10-team format now is harmful to Big 12 basketball
is a soap opera that has had a debilitating effect, mentally and physically, on football in these parts.
You know all the usual suspects. Reduced national status. Harmed recruiting. Substandard success. We can debate the reasons, but the result is beyond doubt. The 10-team Big 12 format clearly is inferior in 21st-century college football. That’s why the conference at least investigated expansion and did add a championship game.
But basketball was different. Basketball seemed to have flourished in the 10-team format. Part of that could be attributed to losing Colorado, Nebraska and Texas A&M, schools not exactly rooted in the roundball sport. And the replacement of Missouri with West Virginia was a great trade, considering Mizzou’s descent into irrelevancy.
Kansas is always Kansas. OU made the Final Four just 11 months ago. Iowa State made the Sweet 16 last season. West Virginia is always a winner. Baylor has sustained a remarkable level of success, far surpassing its basketball legacy. Texas won the Shaka Smart sweepstakes. Kansas State’s program is on the upswing from the
DALLAS — Russell Westbrook had been almost cheery.
The Thunder guard had come back from the AllStar break with the look of a man refreshed. He’d been at his engaging best in interviews. He’d seemed pleased with a deadline-day trade and patient with the inevitable process of adjusting to new teammates.
And the Thunder had been winning.
The winning part has come to a stop on this three-game road trip, and Westbrook’s frustration showed Sunday night at American Airlines Center in Oklahoma City’s third straight setback, a 104-89 blowout at the hands of the Mavericks.
It boiled over in the third quarter as the Mavericks pulled away.
With 8:15 to play in the third and the Thunder trailing 66-53, Westbrook was called for an offensive foul for lowering his shoulder into the Mavericks’ Yogi Ferrell. Westbrook, who had risen to shoot, tossed the ball in frustration, and referee David Guthrie called him for a technical foul.
That wasn’t Westbrook’s last third-quarter incident.