Big XII Standings: Week 4

by awiggo on Jan 26, 2009 1:00 PM CST in Texas Longhorns Basketball

Team	Record	Week Ahead
1. Oklahoma	5 - 0	at Ok State (Mon); at Iowa St (Sat)
1. Kansas	4 - 0	at Nebraska (Wed); vs. Colorado (Sat)
3. Missouri	4 - 1	at Kansas St (Wed); vs. Baylor (Sat)
3. Texas	3 - 1	at Baylor (Tue); vs Kansas St (Sat)
5. Baylor	3 - 2	vs. Texas (Tue); at Missouri (Sat)
6. Oklahoma St	2 - 2	vs. Oklahoma (Mon); at A&M (Sat)
7. Nebraska	2 - 3	vs. Kansas (Wed); at Tx Tech (Sat)
8. Iowa St	1 - 3	at Colorado (Tue); vs. Oklahoma (Sat)
8. Texas Tech	1 - 3	at A&M (Wed); vs. Nebraska (Sat)
10. Tx A&M	1 - 4	vs. Tx Tech (Wed); vs. Ok State (Sat)
10. Kansas St	1 - 4	vs. Missouri (Wed); at Texas (Sat)
12. Colorado	0 - 4	vs. Iowa State (Tue); at Kansas (Sat)

Thoughts on the week ahead after the jump.

Biggest Surprise from Last Week: Missouri’s 97-95 win at Oklahoma State. The game I pegged as the Game of the Week in last week’s post was just that. Missouri dominated the game and was up 15 points with just over four minutes left in Stillwater but was careless trying to close out the win. This road win combined with a home victory over Tech on Saturday makes the Tigers the biggest early season surprise at 4-1.

Team with Most Favorable Schedule: Kansas. This is when the differences between the North and the South start to materialize. I know there are not two separate divisions like in football but the teams do play unbalanced conference schedules based on their divisional affiliations. While OU travels to Oklahoma State and Texas heads to Waco, Kansas draws their second of four weeks without a South opponent. Missouri is improved but even an average KU team should easily get to 10 wins as they get to play Colorado, Iowa State, Nebraska, and Kansas State twice each.

Team with Least Favorable Schedule: Baylor. The Bears were embarrassed in Norman on Saturday afternoon and must rebound quickly. A surprisingly confident Texas teams shows up for the mid-week game, and the Bears then follow with a weekend trip to Columbia. I am a believer in the Bears this season but if things were to go south, it would start with a home loss to the Longhorns on Tuesday.

Game of the Week: Oklahoma @ Oklahoma State. The Sooners will be tested for the first time in conference season. Bedlam may have been better with the Sutton family vs. Kelvin Samson, but it will still be interesting with Travis Ford and Jeff Capel. The level of hate between these two teams is right up there with Texas and A&M. The Cowboys and the Sooners both have highly efficient offensive attacks, OU has the better defense, but OSU will have the home court advantage. Pomeroy calls it 83-82 for Oklahoma State.

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Comments

I'll be shocked if OSU even makes it a game

They’ve increased the tempo at OSU, leading to many high scoring games, but damn… their defense is awful. Could be a massacre today at Gallagher.

Coaches Poll is out. We jumped up 3 spots to #12, mainly because of teams losing (some twice) last week.

We are a 4 seed in the latest Bracketology. Just looking at all the teams seeded 4-5, and I’m thinking some serious work just to survive past Round 2 this year. Keep in mind that none of the sites of the tournament games are even close to the state of Texas. Even with a higher seed than the opponent, we’d have to worry about them having more fans than us.

by goingforthecorner on Jan 26, 2009 1:25 PM CST reply actions

Any hope of the unbalanced schedule going away?

I know the Big XII seems to be resistant to change of any sort, but surely they can see the benefit of Kansas playing OU and Texas twice a year – both for ratings and SOS.

Still a Blaine Irby fan

by patienthornsfan on Jan 26, 2009 1:29 PM CST reply actions

Doubt it

it’s cyclical anyway. Oklahoma State just a few years ago was a power in this conference, and we play them twice a year. Baylor is on its way up I think.

by goingforthecorner on Jan 26, 2009 2:08 PM CST up reply actions