Big 12 Basketball Week 9: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Week 9 is officially in the books as the Big 12 Conference continued both the men’s and women’s basketball seasons for 2023-24.
The men finally got in their first Big 12 games on Saturday, while the women continues their season and are three games into an 18-game schedule. We’ve already seen some great basketball and January isn’t even halfway done.
Here are the good, bad, and ugly from Week 9 in Big 12 men’s and women’s basketball.
The Good
Don’t Poke The Bear(s)
When Baylor hired Nicki Collen to replace Kim Mulkey three years ago, it was, to some, a curious hire. Collen was immensely respected in women’s basketball. She had been an assistant coach at Colorado State, Ball State, Louisville, Arkansas, FGCU and with the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun before she finally got her break with the Atlanta Dream in 2018.
In her first season with the Dream she was the WNBA Coach of the Year.
There is risk in being the coach that follows the legend. Say what you want about Mulkey — and there’s plenty to say, depending on how you view her — she turned the Bears into a national power and won three national titles. The standard is high.
In her third year, Collen is poised to meet that standard and she’s doing it her own way. The goal was to bring a WNBA sensibility to the college game. Watch her team play these days and you start to see that in full.
Mulkey’s teams were built around the paint, and no player embodied that more than Brittney Griner, a player Collen embraced after her return from her imprisonment in Russia.
These Bears don’t have a dominant post. What they do have is a set of players that thrive on floor spacing and off-ball movement. Guard Sarah Andrews has always been able to create offense herself (she’s averaging 13.8 points per game). But her growth this season has been her ability to create opportunities for others.
She’s not the only one. Three Bears have at least 40 assists. One is forward Dre’Una Edwards, who didn’t play last year and is averaging 11.8 ppg. The other is guard Jada Walker, who leads the team with 55.
Collen has guards who play like forwards and forwards who play like guards. Their floor spacing the second half against TCU was exceptional. This team is humming so well right now that Aijha Blackwell — a former double-double player at Missouri — is coming off the bench and thriving.
Seven players average eight or more points. You can’t cut the head off the snake with this team. Someone else takes the lead.
The Bears are now just one of four undefeated teams in the country and they’re the only one that has done this:
⚡️#SicEm | #GreaterThan pic.twitter.com/Mx1mJTO5U1
— Baylor Women's Basketball (@BaylorWBB) January 7, 2024
It’s worth noting that this Bears team might be the best defensive team Collen has put together, too. They limited TCU — with a pair of 20-point scorers in Sedona Prince and Madison Conner — to 50 points.
Collen isn’t above using whatever she can to motivate her players, either. Slights real or perceived are welcome.
LISTEN: Baylor HC Nicki Collen said in her postgame interview with @1660ESPN she felt there were "personal shots" taken by TCU in the press conferences leading up to Wednesday's game.
— Cameron Stuart (@realcamstuart) January 5, 2024
Collen warned them, "don't poke the bear."
"I felt very poked, I'm not going to lie." pic.twitter.com/oRaqetLjyH
The shelf life for patience with coaches is getting shorter and shorter. Collen’s success so far this season is a good reason to make the right hire and show some patience.
The Bears did that once with a first-time head coach, after all.
Bearcat Tough
The Cincinnati men are one of those two or three teams that I feel like are either going to end up in the NCAA or the NIT. In other words, there’s seven or eight that I’m sure of and two or three that could go either way.
Beating BYU on the road is one of those wins that’s going to help the Bearcats down the line. Given BYU’s national ranking and their high NCAA NET rating, beating BYU will be a Quad 1 win for them the entire season. In fact, it was the Bearcats’ first Quad 1 win this season.
Those are the wins the NCAA Tournament selection committee loves.
It also boosted Cincinnati’s NET from 37 to 25. That’s the kind of NET the committee loves, too.
This is a big week for the Bearcats. They’ll host Texas and then go to Baylor. Two Big 12 contenders. The Bearcats get a shot to prove it against legacy Big 12 teams.
So far, the only other new Big 12 team to win a Big 12 game, men’s or women’s, is Houston’s men. And there’s no question how good the Cougars are.
We’re starting to get some answers as to how good these Bearcats might be.
How Do You Celebrate 600 Wins?
With a social media card these days.
6️⃣0️⃣0️⃣
— Cyclone Basketball (@CycloneWBB) January 7, 2024
With tonight’s win, @ISUCoachFen has won 600 games at Iowa State!! Congrats Coach ❤️💛
🌪️🏀🌪️ pic.twitter.com/RzIB15UP9v
When Iowa State won on Saturday, women’s coach Bill Fennelly won his 600th career game at ISU. Per the Cyclones, he’s the 51st coach to win at least 600 games at one program.
Throw in his days at Toledo and he’s won 767 games — and counting.
A Milestone in Defeat
Yes, Texas lost. But Max Abmas is going to leave the college as one of its most productive scorers.
congrats to our guy @maxabmas 🤘#HookEm pic.twitter.com/fADmfrAbLs
— Texas Men’s Basketball (@TexasMBB) January 7, 2024
He hit six 3-pointers against Texas Tech and in the balance of the season he’s going to be a difference-maker for the Longhorns.
Sundell’s Milestone
We talk about Ayoka Lee a lot when we talk about Kansas State’s women’s basketball team. We don’t talk about Serena Sundell enough.
Serena "The Striker" Sundell#KStateWBB x @serena_sundell pic.twitter.com/B7FkNFKDY4
— K-State Women's Basketball (@KStateWBB) January 6, 2024
So far, Sundell is averaging 10.1 points, 3.8 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.1 steals per game. It’s the consistent play that has been her hallmark since she arrived in Manhattan to start the 2021-22 season.
The Bad
Prince is Down
Sedona Prince scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds against Baylor on Wednesday. It was another great game from TCU’s transfer center.
It was also her last for a while, according to her Instagram page. It also put her performance against Baylor in perspective.
“I broke my finger on the first play of our Baylor game and had it put back together yesterday. Everything happens for a reason and I’m blessed to have the best medical and athletic training team around me to get me healed quick and back playing with my team this season. Thank you for all the love and support this year. I love being a horned frog more than anything. I’ll be back!”
Without Prince TCU lost its second game in a row against Oklahoma State on Saturday.
This one hurts. Prince has been a difference-maker all season for TCU and without her the Horned Frogs will have to make adjustments.
Against OSU, TCU went with four guards in the starting lineup and Daija Turner, a 6-foot-3 sophomore, in the pivot. She had five points and nine rebounds. If Turner can produce the rebounds, the Horned Frogs have the offense to be competitive.
Still, TCU and Prince hope she’s able to play soon. They’ll need her down the stretch.
The Isaacs Question
Pop Isaacs played a great game against Texas on Saturday. He scored 21 points against Texas and he’s averaging more than 16 points this season.
But the talk before the game was the civil lawsuit filed against him.
As reported by ESPN, a suit in Lubbock County court accuses Isaacs of sexually assaulting a minor while he and the Red Raiders were in the Bahamas for their non-conference tournament in November.
The suit was filed by the parents of the minor and alleges that a Red Raiders booster bought alcoholic drinks for Isaacs and others and that later Isaacs and the minor, 17, went into another room and she was sexually assaulted.
No criminal charges have been filed against Isaacs but the victim’s family is asking for $1 million in damages.
As for basketball, Texas Tech’s athletic department is aware and its Title IX department is investigating.
Texas Tech statement on Pop Isaacs: pic.twitter.com/qiHTxNhe8m
— David Collier (@CollieronTV) January 6, 2024
Red Raiders coach Grant McCasland made only one comment when asked about the case.
“The statement that was made by the university is the one that I’m going to stand by,” McCasland said. “We’re committed to that.”
Isaacs was not available after the game.
Given Isaacs’ importance to Tech’s season, this story is certainly worth following.
The Ugly
At The Risk Of Ticking Off EMAW
This happened last week.
Pretty good night for Nae’Qwan Tomlin with the Memphis Tigers. pic.twitter.com/wBaiZXXwIj
— Glenn Kinley (@glenn_kinley) January 5, 2024
That’s hard to watch if you’re a Wildcat.
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.
