Big 12 Basketball Week 7: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Week 7 is officially in the books as the Big 12 Conference continued both the men’s and women’s basketball seasons for 2023-24.
If you’re reading this on Christmas Day, make it quick. You have family to celebrate with. And be prepared — there’s quite a bit of West Virginia this week. Sometimes it just works out that way.
Here are the good, bad, and ugly from Week 7 in Big 12 men’s and women’s basketball.
The Good
Big 12 For the Hoop Hall
Now that Bob Huggins is in the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, which Big 12 player or coach is next?
We found out the list of eligible candidates last week. Here are some of the notable ones with Big 12 ties:
Rick Barnes (former Texas men’s coach), John Beilein (former West Virginia men’s coach), Chauncey Billups (former Colorado player) and Marian Washington (former Kansas women’s coach),
One notable addition in the contributor department is former West Virginia player Jerry West, who is already in the Hall as a player. He’s up for an additional induction as the architect of the Los Angeles Lakers’ dynasty teams in the 1980s and the 2000s.
There’s no “lead-pipe lock” here like there was with Huggins last year, especially after he was named a finalist. But Washington was a trailblazer in the women’s game and is certainly worthy of finalist status.
The More You Know
If you’ve followed women’s college basketball, you’re aware that players like Sylvia Fowles and Brittney Griner have dunked. But I’m not sure I was aware that the first woman to dunk in a college basketball game played for West Virginia.
Last week the Mountaineers celebrated Georgeann Wells, who 39 years ago last week was the first woman to dunk in a college basketball game.
𝕓𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕓𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕣𝕤
— WVU Women's Basketball (@WVUWBB) December 21, 2023
39 years ago today, Georgeann Wells made history as the first woman to dunk in a college game ⤵
🔗 https://t.co/ajmRJwgGw6#HailWV pic.twitter.com/ZGsJcC1LHI
Wells was 6-foot-7 and played at Northland High School in Columbus, Ohio. With WVU she scored 1,484 points and grabbed 1,075 rebounds. Her 436 blocked shots was a WVU record when she left. She was a third-team All-American her senior year. She went on to tour with the Harlem Globetrotters and coached in Asia and Europe.
She’d be proud of where the Mountaineers are right now — 11-0 under first-year coach Mark Kellogg entering Big 12 play.
The Bad
Acknowledging the Obvious
West Virginia is the only team in the Big 12, men’s or women’s, that is under .500 going into the holiday break.
WVU athletic director Wren Baker acknowledged that everyone involved knew it would be a challenge for coach Josh Eliert to take over in the wake of what happened with Bob Huggins.
“No matter the coaching change, no matter who was coaching them, [it was going to be a challenge],” he told reporters last week.
He even said he felt guilty about the situation. And, in all honesty, Baker should feel guilty.
Baker deserves some blame here. He promoted Eilert less than a week after he said he would conduct a “nationwide” search to replace Huggins. He also did so knowing Eilert had only been an assistant coach for a year.
Before he was on Huggins’ bench for the Hall of Famer’s final season, he was the assistant athletic director for basketball operations for a year, the director of basketball operations for a decade and a video coordinator for six years before that.
I’m sorry, that’s NOT coaching experience. That’s player personnel experience and scouting experience. That’s a big difference from being on the bench and part of the main staff every day.
I think that knowledge is reflected in the more than $1 million Eilert is getting to take on this task this season. That’s significant money for an interim coach.
The plan is still for Baker to evaluate Eilert’s job at the end of the season.
“I get a chance to see the entire iceberg, the behind-the-scenes stuff. They’ve only played a third of their games. [Josh Eilert] will have my full support,” he said.
I’ll project that Eilert won’t be back in Morgantown in any capacity next season, no matter how well or how poorly WVU does this season. He’s going to be the price paid so that his replacement doesn’t have to follow WVU’s G.O.A.T.
As for that replacement, I’ll project that, too. Sometime next spring Baker will introduce WVU’s next head coach — Ben McCollum, the head coach at Northwest Missouri State, where Baker was formerly the athletic director. McCollum led the school to four national titles, nearly 400 wins and is one of the game’s rising stars. Someone in Division I is going to hire this guy at some point.
I’m not saying this is how Baker mapped it out. I believe he wanted success for Eilert and WVU this season. He did the best he could with the hand he was dealt and Eliert was, frankly, the only real choice to be made without conducting a full search or snagging an interim like Beilein.
But, someone will benefit from WVU’s lost season and it’s likely going to be McCollum. And Eilert will be left explaining what happened, because that’s how the coaching profession works. Ultimately, it’s on you.
Simas Lukosius’ Shoulder
Simas Lukosius was hit by a car a couple of weeks ago. He’s still dealing with the lingering effects of the accident, most notably his shoulder, which got an MRI after the Bearcats’ last game.
After that game, Cincinnati coach Wes Miller mentioned that he saw the video of the accident for the first time. It sounds like Lukosius dodged serious injuries.
Full quote from Wes Miller regarding Simas Lukosius shoulder injury.
— Neil Meyer (@MeyerNeil6) December 23, 2023
“Simas had a shoulder injury that came on the last play of practice yesterday. We already did the MRI and don’t think it’s serious. We found out a lot of it had to deal with the car wreck. When we did the MRI… pic.twitter.com/6dAWQhb7jI
The junior guard is averaging 8.6 points per game and he scored 11 against Merrimack last week. Important to Cincinnati is his 42 percent clip from the 3-point line. Most important to Cincinnati is his health. The good news is the Bearcats have a break until Dec. 29 against Evansville, so Lukosius gets more time to heal.
The Ugly
Another Cyclone Injury
Last week the Cyclones revealed that one of their talented freshmen, Kayden Fish, would be out for the rest of this season with a shoulder injury. The Cyclone are going to pursue a medical redshirt for him.
Fish played in just four games and averaged 1.5 points. The only good thing to come out of this would be a medical redshirt to preserve his four years of eligibility.
The Cyclones have remained relatively healthy so far this season, with the exception of Hason Ward, who played just three games before sustaining a foot injury. The Cyclones hope to have him back sometime in conference play.
That would be a boost for ISU as Ward was averaging 4.0 points and 4.7 rebounds at the time of the injury. Robert Jones took his place in the starting lineup and has put up his best numbers at Iowa State.
iframe src=”https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/1986400/1964875/” width=”510″ height=”500″ frameborder=”0″>You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
