It seems like every year the usual suspects are lined up as contenders for the best basketball conference in the country.
Big East. ACC. Pac-10. Big Ten.
But the Big 12 never seems to get much love, despite some impressive numbers that suggest the newest of the major conferences deserve to be part of the conversation. No conference has advanced more teams to Elite Eight (13) and Final Four (six) since 2002. The Kansas Jayhawks even cut down the nets in 2008.
The Kansas Jayhawks are the No.1 choice almost every preseason basketball publication, now they are also the unanimous pick to win the Big 12 championship by the league coaches, according to the poll released Wednesday.
The Jayhawks, who return all five starters and pretty much all of their scoring from a season ago, received all 11 possible first-place votes by the Big 12 coaches (head coaches can not vote for their own team). In addition to the retuning starters, which include All-Big 12 First Team selections Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich, Kansas also brings aboard one of the top recruiting classes in the nation.Collins and Aldrich have also been selected the preseason co-Players of the Year.
Kansas and Texas should be the class of the Big 12 next basketball season and ESPN is certainly banking on as much.
The Big 12 and ESPN released its Big Monday package for the 2010 campaign and both the Jayhawks and Longhorns will appear four times each in the eight-game package, which includes an anticipated February 8th showdown between the two power teams. Kansas will likely enter the season as the nation's No.1 ranked team while Texas is bringing in an influx of young talent that should make the Longhorns a Top 10 team.
The debate about which conference is the best basketball league usually heats up in December.
But the Big 12 coaches set fire to the debate early by staking claim as the best basketball conference Tuesday, some five months before the 2009-10 season begins. So the Big East, ACC, Pac-10 and SEC will have to just lineup for second best.
"I do think it's going to be the best with what we have retuning and the things that we've done in the last few years," Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon said during the Big 12 summer teleconference call Tuesday. "I've talked to some so-called experts out there and they think we are going to be the best league, too.
At historic Gallagher-Iba Arena, they named the court after Eddie Sutton -- the former player and coach. His signature reprinted large across the court in his honor. Well, the relationship between Eddie and Oklahoma State has been strained for some time, and got a little worse when T. Boone Pickens the Cowboys fired Sean Sutton after only two years on the job.
Well with a change in coaches and a need to paint a new 3-point line on the court, Oklahoma State decided it was time for a makeover to Eddie Sutton Court. The new court -- pictured above -- has a much smaller imprint of Eddie Sutton.
It's hard not to see that some sort of animosity remains between the Oklahoma State athletic department and the Sutton clan. Forget the dramatically scaled down signature. Over half of the choices offered completely removed Sutton's signature from "his" court.
"After 36 years, 23 Final Fours, all 10 Bowl Championship Series title games and a half-dozen laptops, I'm done," he writes.
"I will begin working as a writer/blogger for the Big 12 Conference web site (so I'll need laptop No. 7). The Big 12 wants its web site to convey information about its schools in both video and story form. I'll be somewhat involved with the former and heavily involved with the latter. It's a great opportunity that I'm lucky to have considering the death spiral of major newspapers."
Barnhouse had been the national college football and basketball writer/columnist for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Barnhouse's national reach, reputation and popularity grew as the internet allowed more readers access. His columns were considered required reading by many college sports fans. Barnhouse was also one of the few national college sports writers at a newspaper. Not at a national paper, magazine or TV/internet operation.
The Star-Telegram benefited from his reputation, but the actual value to the paper was low. The national following added little to their subscription base. This led the paper to decide to eliminate the national college beat. Offering Barnhouse the choice of a buyout or assuming role of Texas A&M beat writer. As Barnhouse wrote, "Nothing against the Aggies, but it was clearly time to bail out."
Travis Ford is leaving UMass to take the head-coaching job at Oklahoma State, ESPN's Doug Gottlieb is reporting:
That's an awfully quick change of mind for Ford, who less than a week ago said he was sticking with UMass. But Oklahoma State has the backing of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, which means the Cowboys can give coaches financial offers that make the six-figure deals of UMass look like chump change.
Ford, who previously turned down LSU, reportedly will meet with his players today to tell them he's leaving. Ford has a 62-35 record in three seasons at UMass and led them to a loss in the NIT title game this year. He replaces Sean Sutton, who resigned after failing to reach the NCAA tournament in 2007 and 2008.
The deep pockets of T. Boone Pickens and the desire to return to his alma mater weren't enough to convince Bill Self to leave the school where he's won the national championship.
Self, whose Kansas Jayhawks won the national championship on Monday, has announced he will not go to Oklahoma State and will be back at Kansas next season.
Ordinarily, it wouldn't even be an issue: Kansas just won the national championship and is a better program than Oklahoma State. Why would Self even think of leaving? But Oklahoma State is no ordinary school.
For one thing, it's the school that Self and his wife attended, and it's closer to his family than Kansas. There could have been personal reasons for him to head to Stillwater. And perhaps more importantly, there's Pickens, the billionaire who practically owns the Oklahoma State athletic department and opens up his wallet any time he thinks he can improve it. He would have made Self by far the highest-paid coach in college basketball history.
As it is, Self will turn down a few million but still be highly paid with a new contract and a pay raise at Kansas. Jayhawks Athletic Director Lew Perkins says the details of a new contract for Self "will be finalized in the next few weeks."
Said Self at his news conference today, "I don't know what the big deal is. ... There was never serious interest in leaving the University of Kansas. " Well, coach, the big deal is that you're the most sought-after coach in college basketball, and you're staying put.
If there was a dark lining to the silver cloud that's parked over Lawrence, Kansas this week, it's the possibility that Bill Self could take a massive offer from another Big 12 school and leave the Jayhawks. If rumors are true, Oklahoma State wants to make him a fabulously wealthy man as opposed to merely the wealthy man he is today. He's an OSU alum and money is money so it wouldn't be a surprise if he jumped ship.
After saying a move could happen in a postgame interview Monday, Self addressed the situation again yesterday. He said he was "positively not interested" in the Oklahoma State job but then turned around and said that he was sure he'd be meeting with Kansas soon to "iron things out." He's certainly mastered playing both sides of the fence and even managed to make it seem like the money didn't matter.
"What I'd like to have is like everybody'd like to have. I'd like to have some security. I don't know what even Kansas would remotely be talking (about). We haven't even talked about that. When I say security, I mean years, so hopefully that'll happen."
Here's the thing, Kansas gave him a five-year extension before this season. That's an awful lot of security.
NCAA Basketball oklahoma state Cowboys 
The Kansas Jayhawks are the No.1 choice almost every preseason basketball publication, now they are also the unanimous pick to win the Big 12 championship by the league coaches, according to the poll released Wednesday.
Kansas and Texas should be the class of the Big 12 next basketball season and ESPN is certainly banking on as much..jpg)
The debate about which conference is the best basketball league usually heats up in December.
Who's in? Who's out? Find out as FanHouse takes a look at teams somewhere between in NCAA or NIT.
The Big 12's gain is the loss for a lot of college sports fans.
Travis Ford is leaving UMass to take the head-coaching job at Oklahoma State, ESPN's Doug Gottlieb is reporting:
The deep pockets of T. Boone Pickens and the desire to return to his alma mater weren't enough to convince Bill Self to leave the school where he's won the national championship.
If there was a dark lining to the silver cloud that's parked over Lawrence, Kansas this week, it's the possibility that Bill Self could take a massive offer from another Big 12 school and leave the Jayhawks. If rumors are true, Oklahoma State wants to make him a fabulously wealthy man as opposed to merely the wealthy man he is today. He's an OSU alum and money is money so it wouldn't be a surprise if he jumped ship. 
