounds against the Longhorns, which marks the sixth time in the last seven games that he has scored in double figures. Although the transfer wasn’t very efficient in getting his numbers, the fact that he attempted 17 shots in the game suggests that he’s becoming a robust option inside. Thomas also came through with an early contender for best dunk during conference play with a big finish on a couple of Texas bigs, resulting in a fantastic bench celebration from the Sooners’ reserves.
3. Kansas will open its Big 12 season tonight on the road at Baylor, and while the Jayhawks have won at least a share of the last 10 Big 12 regular season titles, the odds seem somewhat stacked against them this year. Ken Pomeroy’s conference predictions currently project Texas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia to finish ahead of Kansas in the league standings this season. The biggest worry for head coach Bill Self at this point is the Jayhawks’ defense. Self’s teams have always prided themselves on being one of the better defensive teams in the conference and country, but Kansas is entering league play with a field goal percentage defense that ranks eighth among Big 12 teams. That number will need to improve in order for Kansas to win an 11th straight Big 12 championship in what is shaping up to be the most competitive league in the country.
4. In what is a bit of an odd arrangement, TCU is playing its home games this season at Wilkerson-Greines, which is an off-campus athletic facility owned by the Fort Worth school district. Daniel-Meyer Coliseum, the usual home of the Horned Frogs, is currently undergoing renovations. On Monday, TCU head coach Trent Johnson defended his team from critics who have suggested that the change of venue is the reason behind the Horned Frogs’ improved defense. “The rim is 10 feet,” Johnson said, “The only advantage we have, if any, is that if we come out and play extremely hard and rebound. It creates an advantage against certain teams regardless of where you play or when you play.” The Horned Frogs have the sixth-best field goal percentage defense in the country, allowing opponents to shoot only 34.7 percent on the season. If Johnson’s guys are able to keep that up, they’ll be able to pick up a great number more conference wins than last season.
5. Oklahoma State’s Phil Forte was named the conference’s player of the week after scoring 41 points on 14-of-24 shooting in the Cowboys’ wins over Missouri and Kansas State. Forte has always been a knock-down outside shooter for Travis Ford’s squad, but his offensive role has increased so that he is finishing five percent more of the Cowboys’ possessions and his 17.3 points per game is tied with teammate Le’Bryan Nash for the Big 12 lead. If Oklahoma State is to make it back to the NCAA Tournament this season, Forte must continue to exhibit a high level of play over the next couple months of action.

1. Texas sputtered to start the 2K Sports Classic and found themselves down six at the break. They went into locker room and proceeded to dominate the Hawkeyes in the second half 47-27 and won the game by 14. Perhaps the biggest headline to emerge from this is the status of sophomore point guard Isaiah Taylor who injured his left wrist late in the game. UT should take this injury seriously even if it is a minor one. Any time Taylor misses would be harmful to a team that has had its offensive woes. Rick Barnes told ESPN after the game that he asked Taylor “if I would kiss it to make it feel better, and he said it would. And I kissed it but I don’t guess it worked.” This brings up another important point: Kissing boo-boo’s heal when a mother is doing the kissing. Boo-boo kissing is a fruitless endeavor for fathers and/or Division I coaches. (Division II coaches? Maybe.) I don’t have much data supporting this hypothesis but I’m pretty sure it’s foolproof.
2. West Virginia-George Mason was one of those games Thursday where I had to do a double take on its final score because the deficit was large. Yes, the Mountaineers beat the Patriots by 26 points. You could have missed the game, looked at the final stats and concluded that the Patriots made this loss greater than it should have been. The Patriots turned the ball over 24 times compared to WVU’s 12 and missed 16 of their 32 free throws. This isn’t to say that George Mason would have won the game (they wouldn’t have) but I am saying they did more things to hurt themselves than to help. Kudos to the ‘Eers for capitalizing on their mistakes and for also getting back to winning games Huggy’s way (11 more offensive rebounds than GMU). A great thing about these tournaments is that we’ll get a better frame of reference of teams’ long-term success afterwards. The deeper WVU advances, the more serious I’ll take them as an at-large bid.
3. So…are we gonna talk about Oklahoma’s massive collapse at Creighton on Wednesday night? When Ryan Spangler hit a three to bump the Sooner lead to 18 early in the second half, Creighton called timeout and I turned the game off. It was remarkable to see the Sooners start the way they did in a notoriously loud building like the Qwest Center is. But Creighton came out of the timeout and upped their defensive pressure on the Sooners. Soon, the game began to swing in the Bluejays’ favor. Oklahoma won’t see a crowd like this one until it plays Kansas and Iowa State in conference action. At least there’s time enough time between now and then to fix those problems.
4. The Lawrence Journal-World’s post-mortem of Tuesday’s Kentucky-Kansas points out one very big advantage for the Wildcats: Kentucky was bigger. It’s an obvious point Tom Keegan makes but the Wildcats are going to have the best frontcourt in the game every time it steps on a basketball floor. The closest resemblance to a Kentucky team in the Big 12 is Texas but I don’t think size poses much of a problem across the league. Most teams aren’t Texas and don’t have the size that the Longhorns possess. I wouldn’t freak out too much, Kansas fans.
5. Two future neutral-court fields were announced on Thursday. The 2015 edition of the Charleston Classic’s headliner will be the reigning ACC champion Virginia but otherwise doesn’t generate much interest. The rest of the field is made up of Oklahoma State from the Big 12, Ole Miss, Bradley, George Mason, Towson, Long Beach State and Seton Hall. Meanwhile, the 2015 Puerto Rico Tip-Off will bring in Texas Tech, Miami, Mississippi State, Butler, Missouri State, Utah, Minnesota and Temple. The possibilities for games here are more intriguing than Charleston. Utah and Miami appear to be likely NCAA Tournament teams this season, Fran Dunphy and Temple usually put good teams together and the potential for a Tubby Smith vs his old school match-up will turn a few heads. This will be a good field.

Throughout the preseason, the Big 12 microsite will preview each of the league’s 10 teams, from worst to first. Today: Texas. 

Texas

Hey look, Rick Barnes magically became a good coach again! Some may have actually had this thought, but no, he didn’t become a terrible coach after one bad season. Those calling for his termination have to remember that Barnes has taken the program to heights not seen since the midway point of the 20th century. It’s hard to believe the same Texas team picked to finish eighth in the Big 12 Preseason Coaches Poll last season won 24 games and made it to the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 32. Now with virtually everyone back on board for another year, the Longhorns are primed to jostle with the Jayhawks atop the Big 12 standings. Just like old times.

Did we mention Rick Barnes won 2013-14 Big 12 Coach of the Year? No? Well yeah, he did. (Troy Taormina/USA Today Sports Images)

Strengths: A team full of freshmen and sophomores at key positions a year ago grew up rather quickly. Most can point to their December win at North Carolina as a turning point in the season. Then you throw in some tournament experience, a blue-chip recruit and a largely intact rotation, this has the makings of a colossal year in Austin. Myles Turner is the blue-chip center out of the Dallas area. The center and forward spots are in capable hands even without Turner but there’s little reason to believe a player of his talent will not have a role carved out for him by Barnes. The fascinating thing about Texas is that they don’t beat you with a star or two. At any time, all five guys on the floor for the Longhorns can beat you in a multitude of ways. Isaiah Taylor showed great polish as a freshman driving and dishing. Jonathan Holmes successfully took on the role as top scorer, rebounder and big shot-maker (see buzzer beater vs Kansas State). A slimmed down Cameron Ridley still clogged up the paint scoring easy buckets, improving at the free throw line and altering shots on the defensive end. Aside from Taylor, Holmes and Ridley, guys like Demarcus Holland, Connor Lammert, Javan Felix and Prince Ibeh were hustling after nearly every rebound (ranked fourth nationally; sixth nationally in offensive rebound percentage per Kenpom) and block (ninth nationally in block percentage per Kenpom). I could understand if a fan of another team became annoyed watching them. They were like a fly that would buzz past your ear every few seconds but you could never find and destroy. It would not be a stretch to expect the same effort this time around.

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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.

It’s been 10 long years, but the prominent question in the Big 12 remains the same: Will someone throw Kansas from the mountain top? There have been some fantastic runners-up in the Big 12 over the years and four teams have shared the regular season crown with the Jayhawks, so even if the streak isn’t quite as dominant as it appears, it is still incredible. Impressive as it is, though, consistency can be boring, too. With that in mind, it’s natural to identify the next-best team in the conference at the beginning of the season and ask the question of whether this is the year it can rise to the occasion.

Texas was picked second in the Big 12, but are they built to be the team that dethrones Kansas? (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

This season, it’s clear that Texas (on paper) is the second-best team in the conference. You probably know their story, but if you aren’t familiar, the Longhorns return nearly everyone from the campaign that saved Rick Barnes’ job and they fortified a strength with the addition of super-recruit Myles Turner. While rankings aren’t everything, Texas sits at #10 in both the AP and USA Today polls and appears to be about as good as any preseason number two the Big 12 has had over the years. With a double-round robin format in this league, the fate of the conference championship could come down to the head-t0-head battles (January 24 and February 28) between Texas and Kansas, so let’s take a look at those match-ups. To be clear, no team is built with the singular goal of beating another specific team, and any of a number of things could happen that would render this post meaningless, but the possibility is still worth exploring.

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1. Texas isn’t exactly hurting for guards, but the Longhorns picked one up for the future with a verbal commitment over the weekend from four-star high school senior Kerwin Roach. In Roach, Rick Barnes gets his second commitment for the 2015 class (joining fellow guard Eric Davis). While this season’s Longhorns will be loaded with bigs like Cameron Ridley, Jonathan Holmes and Myles Turner, the roster makeup will begin to shift smaller next season, so keep this move in the back of your mind going forward.
2. Jesse Newell of the Topeka Capital-Journal gives a stellar look into Bill Self’s simple yet efficient philosophy when it comes to offense. The value of the layup cannot be overstated, and if you watch a lot of Kansas’ games, you’ll see the Jayhawks pass the ball three or four times around the perimeter looking for a post entry angle before the ball ever crosses the three-point line. While it may be basic, it’s also why you see Self get visibly upset every time someone like Naadir Tharpe or Tyshawn Taylor hoists a quick three. This year, look for more close-range shots with paint artist Perry Ellis and the powerful Cliff Alexander on the low blocks.
3. The success of Oklahoma this season will depend on its frontcourt depth, writes The Crimson And Cream Machine, and we couldn’t agree more. Last season, the recipe was for the backcourt to carry the load offensively and get just enough from double-double machine Ryan Spangler to carry the day. While Spangler will be back, the thing he has now that he didn’t have last year will be a little more help. D.J. Bennett, who averaged just nine minutes per game last year, will likely see more run, and Spangler could really benefit if TaShawn Thomas is ruled eligible.
4. Continuing with the theme of post production, players up and down Kansas State’s roster are excited for what their big men will provide this season. The Wildcats haven’t had a player 6’10” or taller on the roster since Bruce Weber took over as head coach, and this year, they’ll have two such big men in Brandon Bolden and Stephen Hurt, who both stand 6’11”. The added size will provide Marcus Foster with new targets, so while the losses of D.J. Johnson (injury) and Jack Karapetyan (transfer) hurt from a depth perspective, the remainders should give Kansas State hope for another finish in the top half of the Big 12.
5. We’ll leave you with a frivolity from the weekend. You may have heard that TCU‘s football team rolled up 82 points on Texas Tech, and in case you were wondering when the last time the Horned Frogs put up that kind of offense on the hardwood, it was on December 19 against Grambling State. To find the last instance when the Horned Frogs scored 82 points against a league foe, however, you’d have to go all the way back to a March 3, 2012, battle against then-Mountain West opponent San Diego State, a 98-82 loss. Given that TCU has yet to field even a top-150 offense under Trent Johnson, don’t expect many such performances this season.

1. Remember yesterday when we said that Kansas State‘s depth down low should be just fine? Well, it may not be so fine after all. It turns out that a broken foot sustained earlier this fall by Wildcats big man D.J. Johnson will keep the junior out for the entire season. Head coach Bruce Weber mentioned at Big 12 Media Day last week that the injury would likely lead Johnson to redshirt the year, but it seems like an even clearer possibility now. Fair or not, Johnson’s absence puts more pressure on Thomas Gipson, Wesley Iwundu and Georgetown transfer Brandon Bolden to stay healthy and productive.
2. If you lean more towards the statistical and analytical side of things, Jeff Haley has a treat for you with his in-depth breakdown of the 2014-15 Iowa State Cyclones. We’ll have our own preview of Fred Hoiberg’s squad within the next few weeks, but until then, if you’ve ever wanted to know how many two-point jumpers Bryce Dejean-Jones put up for UNLV last season, what Marquette transfer Jameel McKay will bring to the table once he’s eligible, or how Iowa State will be able to maintain its trademark spacing on offense, Jeff’s your guy.
3. Recently, Rick Barnes took an opportunity to get close to a few fans during Texas‘ open practice. Among other things, we were reminded that big man Myles Turner announced his commitment to the Longhorns while wearing a bucket hat. We’ll leave it to the fashionistas to determine if bucket hats — last considered popular in 1998, or Barnes’ first year at the helm in Austin — are back in style (unlikely), but we will say that if they take off at Longhorns games, you were warned.
4. NBC Sports’ College Basketball Talk has slotted Oklahoma in as the 15th-ranked team in the country. The Sooners have an interesting look because they have nearly everyone of importance back, but just one senior (D.J. Bennett) figures to be a rotation mainstay, although that will change if transfer TaShawn Thomas is deemed eligible. Either way, Oklahoma is experienced, but it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that they’re young, either, which is an odd combination. All in all we agree with Rob Dauster’s assertion that there’s a wide range of possibilities for Oklahoma when it comes to their place in the crowded top half of the Big 12, but at this stage, a win or two in the NCAA Tournament is a very reasonable expectation.
5. Another former Kansas coach went on record about his experience coaching in Allen Fieldhouse: current UNC head coach Roy Williams. Despite the hard feelings some Kansas fans had towards Williams when he left (many of which have been soothed by a national championship and three postseason head-to-head victories), it is clear that the longtime coach still has a special place in his heart for the school and its fans. Williams hasn’t set foot in The Phog since he surprised the college basketball world by leaving Kansas for his alma mater in 2003, but all things considered, the move has worked out well for all parties involved.

If you haven’t heard, Kansas City’s a happening place these days. Aside from that ALCS thing in town yesterday, the Big 12 also held its annual men’s basketball media day at the Sprint Center (here’s all that stuff, if it tickles your fancy). It was your run-of-the-mill media day: Reporters asked bland questions, players and coaches gave calculated answers, and no one really learned anything new. The apex of the festivities came, however, when the Big 12’s Twitter account tweeted out a group photo will all 10 of the conference’s head coaches. Here it is below:

Bask in All of its Glory (photo via @Big12Conference)

Instead of breaking down the nonstop action from media day, the following were the “thoughts” that went through each coach’s mind at the time the above photo was taken.*

• Baylor’s Scott Drew: “I hate coming here when the Tournament is in an odd-numbered year. (sighs) OK, what should I do here, hands together or apart? Together? Apart? Wait, did I use all my timeouts yet? [camera takes photo] Ah heck, they’re apart.”
• Iowa State’s Fred Hoiberg: “Put me in the back, will ya? That’s fine. I’ll end up dreamier than I was before.”
• Kansas’ Bill Self: “Really wanted to wear Wiggins’ draft day suit again. Knew I shouldn’t have had that glass of butter with dinner.”
• Kansas State’s Bruce Weber: (chuckles to himself) “I can’t believe Ford was in ‘The 6th Man.’ That’s the best movie of all-time! I bet that made a heckuva lot of money in theaters!”
• Oklahoma’s Lon Kruger:  “I would take another coaching job right now if it meant I didn’t have to take this photo.”
• Oklahoma State’s Travis Ford: “This contract I have means that I’m pretty much bulletproof. I could pull down Drew’s pants right now and I’d STILL get that check next week. [mulls it over] Nah, I won’t do that to ’em. He’s probably worried that he has to call a timeout here or something.”
• Texas’ Rick Barnes: “I bet if I left media day, traveled the world and missed the entire year, we’d still have a better record than the football team.”
• TCU’s Trent Johnson: “I don’t know why this camera guy told me to move this far up. He could have gotten a much better shot of me if I stood at half-court like I wanted.”
• Texas Tech’s Tubby Smith: “I should have been more direct with people calling me Orlando instead of Tubby.”
• West Virginia’s Bob Huggins:  “I don’t think anyone here gets my E. Gordon Gee Halloween costume.”

*thoughts confirmed by unnamed sources

The 2014-15 college basketball season may be creeping ever closer, but the folks over at ESPN are already thinking well beyond Indianapolis and the 2015 Final Four. Last week, ESPN’s group of college basketball insiders released their take on what Top 25 polls could look like over the next three seasons in a column entitled “Future Power Rankings.” The panel evaluated and rated programs on a 1-10 scale in five different categories — Coaching, Current Talent, Recruiting, Program Power, and Stability — then pooled the results to extract a singular score (out of 100) for each program. Coaching, Current Talent and Recruiting each counted for 25% of that final tally, while Program Power made up another 15%. Stability counted for just 10%.

Rankings and lists may seem particularly interesting on the slog through these college basketball-less months, but the exercise in responding is the same now as it will be in January, February and March: We will always have our gripes. Highlighted below are a few of the more controversial decisions — some method-based, others result-oriented — that ESPN’s committee of experts produced.

Coach K Should Have Plenty Of Reason To Keep Smiling, As His Program Graded Out On Top In ESPN’s Future Power Rankings

• Redundancy Within Formula: In many ways, this list would have wound up more accurate, honest and interesting if the esteemed panel hadn’t been forced to break down each program into five components. The gimmicky, algorithmic path that they followed may offer more individual points of discussion (Is John Thompson III really that bad a coach? Is the power of Xavier’s program ACTUALLY significantly stronger than Villanova?) , but there’s significant overlap across many of the categories. The delineation between coaching and recruiting is often a difficult one — as Mike Francesa and John Calipari recently discussed — and stability also strongly correlates with a successful, entrenched head coach. In fact, save for Kentucky, every team in the top 10 of the rankings had a stability score that measured within four points of their coaching score (UK received a 98 for coaching and an 88 for stability). Looking elsewhere, recruiting and program power are another pair of categories with predictable overlap, as growth in either category inevitably fuels the other.

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