We’ve come upon the strangest story to hit the Big 12’s offseason. Former Oklahoma State guard Stevie Clark, once viewed as the heir to Marcus Smart’s title as floor general before falling out of favor quickly after his arrival in the fall of 2013, is suing the school, its Board of Regents and Cowboys head coach Travis Ford, according to TulsaWorld.com. The suit lays out a wide variety of allegations from Clark’s brief time with the Cowboys, including:

• Various promises to Clark by Ford, including a sports car, that were not delivered.
• “Hazing and disrespect” by Marcus Smart, which, when reported to Ford, led to Ford forcing Clark to take behavioral medication without his consent, lest Clark be barred from practicing with the team. According to Clark’s lawyer, the medication led to depression and suicidal thoughts.
• Clark being scapegoated in favor of starting players when marijuana was found in his room.
• Oklahoma State preventing Clark from transferring to a Division-I school after his dismissal; Clark went on to enroll at juco powerhouse Indian Hills Community College, but left the school in 2014.

Oklahoma State head coach Travis Ford faces a strange set of allegations claimed by former Cowboy guard Stevie Clark. (Mark D. Smith/US Presswire)

Read the rest of this entry »

1. That was some game, eh? Naz Long’s three with 1.4 seconds left in the second overtime helped Iowa State force a third overtime with Oklahoma State last night. There the Cyclones got another clutch trey from Monte Morris and were able to walk out with a 98-97 victory, the program’s first win at Gallagher-Iba Arena in 19 opportunities. Lately it feels like there’s a different Big 12 team every week that needs to start worrying about its NCAA at-large chances. A few weeks ago it was the Cyclones; last week it was Baylor; and this week it looks like it is Oklahoma State’s turn because…
2. Oklahoma State head coach Travis Ford announced Monday that freshman point guard Stevie Clark has been kicked off the team in the wake of his second arrest since the New Year. Ford released a statement through the university which said: “We care about Stevie and wish nothing but the best for him. We want him to find success in his future, wherever that may be.” Not counting last night’s game, the Cowboys were without Clark’s services during five games this season. The important thing for him now is to find a school where he can focus on his studies, basketball and perhaps most importantly, himself. I hope Clark can do all those things and more when he finds his new home.
3. Like Clark, Aaric Murray was kicked off of a Big 12 team. But the ex-Mountaineer appears to now have his life in order after transferring to Texas Southern in Houston. Murray told KTRK-TV that he “wanted to quit basketball” after his dismissal, but ex-Indiana and current head coach Mike Davis was willing to take on the senior center to help him get back on track. This season, Murray is averaging 23.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game for the Tigers and some consider the embattled big man as a possible NBA Draft pick. How does Murray deal with the distractions today? “I just stay out of trouble now,” Murray said. “Yeah this is my last go around, I can’t mess this one up.” This could be Stevie Clark’s story someday.
4. West Virginia’s 5-4 record halfway through conference play has finally grabbed the attention of the Big 12 offices. Juwan Staten (25.0 PPG, 7.0 APG, 4.0 RPG, 1.5 TOPG) took home Big 12 Player of the Week honors by spearheading the Mountaineers’ recent wins over Baylor and Kansas State. Texas frosh Isaiah Taylor earned the Newcomer of the Week award for his outstanding effort against Kansas. Since the Horns didn’t play a game midway through last week, I thought it’d be fair to include averages from the Baylor and KU games (25.0 PPG, 2.0 SPG, 17-of-32 shooting). Who woulda thunk that the Big 12 had good players besides Marcus Smart in November? I’d hate to have to pick between these two.
5. Did you think we forgot about you, Texas Tech? The Red Raiders logged another conference win on Saturday with a 60-54 win over TCU. Dejan Kravic had his best offensive game of the season, going 7-of-10 for 18 points along with six rebounds and two blocks. The win helped the Red Raiders reach the .500 mark for the year (11-11) and also tied last year’s mark for Big 12 wins (three). It’s a slow build to the top but seeing what Tubby Smith has done with other programs, there’s (finally) reason for some optimism in Lubbock. And no, we’d never forget you, Tech. You still matter to us.

1. It did not take Oklahoma State very long to decide to cut its losses with Stevie Clark as they dismissed him from the team following his arrest for urinating out of the window of a car. It appears that Clark’s latest arrest was the proverbial third strike that led Travis Ford to dismiss Clark. The timing could not be worse for a reeling Cowboy team that has lost three straight including back-to-back games at home. The Cowboys have already lost Michael Cobbins for the season to an injury so they are now essentially at a six-man rotation as only six available players on the roster had averaged more than seven minutes per game entering Monday night.
2. We are not exactly sure what changed for Arkansas between Monday morning and the early afternoon, but whatever it was they decided to reinstate Alandaise Harris and Michael Qualls. As we mentioned in yesterday’s Morning Five despite their indefinite suspensions the pair might not be out for a long period of time. What we did not expect was for Mike Anderson to reiterate on the SEC Conference Call that the two were still suspended indefinitely before announcing a few hours later that they were back on the team. Whatever the explanation the Razorbacks could certainly use the pair back as they have fallen from being a team with NCAA Tournament aspirations to one that is near the bottom of the SEC.
3. Georgia Tech dismissed sophomore guard Solomon Poole from the team for “conduct and accountability issues”. Poole, who was averaging 6.4 points and 2 assists per game, last played for the Yellow Jackets on January 7 against Duke and had been initially held out due to a migraine headache and what were described as medical issues related to migraines. According to the school, those medical issues and his absence as the result of them are completely separate from his dismissal. Poole is expected to finish the semester at the school before looking to transfer elsewhere.
4. Wyoming was already looking at a difficult game on Wednesday with a trip to New Mexico. Now they must do so without Josh Adams, who was suspended for one game by the Mountain West Conference for punching Utah State’s Spencer Butterfield on Saturday. Adams is second on the team in scoring at 12.1 points per game and leads the team with 3 assists per game. The Cowboys will likely try to replace Adams’ output with a three-man committee of Jerron Granberry, Charles Hankerson Jr,  and Trey Washington but it is more likely that other regular contributors like Larry Nance Jr. and Riley Grabau will need to just step up their production.
5. Athletic apparel/shoe contracts have been in the news a lot more than usual lately, but the one that Tennessee signed with Nike recently caught our eye because of one specific provision: a compliance provision that penalizes the school if the football or basketball program receive a TV or postseason ban. Such a ban in football would reduce the school’s pay for each year of the ban by $450,000 or 500,000 (half of the base compensation) while in basketball it would cost the school $45,000 or $50,000 (10% of the base compensation). As John Infante points out this is unusual for such contacts, but we would not be surprised to see more of it going forward.

To say that Oklahoma State’s season hasn’t gone as planned would be a massive understatement. The Cowboys, Big 12 favorites before the start of the season, are struggling (for a conference contender) at 4-4 in league play. They don’t seem to have an answer for the hole left in the interior by Michael Cobbins’ injury and Marcus Smart is mired in the most prolonged slump of his two-year career. But the drama surrounding the program reached another level on Monday when head coach Travis Ford dismissed guard Stevie Clark from the team after the freshman was arrested over the weekend for outraging public decency. From a personnel standpoint, Clark’s loss is a big one, but after two prior incidents (an arrest for marijuana possession earlier last month, and a four-game suspension for an unspecified reason), it’s easy to see why Ford had to make the move. So now what?

Mere months after arriving in Stillwater, Stevie Clark has already run out of chances at Oklahoma State.

The Cowboys’ margin for error, already paper thin due to their four conference losses to this point, has gotten even thinner. Rather than bringing in Clark to give Smart some much-needed breathers, Ford will either have to reach deeper on to his bench or just play Smart until his wheels fall off. Markel Brown, a player who has flourished as a shooting guard, could see more time backing up the point, but that’s not an ideal situation for either him or the team. The pinch could be felt more by the dropoff at Brown’s usual spot if he does log minutes there. Seldom-used junior Christien Sager could see an increase in playing time from his current 3.7 minutes per contest, although that prospect won’t exactly make Cowboys fans giddy with excitement.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. We’re not wrong when we say Saturday in the Big 12 was more Super than the so-called Super Bowl. Kansas brought its perfect conference record to “The Drum” in Austin and left imperfect. Jonathan Holmes’ jumper with 16:38 left in the first half gave Texas a lead it would never relinquish. This makes it six wins in a row for the Longhorns, and while it’s still a surprise considering what the Longhorns went through a year ago, we shouldn’t really treat it as a surprise. Think about Rick Barnes’ best teams from the 2000s: Barnes had multi-year players like T.J. Ford, Brandon Mouton, A.J. Abrams and Damion James that took the program to the next level. This year, the junior Holmes and a crop full of sophomores continues to defy logic while shooting up the national polls.
2. One of those heralded Texas sophomores will be out for Tuesday’s game against TCU. The school announced that Javan Felix will be unavailable because of a concussion he suffered in the team’s win over Kansas two days ago. Texas will try to extend its winning streak to seven without Felix’s 12.0 PPG in the lineup. I should the mention that the game will take place in Fort Worth, and with all the craziness that’s gone down in conference play so far, the Horns had better be on Upset Watch headed into this one.
3. Speaking of craziness, Baylor ran into problems just making its way to Stillwater for a weekend tilt with Oklahoma State. According to Jimmy Dykes, who worked color commentary on the game for ESPN, their flight was re-directed to Oklahoma City due to icy conditions near the Oklahoma State campus. The bus from OKC to Stillwater cautiously braved the ice with high speeds topping out at five miles an hour. On top of that, starting point guard Kenny Chery was out because of a turf toe injury. So it only made sense for the Bears to win their first game in three weeks, right? Gary Franklin and Brady Heslip stepped up big-time, combining for nine threes between them, and we also got to see Rico Gathers start and finish a sweet fast break dunk. It was that kind of day for the Bears and who knows, maybe this is the turning point in the season that Baylor fans have been waiting for.
4. On the other sideline, backup point guard Stevie Clark was arrested and charged with “outraging public decency” early Sunday morning. This marks the second arrest for Clark in a little more than a month after he was caught with possession of marijuana around New Year’s Day. Most of us also remember that Clark was suspended for four games and sent home from the Old Spice Classic for another undisclosed reason back in November. Travis Ford has yet to comment on Clark’s status but it will be interesting to see how he rules on his talented but troublesome freshman this time around.
5. Can you guess the team that sits in fourth place in the Big 12 ahead of Iowa State and Oklahoma State? It’s OK if you had to Google it for the answer, but yes… it’s West Virginia. WVU took down Kansas State on Saturday to get to 5-4 in Big 12 play (K-State also has a 5-4 record but they might as well be fifth with the Mountaineers owning the head-to-head advantage). This win coupled with their road victory at Baylor appears to have brought some at-large possibilities back to life. If they’re able to beat Oklahoma this week and continue to add a few more good wins, that might be able to offset the missed opportunities the Mountaineeers had in non-conference play to earn a Tournament bid. Could we be talking about EIGHT teams dancing from the Big 12? Wow!

1. Saturday was full of great college basketball action with plenty of upsets and late-game heroics, but the biggest event of the day was Brandon Ashley injuring his foot in a loss to Cal. X-rays in Tucson on Sunday confirmed Arizona’s worst fears as Ashley had suffered a fracture and will be out for the remainder of the season. As Andrew Murawa noted before Arizona officially announced Ashley’s injury, the Wildcats are equipped to deal with Ashley’s absence, but it is unquestionably a big loss for them. Arizona has the two Oregon schools visiting them this week in Tucson so we should get a better idea of where they stand within a week.
2. In one of the more surprising results on Saturday, Oklahoma State lost at home to Baylor, but their bigger loss may have come later that night after freshman backup point guard Stevie Clark was arrested for “outraging public decency.” If you are unfamiliar with that phrase apparently it means that Clark was urinating out the window of a vehicle. This is the second arrest for Clark in a month as he was arrested on New Year’s Day for possession of marijuana and also was suspended in November for a violation of team rules. Oklahoma State has not released an official comment on this yet, but we would suspect that Clark will be sitting for a while.
3. Harvard still has a chance at making this a historic season with a NCAA Tournament run, but those odds appear to be getting longer. Kenyatta Smith, who was expected to be their top interior player, is out for the season after fracturing his right foot. This is the same foot that had a hairline fracture that made Smith miss the first 17 games of the season before he came back to play two minutes against Dartmouth before breaking a bone in practice the next day. Since the Crimson had already played most of the season without him they will not necessarily need to make any major adjustments, but Smith’s absence does lower their ceiling considerably.
4. After a promising start to the season the wheels have come off in Little Rock as Arkansas is starting to fall apart. Having lost four of their past five and six of their past eight, the school announced that they had suspended Michael Qualls and Alandise Harris indefinitely. Given the contributions of Qualls (11.7 points and 4.7 rebounds per game) and Harris (9.1 points and 3.6 rebounds per game) this is a huge loss for a team in free fall even with their relatively weak SEC schedule (yes, we know that is redundant). The school has not offered much information on why they were suspended outside of the usual PR release so there is a chance that the suspensions will only last for a relatively short period of time.
5. When teams make deep NCAA Tournament runs we always hear about the financial windfall the school gets with the increased application rates. According to Forbes that was not the case for Wichita State at least in the short term as the school lost money last season from their NCAA Tournament run. The school will almost definitely make more money as the result of this a few years down the road (assuming they make reasonable financial decisions), but it is interesting to see some of the short-term predicaments that smaller programs can find themselves in.

Want a good laugh? Take a look at our Big 12 Bubble Watch from six weeks ago. Look at how gaudy those early season records were! Sigh, we were only kids then. But now is a lot different. Kansas appears headed for another Big 12 championship while early favorites Baylor and Iowa State are struggling to find themselves in conference play. Kansas State has turned around what could have been a disaster of a season following a co-Big 12 title last year. Oklahoma State is very much in the conversation for dethroning the Jayhawks and Rick Barnes’ Texas Longhorns continue to surprise us game after game.

(Ed. Note: While it was unclear in December who would win the Big 12, at least now we have a good enough sample size to project a team to take the conference’s automatic bid. For this particular scenario, that Big 12 champion is Kansas. Not considered in this Bubble Watch were TCU, Texas Tech and West Virginia.) 

Rick Barnes has coached himself back into the Texas job this season. I’m sure I could have phrased that better. (Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

In Very Good Shape

Oklahoma State: 15-3 (3-2); RPI: 12, SOS: 38

Analysis: It seemed like the world would come crashing down when Michael Cobbins went down with a season-ending Achilles injury and the Stevie Clark situation(s) flared up, but it wasn’t so. Marcus Smart is still doing Marcus Smart things and did you know Phil Forte is connecting on half of his three-pointers this season (53-for-106)? Seriously. Oklahoma State managed to be a few possessions from winning at both Kansas State and Kansas (and for that matter, a few possessions from losing at West Virginia). While having Memphis and Colorado as good non-conference wins, nice RPI and SOS numbers, no bad losses, and the rough part of their schedule still to come, Travis Ford’s team has plenty of chances to add to its portfolio.

Iowa State: 14-3 (2-3); RPI: 10, SOS: 11

Analysis: Surprised to see these guys here? The Cyclones’ struggles have been well-documented and their chances at a Big 12 regular season title are dwindling, but there is still a lot going right for this team. Remember that win over Michigan in mid-November? Its luster started to fade but the Mitch McGary-less Wolverines have re-entered the Big Ten title race with consecutive wins at Wisconsin and against Iowa. Speaking of the Hawkeyes, Iowa State beat them last month as well. At this point in the season, the difference between the Cyclones and Baylor is their head-to-head match-up in Ames where Fred Hoiberg’s team took them out with ease. What will be interesting to see from the Cyclones now will be how they deal with DeAndre Kane’s minutes. He’s played 35 minutes or more in every Big 12 game while battling an ankle injury. Will Hoiberg try to work Bubu Palo, who was placed back on the team by a county judge, into the rotation to supplant Kane? We shall see.

Read the rest of this entry »

With aspirations of winning the Big 12 conference regular season title entering the season, a loss in the league opener on Saturday at Kansas State wasn’t exactly what Oklahoma State had in mind. The Cowboys returned home to Stillwater for a tilt Wednesday night with a Texas team that has been better than many expected. While the Longhorns managed to keep this game interesting throughout the first half, the talent of Oklahoma State helped the Cowboys pull away late to a fairly comfortable victory. Here’s four takeaways from the action in Stillwater last evening.

Oklahoma State Used a Strong Second Half to Beat Texas (NewsOK.com)

1. Markel Brown went down hard early in the first half, but the fall didn’t seem to have much of an impact on him as he returned to contribute 27 points, five rebounds, and four assists. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that Brown is probably the most underrated player in the nation. His play is often overshadowed by the incredible performances by Marcus Smart, but anyone familiar with Oklahoma State realizes just how good the senior guard in Stillwater also has been. Unfortunately for Travis Ford’s team, the loss of Michael Cobbins down low paired with the inconsistent play of LeBryan Nash, means that Brown and Smart will have to be on top of their game every night out to carry the Cowboys to a win. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Some interesting news came out after the San Diego State-Kansas game on Sunday. Bill Self revealed to reporters that Naadir Tharpe had sprained his left ankle during practice on Wednesday and tried to gut it out against the Aztecs. “He was trying to put himself in a position to where he could play,” Self said. “He went a little bit halfcourt yesterday and felt good, but even with that you are nicked up and don’t have a rhythm. He took a couple ill-advised shots when we had a chance to come back, tie or take the lead.” While Tharpe didn’t have the best shooting game (2-of-10), he did have five assists and no turnovers in 34 minutes against SDSU’s suffocating defense. Still, the Jayhawks need Tharpe to be healthy in their hopes of capturing another Big 12 title.
2. Yes, Oklahoma State is going through some stuff at the moment. NewsOK lays out the three things the Cowboys have to do to maintain their status as potential Big 12 champs and national title contenders. First, how do they replace Michael Cobbins? Sophomore Kamari Murphy is assuming Cobbins’ spot in the lineup but who will assume Murphy’s role as first big man off the bench? Then there’s the Stevie Clark situation. There’s nothing new to report here but having him around could continue to cause a distraction for the Cowboys. Finally, OSU’s free throw shooting hasn’t been the best. Their 71.7 percent mark is good for 105th in the nation. That includes Marcus Smart, who is shooting almost 10 percentage points (67.8 percent) lower than he did last year (77.7 percent). So yeah, they’ve got some work to do.
3. Iowa State has a top 10 battle with Baylor coming up, but before then, DeAndre Kane is taking some more hardware home this week. Kane was named Big 12 POW for the second straight week, headlined by a 16-point, eight-rebound and 12-assist performance versus Northern Illinois. Kansas State’s Marcus Foster won Big 12 Newcomer of the Week after averaging 16.0 points and 5.5 rebounds in wins over George Washington and Oklahoma State last week. It was Foster’s first award of any kind this season while Kane has two NOWs in addition to the two POWs.
4. Foster’s teammate and fellow point guard Jevon Thomas wasn’t allowed to practice until about two weeks ago due to NCAA rules. After his first practice, Bruce Weber said of him: “He almost passed out. He was lying on the floor, saying his body was cramping.” Fast forward to today and three games under his belt, Thomas seems to be adjusting well to college basketball. In relief of Marcus Foster, Thomas has 15 assists and only two turnovers. He’s a part of the reason the Wildcats went from a 2-3 start to a nine-game winning streak and Top 25 ranking in a two-month span.
5. There’s a little game on tonight that will have implications atop the Big 12 horse race. Baylor takes on Iowa State for the 12th time in Ames tonight and are still searching for their first ever win there. The intrigue in this match-up lies in their contrasting styles. Iowa State likes to run up and down the floor and shoot the lights out, while Baylor is more akin to a half-court offense and big men who box out well. The Cyclones and Bears will meet tonight at 7:00 PM ET on ESPN2.

Happy New Year, everyone! After a brief hiatus over the holidays, the RTC Podblast is back for the first edition of 2014 and ready to get on with the rest of the season! As always, Shane Connolly (@sconnolly114) hosts the proceedings, guiding the guys through topics that included the biggest takeaway from games the last two weeks, a number of injuries and suspensions that have come down lately, and most importantly, #rootforthesuit. A full rundown is below. We’ll be back on our regular schedule with the next full RTC Podcast dropping on Tuesday.

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 feel free to contact us through Twitter or email — we’re listening.