ESPN.com Summer Shootaround: Big 12

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I can't remember the Big 12 ever looking worse. At least half of their league is filled with crap teams that wouldn't get over .500 in the Big Ten. Texas is down again, probably even worse than last year. Texas Tech is awful. TCU is awful. K-State lost a lot from last season and is rebuilding. WVU had a bad year last season and lost some key players off that team so probably not a lot better this year. Oklahoma was a #10 seed last year and lost their best 2 players.

Iowa State lost six seniors off last year's team, but I think Hoiberg is a good coach and they will have a decent record this year, although it's not a given that they won't have a rebuilding year. Baylor was in the NIT last year, lost their star guard and is the #3 team in the league - that shows you everything you need to know about the lack of depth in the Big 12.
 

OSUfan said:
I can't remember the Big 12 ever looking worse. At least half of their league is filled with crap teams that wouldn't get over .500 in the Big Ten. Texas is down again, probably even worse than last year. Texas Tech is awful. TCU is awful. K-State lost a lot from last season and is rebuilding. WVU had a bad year last season and lost some key players off that team so probably not a lot better this year. Oklahoma was a #10 seed last year and lost their best 2 players.

Iowa State lost six seniors off last year's team, but I think Hoiberg is a good coach and they will have a decent record this year, although it's not a given that they won't have a rebuilding year. Baylor was in the NIT last year, lost their star guard and is the #3 team in the league - that shows you everything you need to know about the lack of depth in the Big 12.
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Guess I don't view that league as dismal as you. Now, will OSU and KU dominate? Yes! Are a couple bottom feeders still trying to rebuild? Yes. But, idk, I still think that the middle 6 teams will not only be competitive but they have quality coaches (Huggins, Hoiberg, Weber, Kruger, Smith ...yes, I said Tubby -don't shoot me please) all with Div.1 players who will coach the heck out of them. Do you really think those middle of the pack teams are that much different than the Nebr, Penn St. , Northwestern, and Purdue's were last year?? While I agree the Big 10 has more top ranked teams, I think conference comparisons of the middle half teams is iffy at best. Kinda like the Villanova's, Cincinnati's, Providence's of last year's BigEast. Everybody has competitive middle teams it appears, but consistently top tier teams ahead of them to thump them. I think Illinois, Minn., Iowa, and Purdue would have finished the same place in both of those conferences...meaning the middle. But, yeah,overall Big10 is better.
 

It doesn't matter who the coach is if you don't have the talent. There are too many Big 12 teams in major transition right now for this to be a good year for that league. Even KU (in 2013-14) has their worst team in several seasons (you have to go back to 2009 at least, IMO). I said most of those teams wouldn't finish above .500 in the Big Ten - that's the standard I am putting out there, not trying to compare to the Big Ten's worst teams last season to the Big 12's mid-tier teams because that's not what I was talking about. Illinois didn't finish above .500 in the Big Ten last year (in fact, they were 8-10) and they had a nice team that is better than all but 3-4 teams in the Big 12 this upcoming season in my view. The Big Ten probably won't be quite as strong this upcoming season, but they still are likely to have 4-5 top-25 teams and probably 6 (outside shot of 7) NCAA tourney teams. I only see 2 surefire top-25 teams from the Big 12, they could have 3 if Baylor gets enough quality guard play to be a good team but that's not a given. I don't believe the Big 12 should get any more than 4 teams making the NCAA tournament his upcoming season no matter what their conference records are, maybe only 2 or 3 NCAA tourney teams from that league considering wins against the bottom half of the league are probably going to be worthless. I think the Big 12 only has five teams that should make any postseason next year, and having 5 of 10 teams make the postseason is not a good ratio in basketball.
 


basketballjunkie said:
Guess I don't view that league as dismal as you. Now, will OSU and KU dominate? Yes! Are a couple bottom feeders still trying to rebuild? Yes. But, idk, I still think that the middle 6 teams will not only be competitive but they have quality coaches (Huggins, Hoiberg, Weber, Kruger, Smith ...yes, I said Tubby -don't shoot me please) all with Div.1 players who will coach the heck out of them. Do you really think those middle of the pack teams are that much different than the Nebr, Penn St. , Northwestern, and Purdue's were last year?? While I agree the Big 10 has more top ranked teams, I think conference comparisons of the middle half teams is iffy at best. Kinda like the Villanova's, Cincinnati's, Providence's of last year's BigEast. Everybody has competitive middle teams it appears, but consistently top tier teams ahead of them to thump them. I think Illinois, Minn., Iowa, and Purdue would have finished the same place in both of those conferences...meaning the middle. But, yeah,overall Big10 is better.
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Very good post. I have been reading about B12 since Tubby joined them. Like you, I don't agree with OSUfan's evaluation of that conference. Even TCU will be better this year because they have a very good group of players coming in. In fact, Tubby's new assistant got them when he was at TCU. I think OSU, and KU are FF teams. The rest will compete for the 3rd spot. With all those coaches you mentioned, any of these teams can finish strong. My biggest wish is for the Gophers and TT finish much better than what people are expecting and they will. Both teams have quality players.

Go Gophers
 

The-Real-Truth said:
Very good post. I have been reading about B12 since Tubby joined them. Like you, I don't agree with OSUfan's evaluation of that conference. Even TCU will be better this year because they have a very good group of players coming in. In fact, Tubby's new assistant got them when he was at TCU. I think OSU, and KU are FF teams. The rest will compete for the 3rd spot. With all those coaches you mentioned, any of these teams can finish strong. My biggest wish is for the Gophers and TT finish much better than what people are expecting and they will. Both teams have quality players.

Go Gophers
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I also don't agree with OSU's assessment. Sure, comparing last year's conferences, the B10 was much better. This year I think they're closer to each other. My main disagreement is the assessment of most of the B12's teams. Huggins has made the NCAA's 19 of the last 21 seasons coached. Losing key players off a bad team is not a bad thing. They'll bounce back, but probably NIT bound. Baylor having Isiah Austin back is huge, and watching their games there's no denying that. ISU returns Ejim and Niang and look like a tournament team. OU has upperclassmen in the back court and a solid front court. Kansas has a loaded front court and them and OSU are top 10 teams.

I think Kansas, OSU, Baylor, ISU, and OU will make the tournament. Texas, KSU, and WVU all have potential for post season play. That's my 2 cents.
 


Golden13 said:
I also don't agree with OSU's assessment. Sure, comparing last year's conferences, the B10 was much better. This year I think they're closer to each other. My main disagreement is the assessment of most of the B12's teams. Huggins has made the NCAA's 19 of the last 21 seasons coached. Losing key players off a bad team is not a bad thing. They'll bounce back, but probably NIT bound. Baylor having Isiah Austin back is huge, and watching their games there's no denying that. ISU returns Ejim and Niang and look like a tournament team. OU has upperclassmen in the back court and a solid front court. Kansas has a loaded front court and them and OSU are top 10 teams.

I think Kansas, OSU, Baylor, ISU, and OU will make the tournament. Texas, KSU, and WVU all have potential for post season play. That's my 2 cents.
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Kansas will make it. Okie St will make it. Baylor didn't make it last year and lost their stud PG - Scott Drew's teams have been mediocre in spite of great talent in the past (mostly the same team with a star PG was NIT-bound last year) - Baylor could go either way, but you have to be concerned about having an unknown at PG, and while they have a tough frontcourt they could be derailed by suspect guard play. I don't think anyone else in that league has better than a 50% chance of making the tournament. Baylor I'd say has a 60% chance and KU and Okie St both 99.9%.

Iowa State lost SIX seniors. That was a team that heavily relied on a bunch of guys who are now history - they had a solid top-6, and four of them exhausted their eligibility. They have a few good players (Ejim, Niang, and the transfer from Marshall should be solid), but plenty of teams with 3 or 4 good players miss the tournament. They need at least 2 other guys (aside from the 3 mentioned and frosh shooter Thomas) to step up and be pretty good that it's complete guesswork to say they will be ready to perform. To me Iowa State is a team that if I would say has about a 40% or 45% chance of making the tournament. Probably won't make it IMO, but has a legit shot and more of an NIT-caliber bubble team type in my view.

Oklahoma lost their two best players from a #10 seed, with Osby being by far their best player last year and an early entrant into the NBA draft, and I don't see any instant impact newcomers. I guess if you had great faith in Lon Kruger's ability to get diamonds in the rough in recruiting, you would expect them to make the tourney but I can't expect them to with all the question-marks considering by my count they only have one former top-100 recruit on the whole roster. Texas, KSU and WVU are all in rebuilding mode. I don't care what Bob Huggins or Rick Barnes did the past 20 years - what's most relevant is those two teams coached by those two guys really sucked last year, and it's a lot harder (and more unlikely) to make a big improvement than to not make a big improvement.

The reasons some of the other B12 teams aside from the top-3 or 4 could make the postseason is because the league is so weak, and with the 8-game over .500 boost that typically comes from OOC play, somebody is going to end up with a record .500 or slightly above even if they aren't very good. I guess the things to monitor are top-25 teams and NCAA tourney selection, as I don't think it's going to be a banner year by the Big 12. I doubt that the Big 12 will ultimately have any F4 teams, although KU and Okie St will both have a decent shot.
 




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