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Kareem Rush's return could lift Missouri to a national title.
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The number of Big 12 teams to reach the Final Four since the conference formed in 1996-97.
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"While I was there, I hit every bar in Boise. I can tell you the name of every bar from Boise to Ames."
-- Iowa State coach Larry Eustachy, on how he stayed in Boise after his team's first-round NCAA tournament upset to 15 seed Hampton in Boise. His lobbying job helped land assistant Leonard Perry the Idaho head coaching job. |
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By Adam Thompson, Special to CNNSI.com
Ricardo Patton is not what you would call a hype machine. But when asked this preseason about his freshman center, 7-foot David Harrison, the Colorado coach got downright bold.
"I think he'll live up to all the expectations," Patton said. "He is as powerful in the center as any young guy I've seen. He's not a fluke. He is what they say he is."
Harrison, a McDonald's All-American, generated a mountain of press for a Buffalo team often starving for it when he chose to join older brother D.J. Harrison in Boulder instead of playing for Vanderbilt in his hometown of Nashville or for Duke or North Carolina. Other than when Chauncey Billups committed out of Denver, CU had never seen a signing this big.
There remains the little issue of playing. Harrison has been bothered with a sore back through much of the preseason, which has slowed his progress. But with a non-conference schedule featuring the likes of Morris Brown, Southern and Division II Regis, Harrison has time to work out some kinks.
The Buffaloes do have some tests early, most of which should come in a three-game road swing at Colorado State, St. Joseph's and Georgia. Then there's the Big 12 itself, where the Buffaloes have not finished above .500 since 1996-97, when Billups was still running things in Boulder.
In recent years, the Big 12 has really been split between a Big Six and Little Six. There is some talk around the league now that CU might be able to break into that upper bracket.
"I think Colorado might be the team that's improved the most," said Oklahoma State coach Eddie Sutton.
With the loss of Jamaal Tinsley, Paul Shirley and Martin Rancik, Iowa State could be the best candidate for the Buffaloes to leapfrog.
Patton can only hope the younger Harrison starts a chain reaction. He provides CU with an athleticism in the pivot that should allow them to run and press more aggressively. A skilled player like 6-foot-9 Stephane Pelle also gets to move to the more natural power forward position instead of having to battle bigger opponents at center.
On the other hand, the coach expects Harrison to more tough double-teams than he ever has in his life.
"The best big guys are really good passers," Patton said. "The better passer he becomes, the better player he will be."
And there are several candidates for Harrison to pass to. Nick Mohr and Justin Harbert have shown outside range, if not consistency, D.J. Harrison can fill from inside or outside and Pelle is just a few steps away from greatness. Mookie Wright, a transfer point guard, has already turned heads with his quickness.
"I believe that we have, as a staff, assembled as good talent as we've had at the University of Colorado in a very long time," Patton said. "Now that true test is for individual talent to form as a team."
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Aaron Miles could not have asked for a better climate to introduce him to college basketball. The McDonald's All-American from Portland, Ore., arrives with two veterans, Jeff Boschee and Kirk Hinrich, who both have logged 4,750 minutes between them, to show him the ropes.
Miles has a good shot of being the Jayhawks' fifth starter. But on a team picked by both the coaches and media to win the Big 12, there's little pressure on him to carry too heavy a burden right away. It wouldn't surprise Hinrich if Miles ends up taking some of his minutes at the point. He and Boschee are both better shooters, and KU coach Roy Williams is considering a three-guard lineup anyway.
"I am real glad that Aaron is here," Hinrich said.
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HOT: Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight
Never has men's hoops seen this much national attention in Lubbock.
NOT: The Red Raiders themselves
With only four returnees, the question might be which is more red -- Knight's sweater or his face?
HOT: Oklahoma F Ebi Ere
Juco All-American an early bet for Newcomer of the Year.
NOT: Iowa State G Jake Sullivan
With a younger and inexperienced cast around him, will this sophomore see as many open threes?
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Kansas' Williams is seething about Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg's lack of support in trying to eliminate or moderate the controversial new 5/8 rule, which says teams can no longer sign more than five players in one recruiting class or eight in two.
Many coaches loathe the new rule, which was created to keep them from chasing off scholarship players when they see the opportunity to sign better ones. In the coaches' eyes, it does not give them enough leeway in case a player chooses to transfer or leave early for the NBA.
Williams was angry enough to write Weiberg and his fellow coaches a letter expressing his displeasure. Upon receiving that letter, Knight wrote one of his own supporting Williams.
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 Kansas power forward Drew Gooden
Look out -- the All-Big 12 junior has grown taller and wider this offseason.
Kansas State coach Jim Wooldridge
Has taken turned his team from laughable to competitive in two years.
Baylor coach Dave Bliss
Has done Wooldridge one better by taking Bears to the NIT last March.
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To find out if Kansas deserves its preseason No. 1 tag, check to see how the Jayhawks perform in a three-game, seven-day stretch that sends them to UCLA Jan. 12, Oklahoma State Jan. 15 and has them hosting Oklahoma Jan. 19.
The Cowboys, another league contender, have a rough stretch themselves. They travel to Texas Feb. 20 and to Missouri five days later. The Sooners and Longhorns meet for a rematch of last March's Big 12 tourney finals Feb. 2.
But the schedule-makers weren't dumb. They saved what could be the best game for last by making Kansas-Missouri the last game of the regular season, on March 3. The game will be nationally televised.
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Texas coach Rick Barnes says freshman T.J. Ford might be the first true point guard he has ever coached. Eric Murdock played for him at Providence and Terrell McIntyre at Clemson, but they were both more likely to shoot first than Ford, the Longhorns' second McDondald's All-America player in two years. ... Tommie King, a forward from Western Nebraska Community College and a playground legend in Seattle, decided to leave Iowa State after an early-morning preseason practice, but has reconsidered and is back with the Cyclones. ... Kansas State has not one, but two Brazilians on its roster this year. Marcelo Da Barrosa and Gilson DeJesus both hail from Sao Paolo, though DeJesus made a much less glamorous stop at Colorado's Trinidad State Junior College.
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