Last spring, Kansas State’s roster was in turmoil. The Wildcats’ leading scorer Marcus Foster was dismissed from the team along with freshman Tre Harris. Thomas Gipson and Nino Williams, the squad’s second and third leading scorers the year before, had graduated, and freshman Jevon Thomas had transferred to Seton Hall. After the veritable Moses-style Exodus from the Little Apple, it was understandable to wonder how much time coach Bruce Weber had left in Manhattan. Yet, although this season hasn’t been the Wildcats’ most successful campaign, it has given some hope for Weber’s tenure after all. Kansas State is currently 13-9 overall and 2-7 in the Big 12, but the Wildcats are ranked among KenPom’s top 50, featuring one of the toughest defenses in the country (#16). Senior Justin Edwards and junior Wesley Iwundu have anchored a cohesive roster that is heavily reliant on three up-and-coming freshmen — Barry Brown, Dean Wade, and Kamau Stokes. The one unfortunate aspect is that Stokes, the Wildcats’ starting point guard, suffered a right knee injury in last Saturday’s win over Ole Miss that will keep him out “for a while,” according to Weber.

Kamau Stokes will miss extended time after suffering a right knee injury. (Bo Rader/The Wichita Eagle)

Stokes’ absence was immediately noticeable in a 77-59 loss to Kansas on Wednesday night. Without their starting point guard, the Wildcats turned it over 23 times, allowing the Jayhawks to convert into 30 points. Stokes is not the most sure-handed guard around, but he had reduced his turnover rate by nearly three percent in conference play so the large number of miscues didn’t surprise. Kansas State will also miss Stokes’ proven ability to score (he has nine double-figure scoring games on the season). Forward Stephen Hurt described him as “one of our best shooters” after the Kansas loss, and indeed, Stokes is one of just two players on the Wildcats’ roster shooting over 30 percent from behind the arc (34%). He’s converted 35 of his team leading 103 attempts, but Kansas State finished 5-of-18 (27.8 percent) from distance on Wednesday night without him in the lineup. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Saturday marked the first of what will be many wild weekends in the Big 12, as home teams actually had a losing record (2-3) in the day’s five match-ups. Perhaps the most interesting development about the conference so far is that with Texas and Oklahoma both suffering surprising losses, we may already be moving onto Iowa State as the team with the best chance to end Kansas’ stranglehold on the league (at least for now), as the Cyclones are already the only other undefeated team left in conference play. The frenetic movement near the top of the conference speaks to just how competitive it is and how important it will be for the contenders to beat the teams they’re supposed to beat in order to keep pace.
2. We started off talking about the race to join Kansas at the top because the Jayhawks are unblemished through the first week of Big 12 play, and they could be getting even better. Bill Self’s team dismantled Texas Tech 86-54, and the most important takeaway was the return of Devonte’ Graham. The freshman isn’t fully healed from the toe injury that sidelined him for the previous month, but it was easy to see how much pressure his return took off the shoulders of Frank Mason, who Self could rarely afford to rest during the Jayhawks’ most competitive games. While the Red Raiders were hardly a threat on Saturday, a healthy Graham will allow Kansas do some things on both sides of the ball that they didn’t have the flexibility to do over the last few weeks.
3. On Friday, I mentioned that Kansas State needed to start stringing together some quality wins to get back in the hunt for an at-large bid, and lo and behold, they knocked off Oklahoma in Norman thanks to a pair of clutch shots by Marcus Foster. In addition to the sophomore’s heroics, the Wildcats got the kind of rebounding performance and ball control that earned them a share of the 2013 conference title, and they received the contributions from Stephen Hurt (15 points and eight rebounds) and Justin Edwards (nine points, nine rebounds and two blocks) that Bruce Weber was counting on when he brought them to Manhattan. The Wildcats are 2-1 in league play with four of their next five games coming at home, which is about as big a break as a team can catch in a conference this deep. Kansas State has their work cut out for them, but don’t write them off just yet.
4. For the second straight game, the story of Iowa State was its bench. Abdel Nader had a career night against West Virginia’s high-pressure attack, leading his team with 19 points to go with seven rebounds. The Cyclones’ usual contributors were riddled by foul trouble, which, combined with the game’s fast pace, created an opportunity for Nader to come in and make an impact. As a team, Iowa State still isn’t where they should be offensively, but to their credit, they’ve won a pair of close games despite that shortcoming. Still, with games at Baylor and a huge Hilton Coliseum tilt against Kansas this week, they need to get back to where we’re used to seeing them.
5. Texas’ offensive struggles continued as they shot just 35 percent on twos in a 69-58 loss at Oklahoma State. The Longhorns just never got into a rhythm and were flustered by the Cowboys’ 52.9 percent performance from beyond the arc. Jonathan Holmes has looked uncharacteristically lost over the last few outings, and Isaiah Taylor had a rough day as well. If there’s any solace Longhorns fans can take, it’s that Myles Turner finally looked like he belonged against a legit opponent. The blue-chip freshman put up 18 points, including a perfect 4-of-4 mark from distance and swatted five shots. A 1-2 mark in conference play isn’t the death knell that it’s been in previous years, but suddenly, Texas’ resume isn’t looking so hot for a team once considered to be among the nation’s best.

1. The Big 12 enjoyed an exceptionally strong weekend as the conference went 10-0 with an average margin of victory of 15.6 points. Included were three blowouts on the road (Iowa State at Iowa, Oklahoma at Tulsa, and Oklahoma State at Memphis), and the highlight of the week was Kansas beating Utah in Kansas City despite blowing a 21-point lead and losing Devonte’ Graham to a toe injury. There are still a few teams that need to prove themselves — and even the good ones still have some things to sort out — but we saw the Big 12 continue to distance itself from the rest of the country with an impressive weekend performance.
2. Meanwhile, it’s mid-December and we haven’t seen Kansas put two good halves together all season, but this is an instance where it helps to have context. The Jayhawks are one of just seven teams to rank in the KenPom top 15 in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency, and they’re doing so despite facing the what has been to this point the nation’s toughest schedule. Still, as Sam Mellinger of The Kansas City Star writes, the lack of an overpowering post presence is forcing Bill Self to get more creative than he’s ever had to, but those are college basketball first-world problems. One possible solution is to give Cliff Alexander a longer leash to learn on the fly. While the freshman big man isn’t yet very skilled, he appears to be the best answer to the question facing the Jayhawks.
3. A few days after needing a late defensive stand to beat lowly Bradley, Kansas State cruised in a 20-point win over Savannah State yesterday. A groin injury to Stephen Hurt and early foul trouble for Thomas Gipson forced Bruce Weber to shuffle his lineup in a way that he probably didn’t intend, and the result was reserve forward Brandon Bolden receiving a career-high 16 minutes. We’ve talked about the Wildcats’ struggles to get key resume wins, so we won’t rehash them here, but they do have a couple of opportunities coming up in the form of a de facto home game this Saturday against Texas A&M and a New Year’s Eve tilt against Georgia.
4. Without Marcus Smart and Markel Brown in the lineup, Oklahoma State has had to face a learning curve when it comes to establishing offense outside of Le’Bryan Nash and Phil Forte. But as John Helsley of NewsOK.com writes, a stingy defense has helped the Cowboys bide their time waiting for those threats to develop. Defense has been a strength of Travis Ford’s last few teams, so it shouldn’t come as a big surprise to see the Cowboys defending well, but a fast start on defense has been paramount to the success of this squad.
5. We’ll leave you with a couple of big Vines from the weekend’s action: Oklahoma State forward Michael Cobbins catching big air against Memphis, and Iowa State star Georges Niang kissing the Carver-Hawkeye Arena crowd goodnight as the Cyclones put the final touches on a rivalry win. Who do you think is going to produce the most share-worthy moment this week?

Nearly a month into the season, the Big 12 has enjoyed a standout non-conference campaign with several wins over Power Five opponents. For the most part, the conference’s best teams are living up to their hype, while the middle-tier teams are showing signs of  fulfilling their potential as well. While all eyes are on the title race between Kansas and Texas, here are six other storylines you might be missing.

Bryce Dejean-Jones has turned into a hyper-efficient scorer under Fred Hoiberg (sorry, UNLV fans). (AP/Charlie Neibergall)

1. Bryce Dejean-Jones could be Fred Hoiberg’s best transfer yet. The Mayor has taken many a flawed transfer and turned him into an All-Big 12 selection. On its own this isn’t exactly a revelation, but you probably didn’t expect Bryce Dejean-Jones to be such a white-hot scorer. Through seven games, he’s shooting 56.8 percent from the floor, 41.7 percent from the three-point line and 89.7 percent from the free throw stripe. He’s also pitching in on the glass, corralling 6.9 rebounds per game. As if that isn’t scary enough for the rest of the Big 12, Dejean-Jones is the second option in the Cyclones’ offense, as Georges Niang hasn’t had any trouble picking up where he left off after getting hurt in last season’s NCAA Tournament. Dejean-Jones’ latest excellent performance came against UMKC on Tuesday night, as he put up 22 points on 9-of-12 shooting, including a 2-of-4 effort from beyond the arc.
2. We need to be patient with Myles Turner. It’s tempting to look at Texas freshman Myles Turner’s numbers on the year (11.4 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2.9 blocks per game) and conclude that he’s coming along just fine, but if you dig deeper into his games against high-major competition, he hasn’t been nearly that good — averaging just 5.8 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.8 blocks in games against Iowa, Cal, UConn and Kentucky. This is by no means a knock on the heralded freshman, who was a late bloomer on the recruiting circuit, but it’s become clear that when it comes to legitimate competition, Turner is going to need some time to develop into the rangy, efficient scorer who can lift Texas over Kansas in the Big 12 standings. He’s still in the process of realizing how good he can be, and with Texas’ surplus of big men on the roster, Rick Barnes is still figuring out how to best utilize his young phenom. On the plus side, you’ll be treated to a show if you have the means to watch any of the Longhorns’ next three games (vs. Texas State, Lipscomb and Long Beach State), as Turner hasn’t had any trouble showing off his tools and production against inferior competition. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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

Kansas State

Looking back at last season, I’m sure most Kansas State fans would say they were somewhat satisfied with how the year turned out. The roster faced major turnover as guys who had shared a Big 12 regular season title the year before either graduated or transferred out of Manhattan. The Wildcats were young and it showed early in non-conference play, with losses to Northern Colorado and Charlotte to go along with Georgetown. Once they returned to the mainland from the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, however, the Wildcats found a star point guard, reeled off 10 wins a row, won all but one of their home conference games, and wound up facing Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament. With seven of their nine rotation players back, Kansas State has the opportunity to disrupt conference hierarchy again and perhaps look forward to a March worth remembering.

A big season could be on the way for Bruce Weber and the Wildcats. (Ed Zurga/Getty Images)

Strengths: The star point guard is, of course, sophomore guard Marcus Foster. Foster’s rise last season was almost impossible to predict, but there he was knocking down jumpers and bulldozing through traffic to get to the cup. If that doesn’t sound appetizing enough, throw in transfer Justin Edwards — who put up some big numbers at Maine (16.7 PPG in 2012-13) — and you’ve got a lethal duo of guards who can go toe-to-toe against any backcourt in the Big 12. Another advantage this season is greater depth at the forward positions. Most starting lineups last year featured the 6’7″ Thomas Gipson playing the power forward slot. Not so this season. Help comes in the form of 6’11” Stephen Hurt, a JuCo transfer who spent last season at Northwest Florida State College. Hurt began his college career at Lipscomb, where he won the Atlantic Sun Freshman of the Year award by averaging 11.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game in 2012-13. Brandon Bolden, a 6’11” transfer from Georgetown, will also be eligible this season to provide more frontcourt depth.

Read the rest of this entry »

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. When the Mike Rice story broke last month it led to a Saturday Night Live skit, but at this point Rutgers is veering dangerously close to territory so ridiculous that South Park might consider the plot far-fetched (ok, maybe that is a stretch). The latest embarrassment for the school is the revelation that Julie Hermann, the athletic director the school hired to clean up the program after the Rice fiasco, has faced allegations of abuse from her players in the past too. Perhaps Hermann and the school hoped that these allegations (made just sixteen years ago at a small school named Tennessee) would never come up despite this thing called the Internet, which manages to find out almost everything about anybody in a matter of days. With the way this has gone we have a hard time believing that Hermann will be able to formally take the new job, which she is scheduled to start working at on June 17, and school president Robert Barchi should be looking for a new job too.
2. Lost in the wake of the Rice/Rutgers fiasco was the continuing investigation into Wisconsin-Green Bay coach Brian Wardle who had been accused of abusing his players both verbally and physically. On Friday, the school announced that an outside investigation had cleared Wardle. Unlike Rice, Wardle had the support of many of his players and perhaps most importantly did not have a video of his alleged actions floating around for the world to see. Given what was released the school’s decision should not be that much a surprise. What is interesting is the concessions that Wardle will have to make despite being cleared–receive a disciplinary letter, have someone overseeing him, and not be able to renegotiate his contrast, which ends in 2017. Given those concessions it would seem like there was something happening at Wisconsin-Green Bay (perhaps something considered as benign in sports as cursing) even if it was not as bad as what Wardle was initially accused of.
3. After setting off a round of speculation about where he would transfer to and briefly committing to play at Toledo, Kyle Vinales has decided to return Central Connecticut State. The rising junior, who averaged 21.6 points per game last season, initially stated that his decision to transfer was based on his desire to play in the NCAA Tournament–something his seventh place NEC team with 13-17 record didn’t seem destined to do–before deciding that he wanted to lead his team there rather than move onto a better situation. While we applaud Vinales for his decision to stick around (he had already transferred once in his college career) we wonder how easily he will transition back into the team concept at Central Connecticut where his coach has already stated that his role will be changed on the team due to a change in the abilities of his teammates. Given Vinales’ penchant for transferring we will be interested to see how long his decision to stay at Central Connecticut lasts or if he has another change of heart if they struggle next season.
4. There were a few players who actually decided to follow through on their intention to transfer. The biggest news is the decision by Memphis transfer Will Barton to transfer to Tennessee spurning schools such as Maryland, Texas A&M, and Kansas State. Barton showed signs of promise early in his career averaging 8.2 points per game as a freshman before seeing his minutes and production fall the next two seasons. Barton, who will be eligible to play this fall as he will graduate from Memphis by then, will be a welcome arrival in Knoxville as the Volunteers are in need of a point guard with Trae Golden’s transfer. The addition of Barton makes them a potential top-three team in the SEC. The other transfer news is not quite as newsworthy on a national scale, but it may be more interesting as Stephen Hurt, the Atlantic Sun Freshman of the Year, decided to transfer from Lipscomb to Northwest Florida State. The move is interesting for several reasons with the primary one being the decision by a player who would attract interest from high-majors to head to a junior college where he can play immediately and then be recruited to play for a high-major without having to sit out any time. The other interesting aspect of the case is that Northwest Florida State is coached by Steve Forbes, who has been mentioned before in this space for having started over at the junior college level after receiving a one-year show-cause penalty for his association and possible involvement with Bruce Pearl’s infractions. You should keep your eyes on Forbes as a potential candidate for a Division I job if he continues to land recruits the caliber of Hurt.
5. It seemed to be just an off-the-cuff comment in a 45-minute press conference, but Mike Krzyzewski‘s declaration that the 2013-14 ACC would be the best conference ever raised a few eyebrows. On the surface it appears to be an absurd comment, but as several writers have pointed out that depends on how you define “best”. It almost certainly will not touch the Big East’s 1985 where it had three teams in the Final Four or the Big East’s 2009 where it had 11 teams make the NCAA Tournament including a ninth-place team that won the title. However, with a core that includes Duke, Louisville, North Carolina, and Syracuse the ACC is poised to be as good at the top as any conference in recent memory and will likely be in the same category for the next few years. The bigger question for the conference is what it will look like at the middle and the bottom of the conference where it is soft to put it gently. Certainly the addition of Andrew Wiggins to Florida State would have bolstered at least one of those teams. For the time being, the best ever comments may seem outlandish, but we will probably have to wait until February to make a better judgement on that.