Bigger than the rest: we trace the 10 steps the Big 12 took to become the baddest basketball conference in the country

OKLAHOMA. NEBRASKA. TEXAS. Oklahoma State. Yes, until not that long ago, the Big 12 Conference used to be about three things: football games, football practice, and spring football. Basketball was not an afterthought in this league--it was somewhere well after the afterthought.

That, however, is the case no longer--miraculously enough, the roundball has somehow caught up with the pigskin. In recent years, Big 12 basketball was usually the fifth- to sixth-best conference in the country--but an undisputed Numero Uno? Nah--"the Big 12 as the best basketball conference in the country" just doesn't sound right. Not when there is the Duke-North Carolina-Maryland "axis of heavenly hoops" ACC. Not to mention the Big Ten, the Big East, the SEC, and the Pac-10--traditional basketball leagues one and all that have always dominated the landscape.

But Big 12 teams played simply great in 2001-02. And, in the end, when all the chips were down in March "proof is in the pudding"-wise, Kansas and Oklahoma made it to the Final Four, Missouri Rush-ed its way into the Elite 8, and Texas crashed the Sweet 16 party as well.

Two of the Final Four? Three of the 8, and four of the 16? Okla-who? Missou-what? Fans from all over the country were flabbergasted, to say the least. And why not?

Even the most inside of insiders were amazed. "Coming from the ACC, I never thought I'd say it," Missouri coach Quin Snyder says. "But this the best league in the country."

"I can't imagine there's a better league in the country anywhere," adds Texas mentor Rick Barnes, who, in his previous lives, has coached both in the ACC and Big East.

This season might end up even better for the Big 12. Unlike, say, Duke or NCAA champion Maryland, Kansas and Oklahoma have both returned the bulk of their Final Four squads--and Texas has all five starters back while adding an outstanding recruiting claps. The result: three Big 12 teams in the AP preseason Top 5--while Oklahoma State, Missouri, and Texas Tech all nibbled on the edge of several Top 25 rankings as well.

Whew! Unreal? It appears so at first glance. However, upon closer examination--and after checking in with the we came up with the Home Office in Norman, Okla.--we came up with the Top 10 Reasons for this truly astonishing Big 12 hoop phenomenon:

1. IT WAS A LONG TIME COMIN' ...

Over the past few seasons, the seeds of the Big 12's emergence have been planted. We're talking NCAA seeds, of course: the Big 12 has not received less than four seeds to the Big Party since 1997 and corralled six bids over each of the past three years. But while from 1997-99 the average Big 12 seed was a mediocre 7.8--that in spite of Kansas receiving a No. 1 in '98 and '99--the quality of the bids rose to an amazing average of 5.5 during the period of 2000-02.

And no wonder: Kansas was a No. 4 in 2001 and a No. 1 in 2002. Iowa State was a No. 2 in both 2000 and 2001, and Oklahoma was a No. 3 in 2000, a No. 4 in '01, and a No. 2 in '02.

2. ... A REALLY (REALLY, REALLY) LONG TIME

Truth be told, however, until last season the results haven't quite reflected such sizzling seedings in March. And this, of course, only served to reinforce the image of the Big 12 as the home of Not Ready For Prime Time (Basketball) Players. At least not when it counts.

Until last March, Kansas was mainly known as "The Best Team Never to Make it to the Final Four." (At least not since 1993, which felt several eons away.) Iowa State turned its pair of No. 2 seeds into a single Elite 8 appearance--then crashed to the near-bottom of the league in 2001-02. Oklahoma has never performed well in the NCAA Tournament before last season. And Missouri, if anything, was stereotyped as a team that gets upset too early by too-unknown teams at crunchtime.

3. THE ROCK

Final Four frustrations aside--and he actually made three of those in 1991, 1993, and 2002--Roy Williams' Kansas program has consistently been one of the very finest in the country for quite a while now. Yes, right up there with Duke and other royalty: over the past 14 seasons, his Jayhawk teams have averaged 27.7 wins. Coming into this season, Williams carried a 388-93 record, and his .807 winning percentage stands as the highest in the nation among coaches who have served at least six seasons.

No wonder the expectations for Kansas have been higher than high, March after March. Still, in spite of suffering some of those memorable upsets and never winning the national championship, Williams' NCAA Tournament record is 29-13--a .690 winning ratio.

And Kansas, the winningest team in the nation over the 1990s, has the second-most wins in the country over the last five years (after Duke) for a sizzling .801 winning percentage (141-25).

But can the Jayhawks now take the next--read, championship--step? Well, it's the toughest climb of all--only one team can win every year. Still, similarly stigmatized Maryland succeeded in accomplishing The Last Leap last season, and one other thing cannot be doubted. In the past, despite the intermittent presence of such stars as Paul Pierce, Williams' mid-'90s Kansas teams were a half-step slow overall. That may no longer be the case due to the recent recruitment of such highflying speedsters as Drew Gooden, Wayne Simien, and Aaron Miles.

4. CYCLE-ING TO THE TOP

According to insiders, the greatest secret behind the emergence of the Big 12 is that there is no secret. "These things tend to be cyclical," Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson says. "One year it's the ACC as No. 1, next year it's the Big East, then it may be the SEC or the Pac-10. So, maybe it was just our time to get to the top."

Well, maybe it was. But the cycle has never brought the Big 12 up to No. 1 before. And such cycle-ing trends always have plenty of legitimate reasons behind them.

Starting with ...

5. NBA EARLY ENTRIES

Winning is still largely about talent. And, while Big 12 teams recruit better than ever, it's generally still not ACC--or SEC or Pac-10--level talent.

Which means that Big 12 teams, by and large, don't need to fear players leaving early for the NBA nearly as much as a Duke or a North Carolina must. And the players that do leave--Kansas' Paul Pierce and Drew Gooden, Iowa State's Marcus Fizer, or Missouri's Kareem Rush, for instance--tend to stay until their junior years.

Powers such as Georgia Tech (Stephon Marbury), Michigan State (Zach Randolph), Duke (William Avery, Corey Maggette), Memphis (Dajuan Wagner), and many others have suffered immeasurably from untimely freshman (or sophomore) departures.

Big 12 teams generally have a chance to develop their programs patiently, gaining invaluable togetherness, experience, and chemistry. Last year, Kansas started three juniors and a senior--while Oklahoma earned its Final Four magic carpet ride on the wings of three juniors and a senior starter.

Nor do Big 12 programs need to worry about a high school or juco superduper not showing up at all, a maddening misfortune Florida (Kwame Brown), St. John's (Darius Miles), or Memphis (Amare Stoudemire and Qyntel Woods) has had to endure. Truth is, these prominent programs have not been the same since.

The Big 12 has 17 of its top 30 scorers and 12 of its top 15 assist-ants back once again this season, a far higher percentage than any of the other top conferences. With all this discontinuity in other conferences, how could a league such as the Big 12 not get to the other side and reach top?

6. A DIFFERENT WAY

When you can't get the best, sometimes it's best to be creative. And no other coach in college hoops history has elevated the funky art form of junior college recruiting--seen as not much more than a stopgap more often than not--as Oklahoma's Sampson has.

Sampson's Sooners flew into the Final Four last year carried by three juco transfer starters--in addition to a "regular" transfer (from Florida International) in center Jahbari Brown. And, for good measure, his two top pine guys also arrived on the Norman campus from junior college.

"We had needs," says the coach. "And it's true: we don't get nearly as many McDonald's All-America-types as teams in the other top leagues. So, since we couldn't fill those needs from high school, we filled them from JCs." That's one thing--but to carry such a bunch of new and nomadic guys to the Final Four?

That's something else.

"I don't know if you can ever point to a Final Four team that had three or four JC guys starting," Snyder says. "In the past, you didn't want to recruit junior college players because you'd only have them for two years. Now, with a great player, you'd only have them that long, or less, anyway."

Understandably, "Sampson's way" did not exactly go unnoticed--in fact, it was as if his unprecedented juco success has opened up new vistas all over the Big 12 this year.

Iowa State's Larry Eustachy, whose team crashed to 12-19 last year after some excellent seasons (57-11 in 1999-2000 and 2000-01, in large part due to juco transfer Jamaal Tinsley), corralled perhaps the next best JC recruiting class ever (after Sampson's, of course) with three junior college All-Americans of all shapes and sizes. His best returning player, as well as his top departee, are also juco transfers.

The other Big 12 schools? Baylor: three juco transfers. Best newcomer: 6'7" Terrance Thomas, a juco transfer. Colorado: Best newcomer is 6'7" Lamar Harris, a juco transfer. Kansas State: three best newcomers are juco transfers. Missouri: Highly-regarded JC point guard Picky Cleamons is the key to their season. Nebraska: Top newcomer is juco All-America Nate Johnson. Oklahoma State headlines two top juco transfers in its incoming class.

Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Then Sampson should feel flattered beyond belief: Iconoclastic Bobby Knight's best newcomer at Texas Tech is 6'9" Robert Tomaszek, a juco transfer. And even rock-solid establishment team Kansas' class is headed by 6'9" juco transfer center Jeff Graves.

7. A FORTUITOUS COINCIDENCE?

Or not. The Big 12 area just happens to be a veritable junior college goldmine--and "kids often don't want to travel too far from their roots," according to Sampson. National JC powerhouses from Indian Hills (Iowa), Butler County (Kansas), and Tyler (Texas) are a rich mine of topnotch talent for the Big 12.

8. THE ADDITIONS

In 1997, the Big 8 became the Big 12 by adding Southwest Conference schools Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, and Baylor. The four schools had sporadic-at-best hoop histories--yet Texas quickly joined the league's elite, while Tech emerged last season with the controversial hiring of the nutty-but-great Knight.

Even Baylor has a couple of significant young players ready to explode. And A&M has just corralled its best-ever recruit in 6'7" McDonald's All-American Antoine Wright.

"Those four schools have been great for Big 12 basketball," Big 12 assistant commissioner John Underwood says. "They are strong programs with staying power. Every single one of them is outstandingly financed and deeply committed to competitive excellence."

Bringing in populous Texas as a highlight recruiting area could not hurt either. "It's been huge for us," Underwood says. "Just look at [young Baylor stars] John Lucas and Lawrence Roberts. Or a difference-maker like [scintillating Texas quarterback] T J. Ford."

Ford, by the way, played with outstanding Oklahoma State forward Ivan McFarland in high school in suburban Houston, winning two straight Texas state championships with his stunningly selfless play. "I had to get him," Barnes says. "He sees it all."

9. THE COACHES

This is not the NBA. In college hoops, next to the team's talent level--or, sometimes, even ahead of it--coaching is what really matters.

And the Big 12 has the coaches that matter; this is where the league owns a pronounced edge. The experience and quality of Williams, Knight, Barnes, Oklahoma State's Eddie Sutton, and Baylor's Dave Bliss is unparalleled.

No joke, there are five active Big 12 coaches who have been named AP National Coach of the Year (Williams, Sampson, Knight, Eustachy, and Sutton). Knight, Sutton, Bliss, Williams, and Sampson have 300 or more career wins. Four others (Barnes, Eustachy, Nebraska's hot up-and-comer out of Butler Barry Collier, and Kansas State's Jim Wooldridge) have more than 200, giving the Big 12 more coaches at that elevated level than any other conference.

Overall, Big 12 coaches are a combined 4,010-2,083 (.658), with an average of 20.2 victories per season.

Night after night, defense, physicality, and fundamentals are stressed; these numbers show commitment to basics, quality, and consistent excellence. These numbers bring in players. These numbers are also historic--and significantly superior to what any other major conference presently presents coaching-wise. Truth is, the truly big-time Big Ten has only three coaches with more than 225 wins--and five with fewer than 120.

No wonder not one Big 12 coaching job changed hands this past offseason. And no wonder Oklahoma State has just signed sixtysomething Eddie Sutton to another (10-year!) contract.

10. AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

In this league, the depth and quality is such that it's difficult enough to make any headway up the standings. Colorado, with young supercenter David Harrison and powerhouse power forward Stephane Pelle, has the best frontline in the league--and probably one of the best in the country--to go with a not-bad backcourt. So the Buffaloes improved from 15-15 to 15-14 last year, finishing ninth in the league both times. Baylor's awesome freshman axis of Lucas and Roberts was good for a tie for 10th.

Still, last year last-place A&M and Baylor both beat Texas, Iowa State beat Missouri, and Nebraska beat Texas Tech. "Truth is, there's not a bad team in the conference," Barnes says. "I can't recall a better league top-to-bottom. You can't afford any off nights because whichever coach you're facing is so outstanding and so prepared."

The other side of the coin? "You could in fact be a much-improved team--and it may not show up at all in the results," said Collier. "Playing Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and all the others every year twice ... well, it's both a dream--the competition is so high-level--and a nightmare. I'm telling you, it's real hard to be movin' on up in this league."

COPYRIGHT 2003 Century Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group