Big 12 holds key to NCAAs

As I hunch over my bracket, the Big 12 turns the brain into a whipsaw. For every argument I advance on behalf of one of that league's six NCAA teams, a counterargument rises, sneers and roughs my original proposition up, as if it were a Bob Knight assistant in a staff meeting.

What of Texas Tech, Knight's new home on the range? The last time we had a harmonic convergence of all things Knight -- in 1987, when both Hoosiers and John Feinstein's Season on the Brink appeared -- Indiana won an NCAA title. Why wouldn't something similar happen now that we've seen Season the movie, and the coach's literary apologia, Knight: My Story, is headed for bookstores? Then I remind myself of the irrefutable truth that Ron Felling, Knight's assistant at Indiana, got thrown against a wall for pointing out that players are gassed by the end of a season in Knight's care.

Then there's Texas. The Longhorns smartly recovered from the loss of Chris Owens, coalescing behind point guard T.J. Ford, who's now a freshman in name only. It's just that they have only one win in three tournament appearances since coach Rick Barnes' arrival in Austin.

Oklahoma has a Tom Izzo-esque coach in Kelvin Sampson, and a star, Hollis Price, who turned Kansas away more or less by himself in the Big 12 tournament final. I'm all set to make the case that the Sooners should have landed a No. 1 seed -- and then I'm reminded of Sampson's 3-8 record in the NCAAs. The Big 12 tournament champs have lasted beyond the second round but once in their last eight appearances.

It was Oklahoma State coach Eddie Sutton who once growled, "I ... like ... guards," guards being basketball bellwethers come tournament time. Sutton has a good one in Mo Baker -- but Baker still isn't entirely, as they say around Stillwater, hisownself. So the Cowboys are quailing in the stretch. Moreover, because of the committee's unwillingness to accommodate the mid-majors, the Mighty MAC has only one team in the field -- Kent State, which, for the sake of conference pride, will want to punish its first-round opponent, which happens to be Oklahoma State.

Missouri has shooters. What the Tigers need are makers. (A sorry old joke, I know -- but not as sorry as Mizzou's outside consistency.) The trey-and-prey Tigers are set up to fall to a phenomenon that my colleague Grant Wahl explicates in this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, the fickleness of the 3-point shot come March. Nor does it help that the Tigers draw Miami in the first round; no team shoots well when it shares a court with a Big East team.

And then there is Kansas. With the Jayhawks, my oscillating brain goes still.

In light of Roy Williams' tournament history, it shouldn't. The last four times Kansas has carried a No. 1 seed, it didn't even reach the regional final. Nonetheless, let me make my case:

No galoots. It's a law of Big 12 nature, as sure as tornadoes and crop failures, that some pasty mass of ectoplasm with too-tight hair will clog up the middle of the Kansas offense. Graec Drosterfrenth, I believe his name is. Well, these Jayhawks are galoot-free, and with no galoot, they won't galose. They have two forwards who gambol in the lane like creatures in a Marlin Perkins special, with nary a lard-butted teammate to impede their movement.

Turbocharged guards. KU starts three of them, all with a point guard's handle and a 2-guard's shot. They inbound after an opponent's basket faster than any team since the Showtime Lakers.

Fate. For a long time, sportswriters have carried a list of title-deprived coaches, each thought to have some tragic flaw. My colleagues and I pull out that list whenever we need an easy column. Slowly the names are getting checked off. Lute Olson landed his title. So did Jim Calhoun.

Every now and then the gods have their say. In my mind's eye, on a foolish April 1, I can see each taut muscle in Roy Williams' face go slack.

Which means there is still hope for Gene Keady.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Alexander Wolff is the author of Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure (Warner Books), available online and in stores everywhere. You can contact him at biggamesmallworld.com.

 

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