Credit Oklahoma State’s Mike Boynton for being clairvoyant.
The Big 12 Conference conducts a preseason poll of its men’s basketball coaches, who can’t vote for their own team. Kansas, with a roster packed with depth and talent, was picked to finish first and win its unprecedented 15th consecutive regular season title. The initial poll had the Jayhawks receiving nine first-place votes with KU coach Bill Self voting for K-State. Turned out the tally was incorrect.
Boynton also voted for the Wildcats.
“I think Kansas is really talented, but I also have been in the game long enough to understand the value of experience,” he said when asked to explain his voting.
The Kansas reign atop Big 12 basketball ended Tuesday with the Jayhawks’ face-plant loss at Oklahoma. The Streak lasted 5,116 days.
On a night when it appears Kansas' record-setting Big 12 title streak may fall, a reminder of how long it has been: pic.twitter.com/eYM5WzT5yS
— Jeff Eisenberg (@JeffEisenberg) March 6, 2019
“I don’t like the fact that this team will feel they’re the ones that let it down,” Self said after the loss to the Sooners. “There’ll be a lot of players from the last 14 years that will look at this team as the one that broke what they started, and I don’t think that’s fair.”
Fair or not, this regular-season ended with Texas Tech and Kansas State winning to become co-champions. How did an overwhelming favorite fall short to two teams who rarely capture championship trophies?
A season saved
With all the key contributors returning from a team that made a surprising run to the Elite Eight, Kansas State didn’t get much preseason love. The Wildcats were 12th in the Associated Press poll and senior Dean Wade was named the Big 12 preseason player of the year but didn’t receive a vote in the AP national player of the year voting.
“We’re picked second in the conference and 12th in the nation, but we’re keeping that chip on our shoulder,” senior guard Barry Brown said during Big 12 media day in October. “Second is still not first.”
Brown, a 6-3 senior from St. Petersburg, Fla., has become the team’s engine. From the time he arrived on campus, he has not backed down from a challenge. Coach Bruce Weber calls him the best leader he’s had at K-State and a player who has never removed the chip on his shoulder.
“I remember when he was a freshman, I asked at one of the team meetings, who’s going to be our lockdown defender, and (Brown) raised his hand,” Weber recalled. “I said, ‘Not you. Who’s going to be our lockdown defender?,’ and he just said, ‘Me.’”
Wade, Brown and guard Kamau Stokes form a senior trio that will be long-remembered by the Purple People of Manhattan. This season was highly anticipated because K-State had all its key contributors returning from a team that made a surprise run to the Elite Eight last season.
But doubts emerged. Kansas State started 6-0 despite a sputtering offense, then lost back-to-back road games at Marquette and Tulsa. Wade was sidelined by a foot injury – he missed almost all the NCAA Tournament with a similar injury – and the Wildcats lost their first two Big 12 games.
On Jan. 9, Kansas State faced an 0-3 start in conference play. Wade was still out and visiting West Virginia had a 36-21 halftime lead. Brown went Knute Rockne.
“If you don’t want to play hard,” Brown said in the locker room, “leave your jersey in this locker room and don’t come out. Don’t even step on the floor.”
The Mountaineers’ lead grew to 21 early in the second half but that just set up a historic comeback. Kansas State, with Brown providing he go-ahead basket, won 71-69. Brown finished with 29 points with a career-high six steals.
Would the Wildcats have overcome an 0-3 start and still won a share of the Big 12 title? That’s an unanswerable question. What is evident is that Kansas State has something few other teams have – a talented senior trio.
Before the season, the question was “can anybody knock off Kansas?” Asked and answered. Next question: Can K-State match or exceed last season’s March success?
Staying old
Texas Tech pulled a neat trick. The Red Raiders lost five seniors and six of its top eight scorers from last season’s Elite Eight team which gave national champion Villanova its toughest game in the tournament. Coach Chris Beard replaced experience with experience.
“Despite the players they lost from last year’s team, the reason they’ve been this good is that they managed to stay old,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla said.
Following last season, Beard’s first team meeting for this season delivered this message: “Don’t let last year define us and let’s make sure we’re back in the fight this year.” Earning a share of the regular-season championship became possible when the Red Raiders snagged the two best graduate transfers available – guard Matt Mooney from South Dakota and forward Tariq Owens from St. John’s.
“When we got Matt (Mooney) and Tariq (Owens), we knew that we’re going to stay older, which I always like to do,” Beard said this week. “We bring grad transfers in here to start, we bring grad transfers in here to be our best players.”
In his third season, Beard has a built a program that makes defense nonnegotiable. A former assistant under Bob Knight at Tech, Beard has adopted a key Knight philosophy – mental is to physical as four is to one. According to KenPom.com, Texas Tech was No. 4 in defensive efficiency. This season, the Red Raiders are No. 1.
During the nine-game winning streak that took the team to the top of the standings, the offense has become nearly as potent as the defense. The Red Raiders are averaging nearly 80 points a game during the streak, shooting 48.7 percent from the field and 42.7 percent from three.
Mooney, who is as old-school as his haircut, along with sophomores Jarrett Culver and Davide Moretti compose a three-guard lineup where all three possess similar skills. They combine to average nearly 40 points a game and have totaled over 200 assists.
“I’ve never been one to put position labels on players,” Beard said. “We’ve got guards and forwards. Jarrett, Matt and Davide can all dribble, pass and shoot, make decisions. We want multiple guys who can make plays. Right now, they’re really playing connected.”
Moretti, who is from Bologna, Italy, has been quietly superb during the winning streak. He’s scored 128 points and taken just 62 shots. Moretti has become a devastating third option, making 56.4 percent of his shots and an impossible 64.1 percent of his 3-pointers. Oh, by the way, he’s made 33 of his last 34 free throws.
The lynch pin has been Culver, a 6-5 guard from Lubbock. He started 20 games last season but was overshadowed by fellow freshman Zhaire Smith, who left for the NBA Draft. Culver, who scored a career-high 31 Saturday to assure Texas Tech a share of the title, is being projected as a first-round pick. Culver is averaging 18.2 points per game and is a prime example of how Beard’s program improves players.
“He has an old school love of the game,” Beard said of Culver. “We have to tell him to get out of the gym. He improves his game week to week and month to month. Last year he was a scorer, but he wasn’t a great passer. He studied it in the off season. Now he can win a game for us shooting it or passing it. I think he’ll be an NBA All-Star.”
Nothing lasts forever
Those fans who become nauseous at the Rock Chalk chant will no doubt point how, especially over the last few years, Kansas has kept winning the Big 12 thanks to luck – with, some claim, a lot of that good fortune coming thanks to favorable whistles.
If that’s the case, the good fortune pendulum eventually reverses its path. Karma is undefeated. This season, Kansas paid the bill in full.
Self’s roster, which in recent seasons was thinner than the towels in a cheap motel, was packed. So much so that freshman Ochai Agbaji started the season as a redshirt. He finished as one of four freshmen starters. Over the last eight games, freshmen have accounted for 46.9 percent of the minutes played and 43.1 percent of the scoring
Junior center Udoka Azubuike missed the second half of the season with a broken wrist. Sophomore Silvio DeSousa was suspended for the season by the NCAA. Senior Lagerald Vick left the team last month and hasn’t returned.
The Jayhawks closed out a perfect home season in Big 12 play by beating Baylor Saturday. Typically, the last home game is Senior Day. Kansas hasn’t lost on Senior Day since 1983 but there were no seniors to honor Saturday.
“You can blame it on freshmen and whatnot,” Self said after the OU loss. “I’m not gonna blame it on anything. We’ve won the league when we stated three freshmen and two sophomores … I ain’t buying into that stuff.”
Who is Your Veteran Scribe to argue with a hall of famer? But if you agree that experience is most valuable when playing on the road, then consider this. While Kansas was the only Big 12 team with a perfect record at home, the Jayhawks were 3-6 on the road – their most road losses in Big 12 history.
And falling one game short of sharing the title and keeping The Streak alive, it’s easy to point which of the six losses made the difference. On Jan. 19 at West Virginia, KU had a six-point lead with 2:35 to play but lost, 65-64.
For the first time in 15 years, the Big 12 regular-season championship didn’t go through Lawrence. Adding in Kansas State’s season-saving victory against the Mountaineers, it went through Morgantown.
