Big 12 Hoops | Power Rankings (Week #13)

It was a huge victory last week for the Longhorns to knock off powerhouse Kansas 81-69 in Austin. They are the hottest team in the Big 12 right now winning 6 conference games in a row. Javan Felix is ruled out for the TCU game on Tuesday with a concussion suffered against Kansas. But, it should be no problem this week for UT to roll past TCU or K-State.

No one really believed the Jayhawks would go undefeated for the entire year in the Big 12, but everyone assumed it would be someone other than UT to beat them. Last week KU beat Iowa State 92-81, but lost to Texas 81-69. Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid had an off-shooting game against UT going 5-21 combined. Kansas will get back on course and is still the best team in the conference. This week KU gets to take out any overlapping frustrations from the Texas loss onto Baylor and West Virginia. It won't be long until they are back to their #1 spot in the power rankings.

Last week the loss to Kansas 92-81 was rough for the Cyclones. Melvin Ejim, Georges Niang, and DeAndre Kane were the only guys that seemed to fill up the stats while all of the KU starters scored in double-figures. A win over a really good Oklahoma squad 81-75 was a refreshing result for ISU last Saturday. It’s now time tonight for the Clones to set the tone against slumping Oklahoma State. TCU goes to Ames on Saturday, it probably won’t be pretty.

Oklahoma had an excellent victory last week over Oklahoma State 88-76. The Sooners Ryan Spangler had 15 points and 17 rebounds. He is the best “glue guy” in the Big 12 I have seen play this season. The other OU game last week didn’t go in the Sooners favor and they lost to Iowa State 81-75. Their games this week are against West Virginia and Baylor.

Two losses in a row for the Cowboys last week are a cause for worry. Marcus Smart had 22 points in the loss to Oklahoma, but was 3-11 from downtown. He was 0-7 from the outside with 15 points against Baylor. Stevie Clark was arrested early Sunday morning for “outraging public decency” (and was kicked off the team). OSU needs to turn things around quickly this week against Iowa State and Texas Tech or things could spiral out of control.

WVU won both games last week, against Baylor 66-64 and K-State 81-71. In the K-State game Juwan Staten had 35 points on 18-21 from the free throw line. It pays to drive to the rim nowadays with the new rules in place and Staten is taking full advantage of it. It will be a hard week for the Mountaineers with games against Oklahoma and Kansas.

Last week K-State had a strong finish in the game to beat Texas Tech 66-58. Marcus Foster was contained to only 2 points all night. He found his touch in the West Virginia game to get 23 points, but the Wildcats lost the contest 81-71. K-State has been going downhill lately and needs to get a big upset on Saturday against Texas to help them move into the upper half of the Big 12 power rankings.

The losing streak is over at 5 games in a row for the Bears. They got the best of Oklahoma State 76-70 on Saturday and have started their climb from the bottom of the Big 12. It is a long road ahead, but the victory may have come at the right time. Kansas and Oklahoma this week should be perfect tests to see if Baylor has snapped out of their funk.

It’s never good when we take steps backwards in the conference. Our Red Raiders did not have a great week, but still managed another win against TCU. The loss earlier in the week to K-State was disappointing because it was the same story of not being able to close out games at the end. On the bright side; it was a fun game to watch be played and I really had the feeling we were going to pull off the win. We just fell short once again.

The TCU game was sloppy for the second game in a row against them. We let them hang around way too much in this one. It was too close for comfort, but a win is a win and I’m not going to bash anything about a victory. Good job by the squad to get a third win in the Big 12.

These upcoming weeks are going to give me nightmares with our schedule up until the end of the month. It first starts with Oklahoma State coming to town on Saturday. Hopefully with the struggles of late for the Cowboys we will find a way to make the game competitive. Wreck ‘em Tech!

TCU lost to the Red Raiders 60-54, but put up a fight. They need a win so very badly in conference play and the perfect miracle would be tomorrow night against Texas (who has just moved to #15 in the top 25). They have ISU to try and upset on Saturday.