Big 12 season thread ('24-'25)

[ISUnorth]

If you were told prior to the TCU game at Iowa State that the Cyclones Crooks and Brown would combine for 60 points and Prince would foul out with 0 points and one rebound and that Conner, the best three point shooter in the league, would only attempt one and make none, who do you pick as the winning team?

Well, the Frogs by 13 of course. ISU took two big TCU factors out of the game and still got schooled at home.

Taylor Bigby hit 5 threes for TCU and Van Lith scored 28 and had 8 assists. And Deasia Merrill did a pretty decent job of playing in Prince's spot ( 8 rebounds) while she rode the bench.

 

[catsfan11]

K-State played their best game in a while today, destroying KU in Lawrence. The 91-64 final score was actually pretty flattering for KU. K-State really took their foot off the gas after getting up 80-41 early in the 4th. Great balance all around for the cats with 8 players today that had at least 7 points. Overall, a ridiculous shooting day at 15-23 from 3!

Bit of a weird stat line for KU. Their leading scorer on the day, Copeland, had 17. All of which came in the 4th quarter when the game was well out of reach.

Now the biggest game of the year on Wednesday with TCU coming to Manhattan. I honestly do not know what to expect from that game. Can the K-State defense turn TCU over and can the combined forces of Taylor, Lester, and Maupin make life difficult for Prince? Should be a good one.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

In a break from Arizona talk, what will it take to win the Big 12? Nobody is going to do a Baylor 18-0 and 17-1 seems pretty unlikely as KSU and TCU are not going to run the board the next nine games. Will 14-4 get a shared piece of the title? Seems 15-3 will win it outright.

KSU is Lee-less and TCU is playing their core five a million minutes a game which might open the door for Baylor to step up. Really seems down to the current top three. Baylor has ISU and WVU at Waco (big diff playing WVU at home) and KSU and Colorado on the road (mile high Boulder isn't an easy roadie). TCU has ISU, KSU, Baylor all on the road and WVU at home. KSU has at ISU and WVU and home for home for Baylor. Including games at ISU as tough only because even if not a top team ISU is very tough at home.

Standings after the only game that mattered in the standings for the top half, OSU losing at WVU.


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I'm sure I don't know what its going to take, but at the moment it seems to be that the top 3 are not really well differentiated. In the abstract I currently like WV and Utah a bit more than Ok State, but again, not sure they are strongly differentiated, either.

In the end, I think I care more about who wins the tourney than the regular season this year. I'm not convinced that the 2 winners will be the same this year.