Beyond the Arc : Big 12

Better re-think those preseason assumptions

Mike Miller — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:28:00 GMT

On a night when college hoops’ top two teams escaped upsets, what’d we learn?

That Cole Aldrich and Sherron Collins are the key to Kansas’ season? Or that Kalin Lucas is Michigan State’s go-to guy? We knew all that going in.

Try this: Don’t forget recent history because Gonzaga and Memphis are actually good. Again. Re-think those preseason assumptions of who's good and who's not. There's no reason to adhere to what the rankings say when your eyes tell you different.

The old cliché still applies, I guess. The more things change – Gonzaga and Memphis both lost four starters from last season – the more they stay the same.

Al Goldis / AP

As Raymar Morgan found out Tuesday, nothing's going to come easy against Gonzaga.

Start with the Zags. Like Miami (Ohio) against Kentucky on Monday night, Gonzaga outplayed the No. 2 Spartans for most of the game, particularly along the frontline.

Sophomore center Robert Sacre played just 19 minutes due to foul issues, but finished with 17 points. Elias Harris (17 points, 9 rebounds) was effective as an undersized power forward who gave Draymond Green and Delvon Roe matchup issues. Matt Bouldin and Steven Gray didn’t shoot well (a combined 8 for 29), but had to do pretty much everything along the perimeter. And the bench surely gave Mark Few more options for later in the season when more hostile environments await.

Perhaps Michigan State isn’t the second-best team in the country. But hey, Tom Izzo said as much in the preseason, not that anyone was listening. The frontcourt was going to be an issue, which is why guys like Lucas, Durrell Summers and Raymar Morgan will carry the Spartans until then.

“It’s a big win for us because we didn’t play real well,” Izzo said. “Gonzaga took it to us for at least 30 minutes. I have a lot of respect for Mark and their program. They punched us in the mouth, picked us off the ground and punched us again.”

The same applies to Memphis and Kansas.

The Tigers lost their coach and most of their scoring from last season’s 33-4 squad. Yet they’re just as athletic and downright stingy on defense. Ask the Jayhawks.

“We’ve known for the past few days that they’re really going to give us a challenge and it proved to be right,” Aldrich said afterward.

Memphis coach Josh Pastner used just six players (well, seven, but D.J. Stephens played 1 whole minute), all of whom were aggressive on defense and fast in the open court. Will Coleman gave up 4 inches to Aldrich, but held his own in the post and even blocked one of Aldrich’s shots. Elliot Williams jacked up 18 shots – his potential game-winner was long – but that was because Kansas couldn’t stay in front of him.

The result made for one ugly game, though. Kansas went for .877 PPP, while Memphis was at .814. Neither team’s eFG% was above 50. The Jayhawks committed a turnover on nearly a third of their possessions. And without Collins and Aldrich – a combined 12 of 17 shooting for 30 points and 4 turnovers; the other 7 ‘Hawks were 8 for 26 and 16 TOs – it gets real bad.

Don’t expect anything easy against Memphis. Or Gonzaga. If a night like tonight didn’t convince you otherwise, you weren’t watching.

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Beware the Big 12's cellar dwellers

Mike Miller — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:25:00 GMT

The Big 12 thinks it’s the top conference this season.

With teams like Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, it’s an easy argument to make. The league has two of the nation’s true title contenders, while the Sooners lead a solid second group that includes Kansas State, Texas A&M, Missouri and Oklahoma State.

But the true mark of a tough conference is at the bottom. And that’s where the Big 12 could step up this season.

Colorado and Iowa State shouldn’t be gawdawful anymore. The Cyclones – with Craig Brackins and Marquis Gilstrap, two of the league’s best players – could be especially dangerous.

“I just saw them practice. And if that’s the ninth- or 10th-best team in the Big 12, it’s going to be a great year,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla told the Kansas City Star.

When the bottom dweller can give the title contenders a game – Texas Tech did thump Kansas last season, which was the Big 12’s second-worst team beating its best – that bodes well for the conference as a whole.

Or does it just mean that the conference’s best teams aren’t that good?

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Missouri's practicing, sleeping at the gym

Mike Miller — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:39:00 GMT

There are dedicated college basketball players, and then there’s Kim English.

Missouri’s sophomore guard is taking the “practice makes perfect” cliché to another level by spending all of his free time at the gym. In fact, he rarely makes it home to bed.

From the Kansas City Star:

No Missouri basketball player has likely ever spent as much time practicing his game. A year ago English frequently slept at Mizzou Arena, so as to be able to shoot after practice and before class the next day.

The practice has been catching. A lot of players are doing the same thing now.

(It’ll be interesting to see if English’s extra work pays off. He hit just 40 percent of his field-goal attempts last season, and shot almost 38 percent from beyond the arc. Tempo free nuggets: 51.5 TS% and a 101.0 ORtg.)

English has shown this kind of dedication for some time. But perhaps everyone else is following his lead so they can stick to their detractors.

For the second straight season – and despite a 31-7 season that ended in the Elite Eight – Missouri was picked to finish 7^th in the Big 12. That’s not sitting well with the Tigers.

Then again, if these guys are sleeping at the gym to fit in some extra practice, maybe we shouldn’t doubt quotes like this from coach Mike Anderson.

"I think we've got some guys who can put it in the hole," Anderson said. "We've got to be that team that is going to be tenacious, scrapping and clawing."

I bet. Sleeping at the gym will do that to you.

(H/T: The Dagger)

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Griffin's the OU gift that keeps on giving

Mike Miller — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:48:00 GMT

Blake Griffin may be the best thing that’s ever happened to Oklahoma basketball.

And that’s saying something. It’s not like the Sooners were devoid of hoops history before Griffin arrived on campus in 2007. Waymon Tisdale was a three-time consensus first-team All-American. Billy Tubbs’ 1987-88 squad was one of the sport’s glorious up-tempo teams. Kelvin Sampson led the Sooners to the 2002 Final Four.

John Bazemore/AP

Blake Griffin

Sure, it’ll always be a football school. But coach Jeff Capel says Griffin’s breakout 2008-09 season has helped change all that. Heck, freshman Tiny Gallon said he’d never even heard of OU until Griffin.

Now, Gallon and fellow McDonald’s All-American Tommy Mason-Griffin will help ease the loss of Griffin, the 2009 player of the year and No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft. From an AP feature Thursday:

Before Griffin's arrival, Capel said he would get questioned by players, parents and coaches: "How many pros have you guys put out?"

"At the time I didn't have any and our program hadn't had a first-round pick since `88. We had (Eduardo) Najera who was in the NBA, or is in the NBA, but that's it," Capel said. "Now it's another thing to cross off that they can't use, that other people can't use against us."

While Gallon wasn't familiar with Oklahoma when he first met Capel during his junior year of high school, he knew all about Griffin. Eventually, so would everyone else who follows basketball, and Griffin's exploits have been a key example Capel can provide to prospects.

"You can come to Oklahoma and be a national player of the year. You can come to Oklahoma and you can leave school early. You can come and be the face of college basketball," Capel said.

"It is a football school, and people want to use that as a negative, but you can come here and you can do that."

That’s a nice pitch to give to prospective recruits, and one that probably worked for Rick Barnes when he had Kevin Durant.

After all, is it any coincidence that the Longhorns – another football school – are on the shortlist of title contenders this season because they nabbed two impact freshmen just a few years after Durant was player of the year?

Player of the year and permanent recruiting tool? This must be how Carolina uses MJ, only on a smaller scale.

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Big 12 wants top conference bragging rights

Mike Miller — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:37:00 GMT

With Big East coaches pleading parity, there’s an opening for the mythical “toughest college basketball conference” in the country.

And it sounds like the Big 12 wants it.

"I believe this is our league’s year,” Kansas coach Bill Self said at Big 12 media day. "I don’t think we’ll be talking about maybe getting six in the tournament next March. That’ll be something that’s very disappointing to everybody involved if this league doesn’t have six, seven, eight teams at least.”

He’s got a point. The Jayhawks are everyone’s favorite to win, while Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Texas A&M and Missouri will likely be in the Top 25 at some point this season. They’re all eyeing NCAA tournament berths.

And consider this: The coaches picked Iowa State to finish 8^th despite having a future NBA lottery pick in Craig Brackins and the newcomer of the year in Marquis Gilstrap.

That’s a salty group of teams. Kansas – no matter how much talent is has – isn’t going to stroll to another conference crown.

Make no mistake, the Big Ten, ACC and Big East – even the resurgent SEC – all have a case to be called the best. Yet for whatever reason, the Big 12 usually isn’t lumped into that group despite having a better RPI than all but the ACC the last two seasons.

"Then again, people have never given the Big 12 the credit it deserves,” says Texas coach Rick Barnes.

Part of that is because the conference doesn’t have the ACC’s historical cachet or the sheer number of basketball schools like the Big East. Also, it took the league 12 tries to win an NCAA tournament title (Kansas in ’08).

But there’s no denying the talent is there.

The league features perhaps the nation’s best player at each position in Sherron Collins (point guard), Willie Warren (shooting guard), James Anderson (wing), Craig Brackins (power forward) and Cole Aldrich (center).

"Every night in and night out, you're going to witness three to four to five (future) NBA players on the court," says Oklahoma State coach Travis Ford. "This is a very special year, there's no question."

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KU stars close friends -- thanks to women's studies

Mike Miller — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:13:00 GMT

Darron Cummings/AP

Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich were named preseason co-Big 12 players of the year on Thursday.

Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich are pretty much on every conceivable all-american/award list for college hoops this season.

Makes sense. Collins is perhaps the nation’s top point guard, while Aldrich is probably the best center and a surefire NBA lottery pick. They’re among the preseason candidates for the Wooden Award and were just named the preseason co-Big 12 players of the year.

And they’re dynamite together on the court. They’re the best inside-outside combination since J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams (both first-team All-Americans in 2006) and are pretty much always mentioned in the same breath when talking about Kansas.

If you think that kind of attention makes them close friends, you’d be right. But that’s only half of it.

Let this story from the Lawrence Journal-World’s Gary Bedore do the talking:

The two have become even closer than they were last year ... thanks to the class they take at Smith Hall.

Let Collins explain:

“We’re taking this one Women’s Studies class, and it’s like probably 17 women in there, and me and Cole are the only two boys in the class,” Collins said.

“It’s funny. Miss Ballard ... she’s our teacher. She’s great. Class is so interesting and fun. We discuss all types of issues. The women … they gang up on us. They beat up on us a lot. We find a subject to debate, and me and Cole try to stick up, but we always get overpowered. There’s just two of us. We learn to keep our mouths shut now.”

Not always.

“From being in that class, we’ve learned to stick together at all times — on the court and off the court. We have to have each other’s back,” Collins said with a smile.

If there’s one thing Kansas fans are looking for after a rough few weeks of news surrounding their team, it’s a statement like that from their two best players.

If they can handle being overmatched 8-1 in a women’s studies course, they can handle anything that comes their way on the court. Even in March.

Kansas starts boot camp early. Hm ...

Mike Miller — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:43:00 GMT

Things are back to Defcon 5 in Lawrence. Well, maybe Defcon 4 or 3. Tempers may still be running a little hot from the Tuesday/Wednesday scuffles. A longer recap is here.

Both Bill Self and football coach Mark Mangino made the rounds for apologies, general statements and trying to paint a picture “one big family” on campus. (Some weren’t buying it.)

Self, who was out of town on Tuesday and Wednesday, was part annoyed, part pissed off. And hey, why wouldn’t he be?

“I’m embarrassed because of the situation. It’s a situation that none of us should have gotten into. We embarrassed our campus, our university, both teams, and it’s just a situation that shouldn’t have happened. Looking back at it, it was just really stupid. I wish I could take it back.

“We don’t act like this. To me, somebody asked me how did Tyshawn dislocate his thumb? My reply was: I don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to me. The fact is that it happened. The reason it happened was because a really small group of individuals put selfish motives ahead of what was really important.”

So what’s the best way to get rid of any extra aggression? Run it off.

Self started his basketball boot camp a little early. Like Thursday. Sure, it still officially starts on Monday, but Self was on hand Thursday for a “semblance of boot camp.”

If there are any more fights, Kansas is going to be the best conditioned team in the country…

Could off-court issues sink Kansas?

Mike Miller — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:05:00 GMT

It’s funny. Planned to do a post this morning on Kansas guard Xavier Henry and how he’s already loving life in Lawrence. He’s bonding with his teammates, impressing in practice and raising the level of play.

Sounds like he’s not the typical freshman. You know, acting immaturely or getting into fights and stuff. Guess that falls to everyone else.

Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Tyshawn Taylor shoots against Nebraska.

The Kansas basketball and football team reportedly scuffled Tuesday night, which resulted in sophomore guard Tyshawn Taylor suffering a dislocated left thumb. He’ll miss 3-4 weeks. But it doesn’t sound like he regrets it.

From his Facebook page: "I got a dislocated finger ..from throwing a punch ..so don't let the news paper gas yall up aite. … real (racial slur)s do real things .. point plankn."

Now, aside from the wisdom of fighting with football players – you know, big, hulking guys who play a violent sport – it sounds like this kind of thing has been brewing for some time at KU.

According to Lawrence Journal-World sports editor Tom Keegan, this kind of fracas frequently happens with the basketball and football players. The KU athletic department isn’t one big, happy family, but more like the Hatfields and McCoys.

Bar owners and patrons know it. Students know it. Cops know it. The only reason you haven’t read more about it is because precise details of said skirmishes have been difficult to nail down.

It’ll be tough to deny that premise. Another fight was reported Wednesday morning around 10 a.m. CT. Fights between athletes aren’t anything new – hockey and baseball players fight during games, let alone afterward – but this kind of constant tension on campus can’t be easy to handle. Especially when athletes start going to the hospital. This isn't to say more players are going to get hurt, or even that more fights will happen.

But the longer that tension sticks around, the chances will rise that something foolish could derail KU in March.

It’s funny. Up until now, I always considered Kentucky the biggest obstacle to Kansas’ national title hopes this season. If there are many more fights, maybe that's no longer true.

UPDATE: According to the Kansan (the student newspaper), nearly the whole basketball team was present for Wednesday's incident. This quote sums up the whole affair nicely. "Mario Little told me football players had beef with Sherron [Collins]," said Erryn Kindle, a KU student. "He said they were talking trash."

And, for those seeking the lighter side of this mess, there's pointplankn.com. Wow. (H/T: Gary Parrish)

Sadler convinced Huskers can Git-R-Done?

Mike Miller — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:53:00 GMT

Doc Sadler spent part of his summer in Larry the Cable Guy’s entourage. No surprise there.

A sense of humor is essential to being Nebraska’s basketball coach. (Cue laugh track.)

Seriously though, laughter would be a necessity with the Huskers. Most basketball coaches would lose their minds swimming upstream at a place like that. Consider:

Nati Harnik/AP

Doc Sadler

It’s a football school with hardly any hoops success in its past. Unlike colleges like Notre Dame, USC or Oklahoma, the Cornhuskers have never been to a Final Four. They’re more like Alabama – moderate success that usually goes unnoticed because of fall, spring practice, signing day and summer workouts.

There’s not much in-state talent. According to rivals.com, the state’s boasts two 3-star players for the class of 2010. The only 4-star player in the last six years was Lincoln Southeast’s Matt Hill. He committed to Texas. In-state talent isn’t crucial to a strong program, but it certainly helps. And Sadler could use it.

Plus, it seems like Sadler can’t catch a break.

Center Christopher Niemann will miss the season due to a knee injury. At 6-11, he was going to bring some much-needed height to the Huskers, whose roster is usually dotted with players 6-7 and under. Ask Aleks Maric how much fun it was being Nebraska’s lone post player.

(True, 6-8 Christian Standhardinger is eligible now, but only because of Neimann’s injury.)

But hey, Sadler’s still optimistic. Maybe it’s Larry’s influence.

"I think with this group, down the road, in the next two or three years, we can compete [for a top spot in the Big 12],” Sadler told Andy Katz. "We can compete now, and even though we've been a seventh- or eighth-place team in the Big 12, that's not our goal. Being an NIT team is not our goal.”

You can't give K-State's Clemente that shot

Mike Miller — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:58:00 GMT

Who doesn’t love a good trick shot? One of my favorite ads as a kid was Michael Jordan and Larry Bird trying to top each other in a game of H-O-R-S-E, and to the victor went the Big Mac. Seems like everyone loved that ad.

Denis Clemente must too.

This video’s a little old and the footage is grainy, but I caught it for the first time today. Nice bit of trickery, but I like his jubilation at the end best. You can almost hear him talking to Jordan, “Off the video screen, one bounce, nothing but net.