Big 12 Basketball Week 12: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Week 12 is officially in the books as the Big 12 Conference continued both the men’s and women’s basketball seasons for 2023-24.
What a week it was, too. We had everything from a new Big 12 team asserting its dominance at home, another continuing its undefeated run through Big 12 play, a job security report and a cheating allegation (you know the one).
Here are the good, bad, and ugly from Week 12 in Big 12 men’s and women’s basketball.
The Good
Houston at Home
The Houston Cougars are the No. 1 team in the country in NCAA NET. One could argue that the Cougars are the best team in the Big 12, even if they are not at the top of the standings right now.
But one thing that is indisputable at this point is Houston’s homecourt advantage. In a parity-driven Big 12, it’s not just that the Cougars are undefeated at home this season. Three other big 12 teams are undefeated at home this season — Texas Tech, Iowa State and Kansas.
But going to the Fertitta Center is like entering a buzzsaw and coming out like sawdust.
When it came to non-conference a Cougars home game was a massive blowout. The average margin of victory at home was 36.8 points. The margin of victory in each of those eight games was at least 31 points. None were against high-major teams. Not that Houston didn’t beat any. But it beat Utah and Texas A&M on neutral floors and beat Xavier on the road. You can even include Dayton, if you like. But that was also on a neutral floor.
That fed the narrative of “Wait until Houston starts playing Big 12 teams” Well, the Cougars did take their hits on the road against Iowa State and TCU (two losses by a combined five points).
But at home? Houston is 4-0 in Big 12 play with an average margin of victory of 23.5 points.
Count your blessings if you get the Cougars at your place. Because, for now, if you go to Houston it doesn’t look like you have a prayer.
Life Without Ayoka
Kansas State is 3-0 without Ayoka Lee. How?
Well, there are many reasons, but the play of forwards Eliza Maupin and Gisela Sanchez has been a clear factor.
Without Lee, manning the paint has been their shared responsibility. Fans outside of Manhattan know them. Most Big 12 fans don’t.
Maupin — who was averaging less than three points this season before Monday’s game with Baylor — introduced herself with a 16-point game against the Bears, a pivotal performance in the Wildcats’ win over Baylor. She played a lot because Sanchez, who has been Lee’s primary back up this season, was in foul trouble much of the game.
On Saturday against BYU it was Sanchez who stepped up. She was averaging six points per game, but against the Cougars the Wildcats needed every bit of her 18 points to outlast BYU in a two-point win.
These are the sorts of performances you need when your All-America center is out. The Wildcats need both to step up this coming week against Oklahoma and Texas, a pivotal stretch for the Wildcats’ hopes of winning the Big 12 regular-season title.
Jesse Edwards is Back
The great news for West Virginia on Saturday was that talented forward Jesse Edwards returns from his fractured wrist injury and saw playing time in the Mountaineers’ 70-66 loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
Edwards played 16 minutes and scored four points while grabbing four rebounds.
It may be too little, too late to help the Mountaineers into the NCAA Tournament. But it means we’ll finally get a look at what WVU was supposed to be this season.
Edwards is averaging 13.8 points and 8.3 rebounds. He will clearly help.
Sticking up for Players
We’re going to get more into Kansas State further down, but on Saturday in Houston, Wildcats coach Jerome Tang got a tech for what he called “defending his guys” as he felt one of the game’s referees, Gary Maxwell, was “chirping” with guard Cam Carter.
Now, let’s understand. Coaches and refs talk to each other a lot. So do players and refs. The vast majority of it is clarification about a call. I was at the TCU-Baylor game so I didn’t see what happened. But there’s a line players and coaches can’t cross with officials. Same goes for officials with players and coaches. If Maxwell crossed it, then Tang is right to call him out.
By the way, at that TCU-Baylor game Horned Frogs coach Jamie Dixon got a tech that I felt was unwarranted. It came from the same referee that had a rather testy exchange with Baylor coach Scott Drew in the first half, one that looked awfully close to getting Drew a tech.
Just as coaches and players have to control their emotions, so do officials. And it isn’t easy for any of them to do it.
Bill Self, The Futurist
I hope he’s not just saying this because there’s a chance Kansas won’t win either the Big 12 regular-season or tournament title. But, to be fair, he may also not be that far off.
The Bad
Boynton On Job Security
Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton Jr. is hearing the whispers about his job. A 1-6 start to league action doesn’t help matters.
But Boynton has always been a straight shooter. He doesn’t shy away from sensitive topics. That includes his job security. He talked with The Oklahoman’s Joe Mussatto about it last week.
It’s rare for a coach to be this honest about where he might be after this season. Most don’t want a piece of this conversation.
Boynton talked openly about it with Mussatto. He said it was a “fair question” and he gets why fans are restless.
“I like that people, not that they want to call for my job, but that they expect our program to be good,” Boynton said. “That’s where this is borne out of, right? Most of the people that are fans of Oklahoma State went to school here. There are very few random Oklahoma State fans.”
Boynton said he’s focused on this team and this season. He knows that others will decide his future. The respect for Boynton is universal not just in Stillwater but across the Big 12. Those of us that have interacted with him hope this isn’t his last year.
By the way, Boynton is on a seven-year, $21 million deal that carries him through the 2027-28 season.
Horns Down (Again With This)
One of the good things about Texas leaving the Big 12 is that hopefully I won’t have to write about Horns Down much longer.
Picture it — Provo, Utah. Texas is in town. It’s a huge Big 12 game. And enterprising BYU students on the first row of the student section at the Marriott Center have used their T-shirts to spell out “Horns Down.” It’s a beautiful piece of heckling.
Yes, they were asked to take the T-shirts off. But it wasn’t a “new level of soft,” as the tweet suggest. In fact, the Deseret News confirmed that it wasn’t Texas that wanted the T-shirts to come down.
Really? BYU? What gives? Cougars coach Mark Pope explained after the game.
I get it. You wanna be classy, BYU. I appreciate it. But this is part of being in the Big 12. You’ve done a great job of embracing that. Just keep rolling with it.
Or, as our Pete Mundo wrote on Saturday …
The Ugly
The Seedy Underbelly of ‘Farmageddon’
I really don’t want to spend a bunch of time on this because, if you’ve reached this point, God bless you.
But, the events Wednesday in Ames between Kansas State and Iowa State and the ensuing fallout warrant discussion. But I’ll try and keep it quick.
On Wednesday Kansas State coach Jerome Tang was clearly upset with something going on behind his bench, so upset that at one point he left his coach’s box and yelled something at Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger, which prompted a response from him. Tang later got a technical for something completely unrelated.
After the game, which Iowa State won, the two coaches shook hands and Tang did have some words for Otz and there was definite emotion behind them. I assumed he was clarifying what happened earlier. That was the case.
Here’s the video. And, yes, that dude with the Twizzler is all kinds of chill.
After the game, Tang confirmed that he conveyed to Otz what happened. Here’s the quote.
“Nothing happened,” Tang said. “We talked about a situation that took place during the game. He (Otzelberger) said he would check into it. I told him thank you and went on.”
Otz also said he would keep it between them. End of story, right?
Well … I mean everyone wants to know what’s up and that is a journalist’s job, right?
So, Kansas State beat writer Kellis Robinett, who writes for the Wichita Eagle and the Kansas City Star, did his job. Robinett’s sourced reporting noted that Kansas State was concerned that Iowa State had placed managers or other team representatives behind the visiting bench where they could monitor, view or even record Kansas State during timeouts.
Well, after that got out, Saturday got a little crazy. Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard told Seth Davis, who writes for The Messenger and commentates for CBS Sports, that “It’s a ridiculous allegation that is not fair to our coaches, our student managers, and our players.”
Pollard said he wanted the game twice, talked to fans and staff members near the K-State bench and found no evidence. Davis relayed that on CBS during pre-game of, yep, the Kansas-Iowa State game (wow that’s great timing).
You can see the quote in the embed from Davis. Here’s the thing — Tang has not publicly accused Iowa State of anything. It’s not clear what he said privately to Otz, as both have kept it to themselves. But, publicly, there has been no actual accusation by Tang.
But, because of all of this, that prompted Otz to address it during his post-game press conference after the Cyclones beat the Jayhawks. He defended he and his program’s credibility, and then dished a little inside information about an exchange between one of his managers and someone from Kansas State.
Here’s the video.
“What is factual is one of their staff members cursed out one of our student managers who was mopping the floor under the basket,” Otzelberger said. “Let’s put this to bed here and now. It didn’t happen, it won’t happen, and others need to be much more careful with their words moving forward.”
I’m really skeptical of all of this. Let’s just say that someone was trying to record huddles. With a cell phone? In a sold-out Hilton Coliseum with music blaring and fans going nuts? With a team huddle 10-15 feet away from the bench with team personnel surrounding the huddle? With a cell phone camera? The return on investment on that is practically nil.
It all sounds absurd, honestly. I suspect something else happened on Wednesday.
But, that didn’t stop Iowa State fans from, you know, leaning into it on Saturday against Kansas.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
