This is the calendar spot where I transform from a college football zealot minus next Monday night to a passionate college hoops fan. Big 12 hoops is the part of me of which I’ll miss once the Sooners head to the SEC. The SEC in my mind is the third or fourth best conference in basketball while the Big 12 is the premier college basketball league in America.
You think that’s hyperbole?
Baylor is the defending national champion, currently ranked No. 1 and now riding a twenty game win streak after their hard earned home win over OU on Monday night by a deceiving score of 84-74.
Texas Tech with Chris Beard the tournament before was the national runner-up and lost a heartbreaker to Virginia in that national championship game.
The cancelled Covid year Tournament had Baylor and Kansas as the top two seeds in the entire draw.
So what I’m saying is for three years running the mens’ NCAA basketball champions has run thru the rugged Big 12 conference pretty much like what we’re seeing in football with Alabama and the SEC in football.
Am I comparing Scott Drew and Baylor to Nick Saban and Alabama…not quite, but this Baylor team which lost Davion Mitchell, Jared Butler, Teague to the NBA doesn’t appear to have lost much of anything so far this basketball season.
If the bracket were drawn up today alot of us who follow college hoops would probably have Baylor vs. Duke on their bracket sheet. I hope Sam Hinkie-Presti takes notice and is watching Paolo Banchero play as much as possible so as he can put a major piece of his Thunder rebuild in place after Year 2 of his sustainability thru tanking death march.
Porter Moser’s team hung with Baylor in Waco…that’s the storyline from Monday night. They never led, but with fifty seconds left OU was down by five and had the ball. Coming out of timeout…Coach Moser drew up a nice play to get Moj Gibson a three point look from the left baseline, but Baylor’s Flo Mamba made an incredible play and partially defelected the shot. Ballgame.
OU never backed down from Baylor. They were within striking distance for almost all of the game’s forty minutes. When Coach Moser and his team look at the film today they’ll realize if they had taken care of the ball better and kept Baylor somewhat off the offensive boards this was a game the Sooners could have conceivably stolen on the road.
That will will be the mantra in the film room today. Little things. Little things which lead to possesion of the ball and take away extra posessions from your opponent. Otherwise…OU shot the ball well from both the field and from the line for most of the night. A ton of positives to extract and extoll to your team today in that film room.
I’m sure in private and away from the team Coach Moser and his staff are extremely pround of the effort…but as the season moves along Monday night in Waco should be a learning moment on what it will take for OU to make the Big Dance and then make some noise in the Big Dance.
Great effort and game plan by Coach Moser. Everybody gets a helmet sticker. EJ Harkless…we need more from you, dude. We need you to be the best player every night…just not every two out of three nights. I’m almost certain Coach Moser will say that to EJ in private away from the team…because as EJ goes this team will go.
Next up the most improved team in college ball this season as the Iowa State Cyclones visit Norman on Saturday. Huge game for both teams. I guess Caleb Williams won’t be there…pffft. I think I’ll go to this game and enjoy what should be a great Big 12 basketball game
I did watch the second game of the night between Kansas at Oklahoma State, and in fairness to Mike Boynton — I’m not going to write anything about O State for at least two weeks because I’m a fair and reasonable person. I will write this though–I could barely recognize Avery Anderson, Rondel Walker, and the Moncrief kid from what they were a year ago. Some serious competitive introspection will be needed in Stillwater in the next several weeks.