KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Apparently it's just going to be Texas' destiny this season to be the "other.'' The "other'' Big 12 team with Final Four aspirations, and the "other'' program with the blue-chip recruiting class.
However, it works in Texas' favor -- as well as the recruits' -- that their most highly-touted freshmen, guards Avery Bradley and J'Covan Brown, and swingman Jordan Hamilton, are also the "others'' on their own team. The fate of the team won't ride on them, the way Kentucky's will depend on John Wall and Co. No need so far for any of the Longhorn trio to save the day as Wall did in his very first collegiate game against Miami University.
Two weeks ago, Pat Summitt surveyed the national scene and said this:
"A lot of people don't have Mississippi State on their radar screen and they should."
Never argue with Pat.
Mississippi State is climbing the rankings -- moving from No. 25 to No. 19 in this week's poll -- and the ladder of national recognition, particularly after Sunday's 84-55 win over No. 20 Maryland.
Granted, Maryland is remodeling after the graduation of Kristi Tolliver and Marisa Coleman and the transfer of Marah Strickland, and Brenda Frese's program will likely struggle with change most of the year, but the Bulldogs took it to the Terrapins on their home floor.
Texas swingman Damion James made what seemed to be a difficult decision this past June when he walked away from NBA riches to return to school.
James apparently impressed many as he went through NBA workouts this past spring. But when it came time to be all in, James made the decision to return to the Longhorns for his senior season. James said the choice wasn't hard to make.
"It was cool," James said to FanHouse. "We have a great team, probably the best team in the country and I've come back to lead them. It really wasn't a tough decision at all. It was a great decision."
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.
Could the NBA and its minimum age requirement really be guilty of hypocrisy?
It certainly appears that way to Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel and some other Big 12 coaches after watching the most recent NBA Finals and seeing which NBA players were pushed as the faces of the league throughout the season.
The straight out of high school players, who are the type of players the NBA no longer wants to be associated with, are now carrying the torch for the world's best pro game.
"If you follow the NBA, if you look at the guys who are promoted as the face of the NBA, you are talking about Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett," Capel said. "Those are four that jumped right out and none of those guys attended college and I don't think it hurt them."
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.
It's a win some, lose some kind of day for Oklahoma. On the downside, the Sooners suspended forward Juan Pattillo for Saturday's game against Texas Tech, further weakening an already depleted frontcourt.
But on the upside, that might be Oklahoma's temporarily depleted frontcourt.
While the Sooners were announcing news of Pattillo's suspension for violating an unspecified team rule, according to the Oklahoman, player of the year candidate Blake Griffin was doing something he hadn't done in almost a week -- playing basketball.
NCAA Basketball 
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Apparently it's just going to be Texas' destiny this season to be the "other.'' The "other'' Big 12 team with Final Four aspirations, and the "other'' program with the blue-chip recruiting class.
Two weeks ago, Pat Summitt surveyed the national scene and said this:
Texas swingman 
The 
Kansas and Texas should be the class of the Big 12 next basketball season and ESPN is certainly banking on as much.
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The debate about which conference is the best basketball league usually heats up in December.
