Campus Connection: Big 12 Basketball Looms
December 18, 2017 04:37 PM | Men's Basketball, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - We're getting closer to Big 12 basketball.
On Wednesday night, Coppin State comes to town for a 7 p.m. game at the WVU Coliseum, followed by Saturday's noon contest against Fordham, also in Morgantown.
Then six days later, West Virginia (9-1) jumps right into the soup at Oklahoma State. The card for the Big 12's other opening weekend games includes Baylor at Texas Tech, Kansas at Texas, Kansas State at Iowa State and Oklahoma at TCU.
Who do you like in those, because all of them appear to be tossups?
"Coaches better have amnesia," tweeted CBS Sports college basketball insider Jon Rothstein about the Big 12 last Saturday. "Every game could be 50-50 with four to play."
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins has repeatedly called the Big 12 the "toughest conference he's ever coached in." Following the Mountaineers' Dec. 9 win at Pitt, Huggins took some time to educate the Pittsburgh media on the overall strength of the league.
It's clearly the deepest conference in college basketball, no matter what metric you prefer - RPI, BPI, KenPom, Sagarin - there is not another league in the country that can match the Big 12's overall depth.
Why?
Because the Big 12 is smaller than the other Power 5s.
Maybe only having 10 good teams is more valuable than having 10 good teams, plus four or six bad ones, depending upon which conference you are talking about. That's certainly not a popular narrative these days, for sure.
Remember, a nine-team Big East was once college basketball's Super Power back in 1985 when it sent three teams to the Final Four.
The Big 12 won't do that this year - let alone send one, as ESPN college basketball Fran Fraschilla tweeted over the weekend - but he does believe the conference could get eight out of 10 teams into this year's NCAA Tournament.
Could it get a ninth? Or even all 10?
Well, look at it this way. Every single team is in contention right now. The only one really in danger of having four non-conference losses before Big 12 play starts is 7-3 Texas.
For argument's sake, let's say the Longhorns win their next two games against Tennessee State and then Alabama in Birmingham. That would give them a 9-3 mark leading into their conference opener against Kansas in Austin.
If Texas also can beat Ole Miss in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, that would make its non-conference record 10-3.
Kansas State proved last year that eight Big 12 wins are enough to get your ticket punched, so that would mean an 18-13 Longhorn team should be sitting in pretty good shape come Selection Sunday.
That's just one example.
Oklahoma State, left for dead with all its offseason difficulties, a coaching transition and then having two of its backups kicked off the team last Thursday, upset previously undefeated Florida State in the Orange Bowl Classic, 71-70, last Saturday to improve to 8-2.
The Cowboys' two losses this year have come against nationally ranked Texas A&M and Wichita State. So, Oklahoma State, picked to finish last in the preseason coaches' poll, clearly can't be discarded from the postseason discussion just yet.
Iowa State, another team expected to struggle in 2018 after enduring heavy offseason losses, is 8-2 heading into this week's game against Maryland-Eastern Shore and could very easily be 9-1 if not for an early-season meltdown against Milwaukee.
Since then, the Cyclones have recovered nicely to win eight straight, including last Saturday's impressive 11-point win over a pretty good Northern Iowa team that is one of the favorites to win the Missouri Valley. And Hilton Coliseum is always one of the toughest venues to play in college basketball so you know the Cyclones are counting on more victories this season.
How about K-State?
The Wildcats don't have any non-conference wins that will blow you away, but they do have a lot of them (nine) with the possibility of getting a couple more this week against Washington State and later against Georgia in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
Like Iowa State, you know K-State is going to win a bunch of games at home so the Wildcats could be right there when the bids are handed out in March.
Texas Tech?
The Red Raiders are 9-1, soon to be 11-1 and have a 50-50 game at South Carolina in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, which could boost their non-league record to 12-1.
Lubbock is another difficult place to play, as West Virginia found out last year, so you know the Red Raiders are going to have some quality Big 12 wins to sell to the committee later this season.
TCU has become one of the feel-good stories of college basketball, the Horned Frogs possessing the longest winning streak in the country at 15 games heading into this week's action against Texas Southern and William & Mary. The Frogs are following the same formula Jamie Dixon once used while at Pitt - pile up a lot of wins against weak non-conference teams and then knock off the best teams in conference play to build their postseason resume.
We saw him do that time and again in the Big East when he coached the Panthers and that's likely what TCU is going to do again this year.
Baylor uses a similar formula under Scott Drew, but with some NBA-caliber players. The Bears missed out on their two big non-conference opportunities against Xavier and Wichita State but get one more crack at a quality non-league win against Florida in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
Baylor is developing an extensive NCAA Tournament history, the Bears earning their fourth straight bid last year and reaching the tournament five out of the last six seasons.
Oklahoma this year is not the Oklahoma that we saw struggle to an 11-win season last year after following its Final Four appearance in 2016.
The Sooners (8-1) are right back where they were two years ago with consecutive victories over USC and Wichita State and possessing college basketball's most exciting young player in 6-foot-2 freshman guard Trae Young, the nation's leading scorer averaging 28.8 points per game.
Kristian Doolittle, a 6-foot-7 sophomore forward, is back practicing with the team after serving a 10-game academic suspension for the fall semester, giving OU yet another proven inside presence to go along with 6-foot-9 senior forward Khadeem Lattin.
And then there is 13-time Big 12 champ Kansas, sitting in the weeds appearing a little more vulnerable than usual.
Following their big win over Kentucky back on Nov. 15, the Jayhawks (8-2) have hit a bump in the road with a pair of recent non-conference defeats against Washington and Arizona State, the latter coming in Allen Fieldhouse where Kansas rarely loses.
Kansas is still waiting on the eligibility status of 6-foot-10-inch freshman forward Billy Preston, a five-star recruit expected to give the Jayhawks another big-time scoring threat around the rim. KU coach Bill Self told the Kansas City Star last weekend that he is optimistic the Jayhawks will have Preston's services sometime this season, although a clear timetable has not been publically established.
West Virginia, too, is awaiting the availability of one of its key players in 6-foot-8-inch junior forward Esa Ahmad. Without him, Huggins has the Mountaineers ranked 10th in the country this week.
"(The Big 12) looks as good as it's ever been 1-10," tweeted Rothstein.
Last year, Kansas rolled through the conference winning 16 of 18 league games on the way to a 31-5 overall record. If the Jayhawks do that again this year, then that's clearly going to knock some of the other Big 12 teams out of contention for NCAA bids.
But if KU comes closer to the pack, as some believe might happen this season, that will open the door for teams seven, eight and possibly nine to sneak into the Dance.
A logjam of .500 teams in the Big 12 this year could mean a record number of NCAA participants for the No. 1-rated conference in college basketball.
On Wednesday night, Coppin State comes to town for a 7 p.m. game at the WVU Coliseum, followed by Saturday's noon contest against Fordham, also in Morgantown.
Then six days later, West Virginia (9-1) jumps right into the soup at Oklahoma State. The card for the Big 12's other opening weekend games includes Baylor at Texas Tech, Kansas at Texas, Kansas State at Iowa State and Oklahoma at TCU.
Who do you like in those, because all of them appear to be tossups?
"Coaches better have amnesia," tweeted CBS Sports college basketball insider Jon Rothstein about the Big 12 last Saturday. "Every game could be 50-50 with four to play."
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins has repeatedly called the Big 12 the "toughest conference he's ever coached in." Following the Mountaineers' Dec. 9 win at Pitt, Huggins took some time to educate the Pittsburgh media on the overall strength of the league.
It's clearly the deepest conference in college basketball, no matter what metric you prefer - RPI, BPI, KenPom, Sagarin - there is not another league in the country that can match the Big 12's overall depth.
Why?
Because the Big 12 is smaller than the other Power 5s.
Maybe only having 10 good teams is more valuable than having 10 good teams, plus four or six bad ones, depending upon which conference you are talking about. That's certainly not a popular narrative these days, for sure.
Remember, a nine-team Big East was once college basketball's Super Power back in 1985 when it sent three teams to the Final Four.
The Big 12 won't do that this year - let alone send one, as ESPN college basketball Fran Fraschilla tweeted over the weekend - but he does believe the conference could get eight out of 10 teams into this year's NCAA Tournament.
Could it get a ninth? Or even all 10?
Well, look at it this way. Every single team is in contention right now. The only one really in danger of having four non-conference losses before Big 12 play starts is 7-3 Texas.
For argument's sake, let's say the Longhorns win their next two games against Tennessee State and then Alabama in Birmingham. That would give them a 9-3 mark leading into their conference opener against Kansas in Austin.
If Texas also can beat Ole Miss in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, that would make its non-conference record 10-3.
Kansas State proved last year that eight Big 12 wins are enough to get your ticket punched, so that would mean an 18-13 Longhorn team should be sitting in pretty good shape come Selection Sunday.
That's just one example.
Oklahoma State, left for dead with all its offseason difficulties, a coaching transition and then having two of its backups kicked off the team last Thursday, upset previously undefeated Florida State in the Orange Bowl Classic, 71-70, last Saturday to improve to 8-2.
The Cowboys' two losses this year have come against nationally ranked Texas A&M and Wichita State. So, Oklahoma State, picked to finish last in the preseason coaches' poll, clearly can't be discarded from the postseason discussion just yet.
Iowa State, another team expected to struggle in 2018 after enduring heavy offseason losses, is 8-2 heading into this week's game against Maryland-Eastern Shore and could very easily be 9-1 if not for an early-season meltdown against Milwaukee.
Since then, the Cyclones have recovered nicely to win eight straight, including last Saturday's impressive 11-point win over a pretty good Northern Iowa team that is one of the favorites to win the Missouri Valley. And Hilton Coliseum is always one of the toughest venues to play in college basketball so you know the Cyclones are counting on more victories this season.
How about K-State?
The Wildcats don't have any non-conference wins that will blow you away, but they do have a lot of them (nine) with the possibility of getting a couple more this week against Washington State and later against Georgia in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
Like Iowa State, you know K-State is going to win a bunch of games at home so the Wildcats could be right there when the bids are handed out in March.
Texas Tech?
The Red Raiders are 9-1, soon to be 11-1 and have a 50-50 game at South Carolina in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, which could boost their non-league record to 12-1.
Lubbock is another difficult place to play, as West Virginia found out last year, so you know the Red Raiders are going to have some quality Big 12 wins to sell to the committee later this season.
TCU has become one of the feel-good stories of college basketball, the Horned Frogs possessing the longest winning streak in the country at 15 games heading into this week's action against Texas Southern and William & Mary. The Frogs are following the same formula Jamie Dixon once used while at Pitt - pile up a lot of wins against weak non-conference teams and then knock off the best teams in conference play to build their postseason resume.
We saw him do that time and again in the Big East when he coached the Panthers and that's likely what TCU is going to do again this year.
Baylor uses a similar formula under Scott Drew, but with some NBA-caliber players. The Bears missed out on their two big non-conference opportunities against Xavier and Wichita State but get one more crack at a quality non-league win against Florida in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
Baylor is developing an extensive NCAA Tournament history, the Bears earning their fourth straight bid last year and reaching the tournament five out of the last six seasons.
Oklahoma this year is not the Oklahoma that we saw struggle to an 11-win season last year after following its Final Four appearance in 2016.
The Sooners (8-1) are right back where they were two years ago with consecutive victories over USC and Wichita State and possessing college basketball's most exciting young player in 6-foot-2 freshman guard Trae Young, the nation's leading scorer averaging 28.8 points per game.
Kristian Doolittle, a 6-foot-7 sophomore forward, is back practicing with the team after serving a 10-game academic suspension for the fall semester, giving OU yet another proven inside presence to go along with 6-foot-9 senior forward Khadeem Lattin.
And then there is 13-time Big 12 champ Kansas, sitting in the weeds appearing a little more vulnerable than usual.
Following their big win over Kentucky back on Nov. 15, the Jayhawks (8-2) have hit a bump in the road with a pair of recent non-conference defeats against Washington and Arizona State, the latter coming in Allen Fieldhouse where Kansas rarely loses.
Kansas is still waiting on the eligibility status of 6-foot-10-inch freshman forward Billy Preston, a five-star recruit expected to give the Jayhawks another big-time scoring threat around the rim. KU coach Bill Self told the Kansas City Star last weekend that he is optimistic the Jayhawks will have Preston's services sometime this season, although a clear timetable has not been publically established.
West Virginia, too, is awaiting the availability of one of its key players in 6-foot-8-inch junior forward Esa Ahmad. Without him, Huggins has the Mountaineers ranked 10th in the country this week.
"(The Big 12) looks as good as it's ever been 1-10," tweeted Rothstein.
Last year, Kansas rolled through the conference winning 16 of 18 league games on the way to a 31-5 overall record. If the Jayhawks do that again this year, then that's clearly going to knock some of the other Big 12 teams out of contention for NCAA bids.
But if KU comes closer to the pack, as some believe might happen this season, that will open the door for teams seven, eight and possibly nine to sneak into the Dance.
A logjam of .500 teams in the Big 12 this year could mean a record number of NCAA participants for the No. 1-rated conference in college basketball.
College Basketball Crown Recap
Thursday, April 16
Ross Hodge, Honor Huff & Brenen Lorient | Oklahoma Postgame
Sunday, April 05
Ross Hodge, Treysen Eaglestaff & Brenen Lorient | Creighton Postgame
Saturday, April 04
Ross Hodge & Honor Huff | Stanford Postgame
Thursday, April 02
