🏀 KuBuckets Archive

I see that Oklahoma State beat Colorado 78-73 in Las Vegas last night and I got to wondering what the pre-season results say about the quality of the Big 12 basketball. I hope some of the better basketball minds will shed some light on the question.

Strenght of schedule This seems like the best indicator to me. It's a good place to start, anyway. Perhaps some one can help with the formatting.

RPI School  Record  SOS from CBSSPORTS.com

1   KU          8-3         .6818

7   Baylor  7-1         .6248

35  Texas   10-2         .6199

45  OKS     11-1            .5659

67  Iowa St 8-0         .5534

114 OK         11-1         .5286

168 TX Tech 7-5         .5029

187 KSU         8-3         .4935

264 TCU         7-3     .4579

WV I couldn't find one for this season--probably my lack of skill

(FYI, Colorado beat KU and lost to OKS.
The Buffs have an RPI rank of 31, 10-2 record, and SOS of .6178. Between Baylor and TX)

So KU has the most losses but the highest RPI rating, not only in the conference but nationally. Pretty good, I think.

What say you?

Also, there is a nice round-up of Saturday's games over at USA Today ↗, including this tidbit:

Kansas: For all the emphasis on Andrew Wiggins, we're starting to realize the Jayhawks' frontcourt is mighty impressive. That was clear in an 86-64 victory against Georgetown, with Memphis transfer Tarik Black battling for 17 points to complement star freshman Joel Embiid's also-sound 17-point performance. Kansas had 46 free throw attempts against Georgetown, tied for its most in a game over the last 15 seasons. Another kicker for KU: The Jayhawks seemed to have found a point guard in Naadir Tharpe, who's playing much better under poise and had 10 points in the win.

@Careful you I think it speaks volumes about how good KU will be at seasons end, toward March Madness. All the top broadcasters or whatever seem to be cooling off on KU and Wiggins, which is fine with me. In 08, not many of them picked KU to win it all, it was UNC or Memphis. Now, they seem to be drinking Ohio state cool aid and Arizona cool aid. If you check each of their SOS/ RPI's, its not even close to KU's. Our youth still might be a factor in the conference with a couple of unexpected losses but Im cool with a couple more bruises along the way if it makes them stronger in the end.
One last thing, Wigs needs to ramp it up during conference. He really hasn't had to because everyone else has been able to pick it up nicely. But, we will need his game on point to have a better chance at winning the conference and going far in the big dance.

That strength of schedule will be what gets us far in conference play. The rest of the conference has to be worried about Joel, Tarik and Perry, not to mention they are always going to have to plan for Andrew. Throw in Jamari, Landen, Brannen, Frank and Conner and our bench strength is far above any of the others. OK State and Iowa State haven't played the type of schedule we have and I have watched a couple of each of their games. While they have won, the inferior teams they've been up against haven't pushed them to learning what we have fought through. I believe the amount of weight Coach puts on conference play and keeping the string alive will be a great motivator for the whole squad.

The main problem for KU is experience. Last year's starting team had 3-5th year seniors, 1 Sr and 1 red shirt Fr.; this is a combined 16 years of prior experience. As a comparison, a team starting 5 seniors would have 15 years of prior experience.

The prior experience for the starting five for KU's game against Colorado and Florida was 1 year (Ellis). With Tharpe starting, the number goes up to 3, but still not even in the same planet as last year's team.

When the baby Jayhawks are clicking on all cylinders, they are hard to beat but so far, I have not seen them play this way other that for shorts stints in a few games. When they play like the inexperienced players they are, they can be beaten by anyone...and I have seen plenty of this type of play. I am sure that as conference play goes on, they will continue to improve and hopefully win the conference outright. I trust Coach Self.

I'm not a big fan of RPI. Last year it ranked the MWC as the 2nd best conference, ahead of the Big Ten and the Big 12 among others. It had New Mexico in the top 5, and we can see what the Lobos, along with the entire MWC teams did last year in the tourney ( not one of their teams made it past the first weekend, and only one made it to the 2nd game). I prefer Kenpom any day of the week. Kenpom has the following rankings ( as of today):
Okie St - #3
KU - #6
Iowa St - #15
Baylor - #36
OU - #56
TU - #57
WVU - #68

The Big 12 has 3 teams in the top 15 of Kenpom. Challenging for some, but we're KU. Okie St is going to be a load, until I look up Travis Ford's coaching career, and I feel better. Iowa State is always tough, but we're tougher.
If you had asked me preseason if I would be happy beating New Mexico by 17, followed by pounding G-town by 24, I would've been ecstatic. I don't think that was a two game blip. I think it's the start of a breakout.

My general assessment is that the pre-season has gone just about as we all expected. I seem to remember some early posters saying that the Hawks would lose three to four games in the pre-season and, voila, here we are. However, KU could easily have won either or both of the Colorado and Villanova games. So all in all, I count the pre-season as a success for our young team.

Oklahoma State is also about where I would have expected. Baylor has exceeded my predictions because I didn't expect much. Iowa State seems pretty dangerous also.

I'm a little surprised at Texas but they deserved the win against North Carolina (and the loss to Michigan State. Not much shame there).

I think the jury is still out on Kansas State, but the Gonzaga win did impressed me. I can't say much about Oklahoma and the rest of the conference. They seem likely to lose to the top teams and beat up on each other.

So, can KU beat each of the top four teams twice (for a total of eight wins)? I wish I could say yes but I can't. And I expect we will lose one (maybe two) more to teams in the bottom half of the conference. This won't be one of the best years for the won/loss record. And if it is, kudos to Coach Self and the fast-maturing young players.

I am going to guess that 14-4 will win the conference. No way a team goes unbeaten this season.

It will be very difficult for the Freshmen when we're playing a conference game in Stillwater, Ames, Waco, Norman and Austin. Wins from two of these venues could give us the Big 12 title again.

Will we win them all at Allen?

Win out at home and go 5-4 on the road and we're at 14-4.

Lose even once at home and we need to win 6 out of 9 on the road.

Got to win at Allen.

I think we have a good chance of winning all of our conference games at Allen.
As WRW says above, OU, ISU, Baylor, ISU, and now it looks like Texas are road games that are potential loses. We could certainly win 1 or 2 or those and slip u somewhere else. I say 14-4 is reasonable with 13-5 a distinct possibility. I'm hoping for 15-3 though as our young team continues to mature. It is a tough start with OU and ISU on the road and Baylor and OSU at home right off the bat.

I thought best case we would have lost four by now; then four more before our last loss in the tourney, if there were one.

I thought worst case we would be at .500 by now; then then end with a total of ten losses.

WTF do I know? :-)

Nevertheless, I will hazard an answer.

The Big 12 is definitionally underrated, because of Eastern Time Zone reporting bias that hypes conferences with large EST footprints to capture maximum eye balls and clicks, plus stimulate maximum betting in the apparent symbiotic relationship of sports media and the gaming industry.

Just look at the head coaches of the Big 12.

Self/KU: winningest coach the last decade; one of the winningest coaches of all time to this point of his career; has a ring; took a mid major to the Elite Eight; been to the Elite Eight, or farther six times; has had has lingo, defense first philosophy, and offensive system widely emulated; popularized "getting better" now used by most coaches and D1 players when describing their philosophy about what they are trying to do; Larry Brown/Leonard Hamilton/Eddie Sutton disciple.

Lon Kruger: former NBA, B1G, and SEC coach; lead Florida to the Final Four, lead KSU to the Elite Eight; one of five coaches to take four different teams to the NCAA tournament; 514 college head coaching wins; Jack Hartman disciple.

Hoiberg/ISU: former NBA Vice President of Basketball Operations for Minnesota Timberwolves; mentored by Johnny Orr, Tim Floyd, Larry Brown, Larry Bird, and Kevin McHale; winning 65% of his games while rebuilding moribund ISU program.

Barnes/Texas: one NCAA Final Four, and two Elite Eight finishes; 556 wins, 3 time Big 12 Coach of the Year; taken three different schools to the NCAA tournament.

Huggins/West Virginia: 730 wins; one of five active coaches with more than 700 wins; future hall of famer; taken there schools to the NCAA; three Sweet Sixteens; two Elite Eights;

Drew/Baylor: arguably the worst coach in the conference still has two Elite Eight finishes while rebuilding a moribund Baylor program to national prominence; Homer Drew disciple.

Ford/OSU: arguably the other worst coach in the conference has taken two teams to the NCAA tournament and has finally rebuilt OSU into the team predicted to win the conference this season; Pitino disciple.

Smith/Texas Tech: 511 wins, one NCAA ring, taken four schools to the NCAA; five Sweet Sixteens; three Elite Eights; assistant Olympic coach; on the NABC Board of Directors; Rick Pitino disciple.

Johnson/TCU: 237 wins; taken two three schools to the NCAA; two Sweet 16s; Pac Ten COY; Mike Montgomery disciple.

Weber/KSU: 348 wins; taken three schools to the NCAA; one NCAA runner up; two Sweet Sixteens, Gene Keady disciple.

The conference arguably has the greatest coach of his generation in Self. I can't think of another conference top to bottom with better coaching bonafides.

Hell yes, its underrated again. :-)

@jaybate fantastic rundown of our coaches. Hey any idea if there is an exhaustive coaching tree on the Web somewhere or should we build one? I really want a visual representing of the coaching bloodlines. If you are writing a book about this can you tell me where I can pre-order it? It seems like possibly the most important under-talked-about aspect of the sport.

Click me to see conference rankings ↗

Big 12 has been impressive in non-con.

@approxinfinity: fecal house mouse! That would be a great idea. I don't have the huevos to do it, but here is the way I would think would be the best to do it.

I forget what the proper term for the sort of map I am about to describe is, but it is a relational map of head coach names with lines connecting each head coach and his disciples in one color line and another color line connecting each head coach and his mentors. You type in a name you want to research and out comes a map with the coach entered in bold letters and disciples and mentors scattered around him at varying distances. The varying distances of the lines indicate the length of time the two worked together. The longer they worked together, the shorter the line. This puts the strongest connected names (those that worked together longest) closest together. Those that worked short periods together have longer lines. Again, color with an arrow indicates mentor/disciple relationship. The arrow points from head coaches to disciples. These sorts of relational database maps really cut to the chase on such things. Alas, with the rate of change in coaching, it might be a full time job to maintain it. The coolest relationship map of all would be one that mapped all head coaches and their mentors and disciples on a single map and so showed the relative gravitation of the various coaches in one gander; then enter a specific head coach's name and have the program map just his relationships alone.

@approxinfinity: no, my book, alas, is not about basketball. :-)

@approxinfinity: a more feasible undertaking would be to database a set of attributes of objective "accomplishment" for head coaches by conference. Use categories like I mentioned, plus whatever else you like. Aggregate the coaches by conference. Add up the cumulative accomplishments of the coaches by conference. Rank the quality of conference by magnitude of aggregate coaching accomplishment. Boom! That would make the rounds in the blogosphere and become recurring resource among pro journos to refer to when hyping and reporting on inter conference play and post season play. :-)

@jaybate love it man. I know exactly the type of graphic you are taking about. Someone prob has some java script code we can repurpose out there using something like the d3 graphing engine. Google d3 if you want to see a bunch of brain candy graphs. It's what New York Times uses.

Cool idea! But wouldn't the squid be under the Larry Brown/KU branch? Wasn't he only in Lawrence one year? Did he vacate that season?!?!

I like the list too JB, but didn't Huggy get to a final four with Cincy? Seems to me he did. It does gall me to see his name on a list for final four as I've never appreciated his thugball approach to basketball.

@wissoxfan83 Yes, Thuggy Bear went to a final four in 1992 with Cincy. Also in 2010 with WVU.

@wissoxfan83 Oops!

@KirkIsMyHinrich Double oops!

@wrwlumpy Living in Austin I was at the game last year (and every game played here in the last 10 years) when there were a good many KU fans and that helped in their comeback. We were louder than UT fans at times. I see the same thing happening this year if not more fans. UT has had dismal showing of fans (until Mich. State). They are advertising $5 tickets for their game next Monday, which is also the Alamo Bowl with UT/Oregon. The thing about UT is that Barnes is not really a game day coach and ALWAYS subs out the one or two guys that are doing something to put in his pet - this year that pet is Javan Felix. We have the bench this year to get past a lot of those that get themselves in foul trouble.