The Big 12 runs through … well, we’re not sure exactly just where yet.
The conference is idling off on the side of the road, consulting its GPS for the moment.
This after a stunner of a Saturday when Kansas, Baylor and West Virginia all lost at home to unranked opponents, dropping in succession like milk jugs knocked over at a carnival game.
The 1-2-3 punch delivered by Iowa State, Kansas State and Oklahoma State, respectively, doesn’t change the standings. The Jayhawks, Bears and Mountaineers remain in order.
It does, however, prove the power three — like seemingly every team in the country this season — are vulnerable.
And just maybe that the league is a tad deeper than we suspected.
Of course, it’s wise to cross your fingers behind your back when you suggest the Big 12’s destination city is anywhere but Lawrence, Kansas. People have been trying to re-route the conference for, oh, the past 12 seasons, but the Jayhawks find a way to grab the steering wheel every time.
Except Kansas also loses at home maybe less often than the IOC hosts an Olympics. It has been three years since the Jayhawks lost at Allen Fieldhouse, a nation-best run of 51 consecutive victories. It marked Bill Self’s 10th loss in the building … in his 13-plus-season career as the head coach.
And Kansas didn’t just lose at home; the Jayhawks blew a 14-point halftime lead, which would seem inexplicable except there is an explanation.
Kansas has issues, the off-the-court kind, mostly, but they are bleeding onto the court. The Kansas City Star reported last week that Jayhawks guards Lagerald Vick and Josh Jackson are persons of interest in a vandalism investigation. Both played against the Cyclones; forward Carlton Bragg Jr., meanwhile, remains suspended indefinitely for a violation of undisclosed team rules.
The Bragg suspension, coupled with a season-ending injury to big man Udoka Azubuike, leaves Kansas woefully shorthanded. No starter played less than 33 minutes of Saturday’s overtime game and the Jayhawks looked gassed in the second half as Iowa State charged back.
And while the players parroted the company line — “We’re focused on basketball. That’s our job,” senior Frank Mason III said — their coach admitted that the rash of police-blotter news has affected his team’s concentration.
“I mean, kids are tired,” Self said after the game. “I thought we looked a little fatigued the second half, and that’s more mental than physical. We talked a lot about eliminating them [distractions] and letting the basketball court be your place where you don’t think about anything other than what you love to do. I think that’s easier said than done when everybody else is talking.”
The disruptions aren’t necessarily going away any time soon. The police have to sort out the vandalism investigation and a reported rape of a minor at a Jayhawks dorm, an investigation in which several KU players have been interviewed, and Bragg’s return is TBD. If Kansas is going to win the Big 12, it will have to make dealing with distraction part of its norm, beginning at Kansas State on Monday (9 p.m. ET, ESPN/WatchESPN).
Thanks, schedule-makers, for the perfect segue, as it was K-State that played the filling in the Big 12 front-runner sandwich. Baylor lost Wednesday at Kansas … and probably earned more converts to its cause than it had all season. Once unranked and once No. 1 in the nation, the Bears still were dogged by plenty of skeptics, but when they went into Allen and played the Jayhawks tough on their home court, more people appeared to come away impressed with Baylor in defeat.
And then the Bears promptly followed it up with a clunker. Feel free to look at the epic comeback, glass half-full and all that, but it’s hard to overlook the 19-point hole Baylor dug itself in Saturday’s first half, the 26-22 edge much smaller K-State built in points in the paint and the 16 times the Bears heaved the ball all over the place.
This was opportunity squandered by Scott Drew’s team, and opportunities don’t come around too often in the Big 12. Baylor gets both Kansas and West Virginia at home down the stretch, a huge advantage, but will carry a two-game losing streak and little wiggle room to Stillwater for a game at Oklahoma State on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET, ESPNU/WatchESPN).
And again, tip of the cap, schedule people, because the Cowboys completed Saturday’s sweep of the Big 12 leaders by topping the Mountaineers.
Brad Underwood showed up Friday night at Bob Huggins’ Fish Fry to benefit the cancer-research center named after his mother. He might not be welcomed back again. The Oklahoma State coach now has twice upset his mentor (Huggins hired Underwood as an assistant at Kansas State). In the 2016 NCAA tournament, Underwood’s Stephen F. Austin team sent the third-seeded Mountaineers packing in the first round, and on Saturday denied WVU a chance to get an edge in the conference race, winning 82-75 in Morgantown.
“They knew Kansas lost and they knew Baylor had lost,” Huggins said of his Mountaineers afterward. “They knew this was a huge game for us. It puts us right back in the hunt. Why would you not embrace that? I think that’s crap. Lack of focus. Not practicing hard. That’s their fault.”
The Mountaineers now have been swept at home by the Oklahoma schools, and each of their five losses has come to an unranked team.
And they have to go to Kansas and Baylor to finish the season out. That doesn’t read well for West Virginia’s chances.
The reality is, the big three remain the Big Three in the Big 12. Iowa State played itself off the bubble for now and Kansas State merely held onto its bubble spot.
But just where the Big 12 is headed? That’s anyone’s guess right now.
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