Big 12 gets boost from big-time depth
Seven teams have been in top 25 this season
After winning his Big 12 opener Saturday, West Virginia’s Bob Huggins made his way to the team bus and assessed the two-month gantlet that loomed ahead, an unrelenting lineup of tough games in what the veteran coach calls the deepest conference he can remember.
The Mountaineers had beaten a vastly improved and previously undefeated TCU team that was the eighth-highest-ranked Big 12 team in the Ratings Percentage Index. The schedule soon will turn even more arduous, with virtually no soft spots ahead.
“How could there be a deeper league? It is phenomenal,” Huggins told USA TODAY Sports. “Let’s be honest, back in the Big East (where the Mountaineers played during the first five years of the Huggins era), there were about six teams you knew you should beat.”
Scores of coaches during the next two months will boast about the strength of their respective leagues. The Big 12, which is devoid of a top-five team, has been stronger in the past at the very top of its standings. And this season’s Atlantic Coast Conference appears more formidable at the top with three schools — Duke (second), Virginia (third) and Louisville (sixth) — near the top of the rankings.
But when it comes to depth among this year’s conferences, this season’s Big 12 is unrivaled. During one week this season, a league-record seven teams were nationally ranked. Nine of the 10 teams have been ranked or received votes.
After seven Big 12 teams reached the NCAA tournament last season — the fifth time in NCAA history that a league sent at least 70% of its teams — the question now is whether eight of the league’s teams can earn an invite this season. That scenario remains unlikely, though not impossible if a few of the middleof-the-pack Big 12 schools can each collect a handful of top-50 wins.
John Underwood, the Big 12’s associate commissioner, says the league is deeper than it has been in more than a dozen years. The biggest reason is because the bottom of the league is harder to recognize than in other conferences.
In the Big 12, only Kansas State, which nearly beat Arizona, and Texas Tech, which nearly beat LSU, rate worse than 100 in the RPI. Among other power conferences, the Big East (three) is the only other league with fewer than four teams that rate that low.
Entering this past weekend, the Big 12 teams predicted to finish eighth through 10th had a 33-5 record.
“Most leagues have a bottom — we don’t have a bottom (in the Big 12),” TCU coach Trent Johnson said. “What’s our bottom? I don’t know what our bottom is.”
The depth of the league doesn’t stem from the play of teams that were expected to challenge for the league title. Texas, Iowa State, Kansas and Oklahoma all figured to be ranked throughout most of the season, and all have lived up to expectations reasonably well.
The depth, instead, is illustrated by the performances of teams such as West Virginia, which beat TCU without preseason Big 12 player of the year Juwan Staten, who was out with the flu. Since early fall, Huggins has made no secret that he likes the composition of this team. His players compete, defend and rebound. Huggins says the Mountaineers bear some resemblance to his old Cincinnati teams, only less athletic.
Baylor, whose lone non-league loss came against Illinois, is a team that thus far has overachieved. The No. 22 Bears defend the three-point shot particularly well, and they rank among the nation’s best offensive rebounding teams. The roster lacks guaranteed future NBA talent, uncharacteristic for a Scott Drew-coached Bears team.
Oklahoma State has posted a gaudy record (11-2) with the solid returning nucleus of Le’Bryan Nash, Phil Forte and Michael Cobbins. The Cowboys have yet to collect a high-quality victory but will get their opportunities in their next four games, when they face all nationally ranked opponents.
“The level of play is so high in the Big 12 right now that if you don’t get better and you are trying to get in that top division it’s not going to be easy,” Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger said. “There are going to be good teams that aren’t going to be in the top division.”
The other bright spot for the league has been TCU, which finished non-league play unbeaten for the first time in school history. The Horned Frogs finished last season on a 19-game losing streak, but improvement was anticipated after the team returned 84.2% of its scoring and 82.8% of its rebounding.
Their 13-1 record should be weighed along with their nonconference schedule, which did not feature a top-50 team. And they will need a strong showing in league play to enter the NCAA tournament discussion. But they will get plenty of opportunities against quality competition.
The debate over the strongest league is a popular one among fans. Because of the depth of the Big 12, Drew thinks there is no debate.
“I know people always say that, ‘In my opinion it is the best,’ ” Drew said. “No, statistically it is the best. The computers are unbiased.”