The committee could possibly have two No. 1 seeds playing each other at 5:30pm this evening inside the T Mobile Sprint Arena.
Baylor seems to have gotten its legs back under itself after Covid halted their season for almost three weeks while red-hot Oklahoma State and Cade Cunningham are currently the ‘it’ story in college basketball.
Last Thursday in Waco—the Cowboys lost a competitive game to the Bears without Cade Cunningham and Issac Likekele. But both will be on the court for O State on Friday evening inside of Phog Allen East.
You wouldn’t think the zebras would have a preference in this game since Kansas isn’t playing so this should be a great college basketball game with the entire country of hoops fans taking notice as we near the cusp of March Madness.
In a sense I consider this the Big 12 Championship Game even if Kansas advances because I’m almost certain the zebras will be punitive against the other three teams with the home cooking the Jayhawks always get in this event.
The Big 12 needs to start moving the tournament around again. The event shouldn’t be slanted to Kansas in such an obvious manner. Texas Tech was the last Big 12 team to make the Final Four or the championship game. Let’s start rewarding all of the parents of Texas high school players in the league and start rotating the event south.
I know–the Big 12 football game is played at Jerry’s World and the Big 12 baseball tournament is played in Oklahoma City. But at the least with the Big 12 becoming such a nationally prominent hoops league I’d like to see the event played in Texas and Oklahoma City again as it once was before the Thunder dominated the basketball scene in the region. Rotate it between Kansas City, OKC, and a Texas city on a regular basis.
Kevin Durant is gone and is back East on the Brooklyn Thunder. James Harden, Jeff Green, Andre, Timothy and even Blake Griffin are there with him. The OKC Thunder haven’t won a first round series in four years with Russell Westbrook, Paul George, or Chris Paul on their roster.
The Thunder aren’t winning one anytime soon in the forseable future. It would be nice for the Big 12 to give the other programs minus Kansas a shot at winning its post season tournament. OU has won Big 12 football championship games in both Kansas City and San Antonio…why can’t the Jayhawks be asked to do the same.
As far as this game tonight…it will feature the best two players in the league in Cade Cunningham and Jared Butler. It will also showcase the two deepest most balanced rosters in the league… with Texas right there as well.
Baylor’s coach Scott Drew has always taken heat for his bench management skills and this will be his chance to show if he’s the real deal…a complete head coach who can take the Baylor mens’ program to the same level of the nationally elite Lady Bears.
For Mike Boynton…he’s a win or two away from becoming the hottest young coach in America if not already. If the Kentucky or Duke or North Carolina jobs opened I wonder if Coach B would get a call. His alma mater South Carolina just finished a miserable 6-14 Covid affected season by losing 76-59 to Ole Miss. There’s talk maybe Frank Martin who Mike Boynton worked for could possibly be in trouble.
But I don’t think right now that’s on Mike Boynton’s mind. Boynton is old school and he won’t say anything but nice things about his old boss Frank Martin.
Mike Boynton has worked his tail off for four years to have the Oklahoma State program in this game tonight with this much on the line.
I haven’t even looked at the spread. On a neutral floor…I’d have it as a pick ’em game…maybe Baylor by 1.5 just because they’re an older team.
Since the Baylor vs. Gonzaga game scheduled earlier this year was never played due to Covid…this all the sudden has become the game of the year minus maybe the Michigan-Ohio State game.
What a great time to be a Big 12 hoops fan with not only seven teams with a chance to make the Sweet 16, but with nine players from the league projected to go in the NBA’s two round draft this summer.
As Fran Fraschilla of ESPN often says, “The state of Texas has become a nationally elite hotbed of college high school basketball talent.”
This should be a great game. I envy Fran and still remember how kind he and Ron Franklin were to me on that day in Norman back when Durant was a freshman at Texas.