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.
A couple weeks ago, Texas A&M wasn't even in the bubble discussion. They were 3-7 in the Big 12 and dead in the water. The second year of the Mark Turgeon era was looking like a bitter mistake for Aggie fans.
Then they reeled off five straight wins -- including three on the road -- to get back in the discussion. Finishing off the Missouri Tigers at the end of the season moves Texas A&M into "lock" status.
Missouri, meanwhile, suddenly has some big questions heading into the postseason.
Rick Barnes' Texas team came into a Rivalry Week matchup against Texas A&M needing a big win to make sure they didn't find themselves on the oh-so-slippery NCAA Tournament bubble.
Instead, they got straight up punched in the mouth by their disregarded in-state rivals, as the Aggies used a balanced attack -- five different scorers hit double-figures -- to down the Longhorns, 81-66, Monday night.
For Texas A&M, Saturday's game against Kansas State could've been considered a must-win kind of tilt. The Aggies didn't play a challenging non-conference schedule, but did roll through it to a 14-1 start. Conference play, however, has exposed them, and, after a 65-60 loss to Kansas State, consider them officially off the bubble and out of NCAA tournament discussion.
Neither team cracked 40-percent shooting in a tight, defensive game. But Kansas State had much more effective guard play. Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente provided the slashing and drives to the basket, while Fred Brown hit the 3-pointers to keep Texas A&M from collapsing on the Wildcats' interior.
No matter what the final score actually turned out to be, UCLA won. The Bruins came back and Texas A&M wilted under the pressure. Donald Sloan, the Aggies leading scorer had the ball and was driving to tie the game and send it to overtime. The UCLA defense blocked his attempt and stripped the ball to send it the other way. Well, blocked might not be the correct word as these photos indicate.
These aren't photos FanHouse has permission to post. So, we can only link to them. They do suggest that UCLA continues to lead a charmed life when it comes to late calls -- made or not. Last I checked Josh Shipp getting all wrist, is not the usual way to get a clean block.
Actually, maybe not in this case. Making the free throws -- no lock itself, as Sloan is only a 67% FT shooter and the Aggies were 3-7 at the line that night -- would have only sent the game into overtime. Texas A&M hardly looked like the team it had been for the first 30-35 minutes. Neither did UCLA. The Bruins would have been the team heading into the OT with the momentum and energy.
Still, you never know. I also know I don't want to be anywhere near UCLA fans when the late calls start swinging the other way.
Many people were a bit puzzled that the final dunk at the end of last night's UCLA-Texas A&M game counted. The final score was listed as 53-49 even though the dunk clearly came after the buzzer. If you don't know about it, go to the 1:31 mark of the video above.
"Amidst the activity courtside, there was a misinterpretation of the signal," Hank Nichols, national coordinator of men's basketball officiating, said in a release Sunday. "But the ruling on the court was that the basket should not have counted, making the final score 51-49, not 53-49."
Sure, it doesn't mean anything in the long run -- UCLA won the game. The line as UCLA by 10, so betters aren't affected by the outcome. Still, it is quite disturbing that signals between the officials and the official scorer were misinterpreted like that.
No. 1 seed UCLA managed to survive a tough onslaught from No. 9 Texas A&M tonight in Anaheim, holding on to win 53-49 in by far the toughest challenge a 1 seed has had so far in this year's NCAA Tournament.
Most of the UCLA players turned in lousy performances, but Kevin Love and Darren Collison carried the Bruins on their backs, making two crucial shots apiece down the stretch. Collison and Love combined for 40 points on 14-of-25 shooting; their teammates combined for 13 points on 6-of-20 shooting, including a dunk by Russell Westbrook at the buzzer that looked, to these eyes, like it was actually after the buzzer.
"We made big plays by big-time players down the stretch," UCLA coach Ben Howland said of Love and Collison.
NCAA Basketball texas a&m Aggies 
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.
A couple weeks ago, Texas A&M wasn't even in the bubble discussion. They were 3-7 in the Big 12 and dead in the water. The second year of the Mark Turgeon era was looking like a bitter mistake for Aggie fans. 
Rick Barnes' Texas team came into a Rivalry Week matchup against Texas A&M needing a big win to make sure they didn't find themselves on the oh-so-slippery NCAA Tournament bubble. 
For Texas A&M, Saturday's game against Kansas State could've been considered a must-win kind of tilt. The Aggies didn't play a challenging non-conference schedule, but did roll through it to a 14-1 start. Conference play, however, has exposed them, and, after a 65-60 loss to Kansas State, consider them officially off the bubble and out of NCAA tournament discussion.
No matter what the final score actually turned out to be, UCLA won. The Bruins came back and Texas A&M wilted under the pressure. Donald Sloan, the Aggies leading scorer had the ball and was driving to tie the game and send it to overtime. The UCLA defense blocked his attempt and stripped the ball to send it the other way. Well, blocked might not be the correct word as these photos indicate.
No. 1 seed UCLA managed to survive a tough onslaught from No. 9 Texas A&M tonight in Anaheim, holding on to win 53-49 in by far the toughest challenge a 1 seed has had so far in this year's NCAA Tournament. 
