Big 12 Conference Notebook
by Neal Heston
An important week for four schools
Two squads have an opportunity to keep the ball bouncing uphill on Wednesday when Missouri visits Kansas State. Aside from the top three in the Big 12, the Tigers and Wildcats are the two hottest teams in the league.
Saturday presents another critical day for two other schools heading in the opposite direction, as the Baylor Bears head to Iowa State. Both have dropped four consecutive contests, possibly five by the time this game takes place.
Rising: Missouri (13-6, 2-4), two consecutive wins
Since nearly pulling off an upset against Kansas, the Tigers have rolled off a pair of wins and are poised to hit .500 in league play with victories this week. That is very possible if Mizzou is able to avenge its loss from earlier this month to Kansas State when the two squads meet on Wednesday. Nebraska (12-7, 1-4) comes into Columbia on Saturday.
If the Tigers are to defeat Kansas State Wednesday, fortunes from the free throw line will need to improve. Missouri combined for a poor 58 percent from the charity stripe during its last two wins (11-of-20 and 11-of-18). That could spell the end of a winning streak if the contest is as close as the 85-81 thriller earlier this month.
Rising: Kansas State (15-6, 4-2), five consecutive wins
Kansas State will enter Wednesday’s contest on a five-game winning streak. The team it knocked down to begin that streak: Missouri. Even with Missouri playing this strong lately, it might be easy for Kansas State to look past this game with Texas and Kansas looming on the schedule. Doing that could send the conference’s hottest club into a tailspin for the bottom half of the standings. What a difference a week might make.
David Hoskins and Cartier Martin will be keys to a successful week. In two wins over Iowa State and Nebraska, the two averaged 13 and 17.5 points per game, respectively.
Falling: Baylor (11-9, 1-6), four consecutive losses
The Bears, who were looking at the program’s most successful season two weeks ago, are stuck roaming the bottom of the standings with Colorado after a 1-6 start in Big 12 play. Two losses in their four-game skid have come convincingly to Oklahoma (91-51) and Kansas (82-56). There is hope on the horizon, though. After taking Texas to the brink this past weekend, Baylor will play two contests against squads who are also struggling mightily, Colorado and Iowa State. If the Bears play to their potential, they will be just one victory away from tying the program’s highest season win total.
Baylor took a six-point lead into halftime at Texas on Saturday, but free throws proved to be the difference during defeat. Although BU converted 8-of-10 from the charity stripe, Texas went to the line 23 more times and converted on 25 total for the game.
Falling: Iowa State (11-9, 2-4), four consecutive losses
Excitement built a little too quickly in Ames after Greg McDermott’s squad bolted to a 2-0 Big 12 start and nearly upset Kansas. But since that defeat to the Jayhawks, the Cyclones have continued to drop, losing three more contests including ones against Kansas State and Oklahoma State, where the offense has not looked impressive. It’s possible for Baylor to come into town on Saturday with Iowa State on a five-game skid, as the Cyclones head to red-hot Texas A&M on Wednesday.
Mike Taylor has been a consistent contributor during losing streak for the young squad. The guard averaged 17 points in two games last week.
Enjoying the view: Kansas (18-3, 5-1), Texas A&M (17-3, 5-1) and Texas (15-5, 5-1)
Kansas: Since its three-game spurt earlier in January, where the Jayhawks survived scares against Iowa State and Missouri and then lost to Texas Tech, Kansas has cruised – to say the least. KU won its last two contests by an average margin of 24.5. We might see one more blowout Monday against Nebraska before Texas A&M heads into Lawrence on Saturday.
Texas A&M: After an opportunity to feast on the Iowa State Cyclones on Wednesday, Texas A&M will face an even larger storm this weekend. A trip to Kansas awaits on the schedule for Saturday. Two days later, Texas comes to town. It will be an excellent opportunity for the Aggies to not only take first place in the league, but prove it can beat the best of the Big 12.
Texas: In addition to the Aggies, we will learn how good this other team from Texas is this week, as the Longhorns head to Texas Tech, face Kansas State and then head to Texas A&M the following Monday. Texas may be 5-1 in conference play, but it is 0-1 against the upper half of the league – where all three of this week’s opponents reside.
