Stillwater revival

Oklahoma State is winning big yet again

Sports Illustrated senior writer Grant Wahl answers your college basketball questions every Wednesday. Click here to send him a question.

This week's 'Bag begins with Brian Graham of Land O'Lakes, Fla., wondering why Oklahoma State isn't ranked higher than No. 9 despite its 16-1 record and a nation's-best 14 straight wins. It just so happens that I was in Lubbock, Texas, for the Cowboys' 79-70 takedown of Texas Tech on Sunday, and I came away thinking O-State (which has already beaten Oklahoma, Missouri and Tech) might surprise everyone and win the Big 12.

I was so impressed, in fact, that I asked guard Victor Williams afterward: What did we miss when we ignored the Cowboys in the preseason rankings? "You missed a lot of the talent that was coming in," he said. "We lost some big guys in Mo Baker and Fredrik Jönzen, but nobody knew the impact that our juco guys [led by Tony Allen] would have on this team. We also have a lot of seniors, too [Williams, Andre Williams, Melvin Sanders and Cheyne Gadson], and we know it's our last go-round."

Point taken. The Cowboys aren't quite as deep as Texas or Arizona, but they're close. Coach Eddie Sutton points out that they have four players who can score 20 points on a given night: V. Williams, deep-threat Sanders, big man Ivan McFarlin and juco transfer Allen, a 6-foot-4 guard from Chicago who blew me away with his relentless drives to the basket. (He scored six points down the stretch in the blink of an eye to sink Texas Tech.) An indication of how good Allen is: Sutton says Allen has made the transition to D-I better than any juco transfer he has ever coached.

Transition also happens to be what O-State does best as a team. Even the big guys (McFarlin and A. Williams) can get down the floor in a hurry. Best yet, the Cowboys know their roles: Andre Williams doesn't score much, but he's a menacing shot-blocker whose long arms and mad hops allow him to play much taller than his listed 6-8 height.

The one glaring weakness I saw from the Cowboys in Lubbock was their 20 turnovers, which had V. Williams (8 TOs) speculating afterward that he'd be running in practice this week. "Did he mention the Hickey System?" Sutton asked afterward. "Well, if you make bad plays [in practice], you get hickeys. You make good plays, you gets stars. At the end of practice you have to run if the hickeys outnumber the stars. With him, it happens quite often."

Which leaves the 'Bag wondering: Since when are hickeys a bad thing, Coach?

More questions

Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that Creighton is the most overrated team to have resided in the top 10? The Bluejays have only one player averaging in double figures for points and have played only two meaningful opponents, beating Notre Dame and losing to Xavier. Will they be the hoops version of the emperor's new clothes when the tourney comes around?
—Carlos Goenaga, Houston

Got a lot of flames from readers this week attacking both the Kyle Korver-as-All-American bandwagon and the Bluejays in general. Sorry, I just don't buy it. Having actually seen Creighton play (how many of you grumblers have bothered to do that?), I fully expect the Jays to be a Sweet 16 team, and their current ranking (16) reflects that. Korver's season reminds me a lot of the one Dan Dickau had last year at Gonzaga, and I think it's great that the AP voters are recognizing that. I'd argue that the most overrated team in the top 10 is Pittsburgh, which hasn't shown enough yet to merit a No. 2 ranking (which in my mind is about four spots too high).

Lot of questions about Michigan, too. Tim Brumbaugh of Detroit wonders if the Wolverines' 13-game win streak (after a season-opening six straight L's) is a fluke or if U-M is for real. Meanwhile, Randy Wolthuis of Alto, Mich., writes: "Isn't there a lesson to be learned from what Tommy Amaker has been able to do with his Michigan team? He cleans house and gets rid of the grumblers and bad apples and then goes on a 13-0 run. Seems like more coaches should recruit kids of character and maturity who also happen to be good basketball players."

First things first: We'll know more about Michigan after this week's road games at Illinois and Minnesota. If the Wolverines go 1-1 I'll be convinced they can stick around in the Big Ten race, which would make them the story of the year in college basketball (even though they can't play in the postseason). Think about it: They were 0-6 with some miserable attitudes and the stench of the Ed Martin scandal hanging over them. Now they're 13-6 (with wins over Vanderbilt, Wisconsin and Michigan State), and LaVell Blanchard and Daniel Horton look like pros. The only worry -- and it's a big one -- is whether the Hangman will swoop down in February when the NCAA releases its penalties for the Martin fiasco. If Michigan loses scholarships, things could go south in a hurry.

As for Amaker dismissing Avery Queen and then allowing Dommanic Ingerson to transfer, I'm with you. Bob Knight did the same thing not long after he arrived at Texas Tech (with positive results), and Roy Williams has told me he made a mistake bringing transfers Lester Earl and Luke Axtell to Kansas during the Jayhawks' brief dry spell in the late 1990s.

Watching UConn lose to Miami in the final seconds last week, something happened that has bothered me for a while. At the end of a close game, when a team is inbounding the ball against a fullcourt press, it frequently seems very unprepared to inbound the ball and break the press. I see poor spacing among the players and no semblance of a set or play. Even the old-fashioned stack that we ran in high school would be more effective than the freelancing I see. What are your thoughts?
—Brian Steeves, Hartford, Conn.

Good point, Brian -- it's kind of like the prevent defense in football. You'd think teams could get a better handle on how to keep their cool (and their leads) at the end of games. First, all credit to Miami's Darius Rice for stealing UConn's inbounds pass and jacking up the game-winning 3 to provide the best Alcoa Fantastic Finish^TM we've seen all year. I'm of two minds on this: 1) Why was little-used Husky Shamon Tooles throwing the errant inbounds pass in the first place? 2) That said, shouldn't any player be able to throw a smarter pass than that? Another thing to remember is that people will freak out in pressure situations, whatever business you're in. (I could tell you some stories about writers/editors on deadline who suddenly start acting like English is their second language.) Why, after all, do teams crank up off-balance 3-pointers when they're down by four with 50 seconds left? It's up to coaches to instill in their players the knowledge of what to do in those situations -- and up to the players to act on those instructions.

You have to take fans to task over all of the floor-rushing lately. Virginia Tech beats an unranked 10-6 Virginia team in a meaningless midseason nonconference game, and Hokies fans rush the floor. Maryland is the defending national champ -- its fans should never rush the floor [as they did after beating Duke]. Unless there's a buzzer-beater, fans of blue-blood programs such as Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Indiana and UConn should never rush the floor. I'd add UCLA to the list, but this year Bruins fans should celebrate when they can.
—Peter Schroeder, Dallas

It does seem a little silly, Peter, but it's not that surprising when you combine: 1) the emotion of college hoops, 2) the desire to get your face on TV, and 3) a beer or five before the game. You'll notice, though, that college hoops fans are infinitely more civilized than the same crowds at college football games. I mean, you don't see hoops fans tearing down the rims, do you? You don't see hoops fans hurling debris at the opposing team, do you? (Well, except at Maryland.) I've even had hoops fans politely warn me in advance that they were about to overrun press row on their way to the court. Just a few more reasons why college hoops beats college football any day of the week.

Uniform decisions

Among the multitude of responses to last week's best/worst uniforms query, the 'Bag received a season-high number of comments from female readers. This, needless to say, is a good thing. The results:

THE GOOD: Michigan, North Carolina (thought most fans treat the short-lived 'NC' and 'M' logos as if they never happened), Indiana (especially the candy-stripe warmups), Cincinnati, Arizona, Florida, Kansas and Kentucky (Tubby Smith era only). Got a lot of positive reviews (and some negative) for Oregon's "lemon-yellow sun" kits and Southern California's "golden oldie" third strip -- though it would have been better in my mind with "Trojans" in cursive like its home unis. (The cursive always looks good to me; see the early-Jordan Bulls jerseys.)

THE BAD: Thomas Ksobiech of Kansas City, Mo., speaks for many of us when he writes of his distaste for "every team that wears a black uniform instead of its school colors: Duke, Temple, Florida, Tulsa, TCU. I'm not talking about Iowa, Mizzou or Texas Tech, which have black as a school color. It's the collegiate hangers-on to a decade-old fad of cashing in on the hipness of black jerseys who need to go."

The worst perpetrator among these, in the 'Bag's (and many others') humble opinion, is UCLA's "let's-give-John Wooden-a-heart-attack" blacks. Another big vote-getter was Kentucky's 1996 denim jerseys, proving that while Rick Pitino may have good fashion sense, his teams most certainly don't.

THE REALLY, REALLY UGLY: All that said, by far the worst offender comes courtesy of David in Nashville, Tenn., who nominates Alabama A&M's "pretty-in-pink" getup. Words can't begin to describe my reaction to this.

Also, if anyone can find a photo of Notre Dame's chartreuse jerseys from the early '90s, the 'Bag would be forever grateful.

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