12. Texas Tech takes down No. 1 The No. 1-ranked team is 6-4 this season, something the Kansas Jayhawks ought to be wary of when they play Villanova next week. They can thank the Texas Tech Red Raiders, who beat No.1 Louisville 70-57 on Tuesday. For the third time this season an unranked team beat the No. 1-ranked teams. For the second time this season, the No. 1-ranked team lost in Madison Square Garden. While so many college basketball scribes had been pushing for the latest hot Big Ten team to become No. 1 — last week it was Michigan and this week it’s Ohio State — Louisville was actually the top team but Texas Tech did what it does to most teams. Smother them on defense. Make timely shots. Control the boards. Make a four-point lead feel like a 20-point and win the game by double digits. The win snapped an odd three-game losing streak for the once No. 12-ranked Tech team, which lost on the road to DePaul in overtime and twice in Las Vegas during the preseason tournament slate. Two of those losses you can pin on Tech being without its leading scorer and super freshman, Jahmi’us Ramsey. Against Iowa, Ramsey played 27 minutes and shot 3-of-10 and left the game with his team trailing, so that’s just a loss. Coach Chris Beard figured it out though. Good coaches usually do. On Tuesday, Tech — even without Ramsey — looked like the team most thought they would be in October. Even as Texas sits with an 8-1 record and West Virginia and Oklahoma have matching 7-1 records and Tech is tied for the most losses among Big 12 teams, the Red Raiders look like a team that can win the league. 11. Is this a deep league? I saw a tweet Wednesday from the Big 12:
No surprises here. #Big12MBB pic.twitter.com/YA5QmyBU29
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) December 11, 2019 I think it’s a tad misleading. When you look past Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech and Texas, the rest of the Big 12 isn’t standing out. Despite the records, there are only four teams in the league I’d put up against a No. 1 team in the country on a neutral floor and feel good about it. Along with Texas Tech’s win, Baylor beat an undefeated Butler team and Kansas covered a 26-point spread and will likely be the No. 1 team in the nation on Monday. Texas has flaws but are deep, athletic and playing for something bigger than wins a losses — the coach’s job. There’s nothing to worry about with those teams. The rest? I’m wondering if there really is another no-brainer tournament team in the league. Outside of Iowa State’s win over Seton Hall and West Virginia’s win over Wichita State, those teams haven’t scored an impressive win yet — unless you count OU’s victory over Oregon State and Minnesota on neutral floors — and haven’t looked very great in a lot of wins they have gathered. Oklahoma State has blowout wins over Power 5 schools, but unless you believe Syracuse and Ole Miss will turn their seasons around — and in that case you’re probably a Syracuse graduate who grew up in Oxford, Miss. and now lives in Stillwater — I don’t know what to take from those games. Oklahoma is barely beating North Texas — I don’t care that the game was in Denton — and losing to Stanford. TCU lost to an average USC squad and has had a handful of close games. Kansas State, West Virginia and Oklahoma State have all dropped stinkers. Since beating Syracuse and Ole Miss, OSU has lost by five to Georgetown and 19 to Wichita State. I’m not saying these are bad teams, and I’m not saying they will miss the tournament and not improve. I just think the league is starting to build its case as the best in basketball with a silly stat about winning percentage against the AP Top 25 but are ignoring that the league is losing 4-2 right now in head-to-head matchups with the Big East. Many of the teams — not a one undefeated one — has yet to even play a ranked team: West Virginia, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU and Kansas State. Before Tech played Louisville, they were on that list. Polls aren’t everything. But the tweet is misleading and mostly inflated by Baylor, which is 3-1 against ranked teams (wins over Villanova, Arizona and Butler). Iowa State’s win over Seton Hall is great. It also lost to Seton Hall by eight on a neutral floor and took a road loss to Oregon State. That said, there will likely be at least six teams from the conference who will make the tournament, maybe even seven. I do think Iowa State and West Virginia are better than what I thought two months ago (ISU) and living up to expectations (WVU) I had for them. League play will start, someone will beat Kansas — but not in Allen Fieldhouse — Baylor and a healthy Texas Tech and the committee will slot them in. In years past the Big 12 has had seven or eight teams I felt comfortable playing any team in any other conference and winning. That doesn’t look like the case this year a little more than a month in. 10. Baylor and Iowa State score big wins in challenge Marquette, St. John’s, Georgetown and DePaul gave the Big East monster wins in the first Big 12-Big East Challenge. Two of those wins came on Big 12 courts. Baylor and Iowa State struck back. Seton Hall, the darling of the Big East for how well its played in losses — yes that’s a dig — suffered an injury to Sandro Mamukelashvili early against Iowa State in Ames and hung tough with the Cyclones, who it beat a little more than a week earlier, but lost. Iowa State’s Tyrese Haliburton (17 points, six rebounds, five assists) was a star and George Conditt looks like he could be a difference maker for ISU later this season as he scored, along with transfer Rasir Bolton, 17 points. While it’s tough to top DePaul-Tech last week, Butler and Baylor went nose-to-nose and Baylor grounded out a win against an undefeated Butler team that was ranked No. 18. It will be one of the best games of the slate. Butler had a chance to win in the final moments in what would have been a crushing loss to the Big 12, but Baylor hung on. The Bears winning a game in which their offense struggled (35% from the field and 22.2 % from 3-point) makes me like this team even more. 9. The curse of the column bump? Last week Oklahoma State and West Virginia were riding high, undefeated and playing great. They went 0-3 since then. I decided to write about Oklahoma State after it took apart Syracuse and Ole Miss, but had to make major edits when it lost at home to Georgetown last week. I was curious how they would bounce back against Wichita State at home and I figured they would roll. Instead they got rolled. I declared WVU for real. Then I wrote how they had a tough game on the road. They lost. Hopefully it’s just a bad week for them and the column curse is on to another program. 8. Tweet of the week Baylor sophomore Jared Butler shot 1-of-6 from 3-point and 3-of-12 from the field against Butler. His team won and it was a second-straight big win over a top-25 team. The sophomore celebrated this way:#Baylor just wrapped up a knock down drag out game with another Top 20 team in Butler and it’s Jared Butler after the game inside the practice facility taking one shot after another after another and on and on. pic.twitter.com/HeBDuKdRUT
— David Smoak (@DavidSmoak) December 11, 2019 7. Texas Tech or Texas, what’s the better job? Following the Red Raiders’ win over Louisville, reporter Jeff Goodman caught up with Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt and talked about coach Chris Beard, his contract and other jobs. It’s no secret that there’s a lot riding on this season for the Texas Longhorns and coach Shaka Smart. It’s also no secret that athletic directors rarely ever talk about other jobs that aren’t open or that could be open. Here’s what Hocutt told Goodman about rumors that Beard, a Texas grad, would become the Texas coach:Chris Beard signed a 6-year deal worth $27 million last April, but Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt knows the Texas speculation won’t stop.
Hocutt addressed it head-on last night after Beard’s latest masterpiece:
“WE HAVE A BETTER JOB.”
Full story from MSG: https://t.co/6t9MZkHtR4