Jayhawks and Longhorns hold steady in Top 25.
Kansas and Texas, both 9-0 thus far in the early going of the hoops season, are ranked in the top five in both the new AP poll and the new Coaches’ poll.
Bill Self’s Jayhawks picked up comfortable wins over Evansville and DePaul last week to remain perfect, and as a result, remain third in both major polls behind North Carolina and Memphis. On top of their continued excellence, Kansas also got a big boost on Saturday with the return of sophomore guard Sherron Collins, who had been out since the second game following surgery on a stress fracture in his foot.
Texas has gotten off to a great start, and after upsetting highly-ranked UCLA last weekend to move into the top five, the Longhorns convincingly beat North Texas and Rice to get out to their first 9-0 start in more than 25 years, and keep their position at #4 in the AP poll and #5 in the Coaches’ poll.
Texas A&M (8-1) is the only other Big 12 team in either top 25 poll. Mark Turgeon’s Aggies lost to Arizona last Sunday to halt their unbeaten start, but got back to winning ways with a 109-73 rout of Texas State on Saturday.
All of the conference’s members are over .500 with the exception of Iowa St., which is 4-4.
Kansas St.’s Michael Beasley’s monster start is still going, as he’s had double-doubles in all nine of the Wildcats’ games. However, Notre Dame found a way to shut him down in the second half of their game on Tuesday, with their unshakeable defense limiting him to two second-half points after the fabulous frosh poured in 17 in the opening stanza. Without Beasley’s production, Kansas St. fell 68-59 to the Fighting Irish. But, Beasley rebounded from Tuesday’s disappointment to have a strong game against Cal yesterday, shooting 7 for 13 from the field and finishing with 19 points and 11 rebounds. He’s fallen to fifth in the naiton in scoring, averaging exactly 25 points per game, but he’s still far and away the nation’s leading rebounder, with 14.3 boards per game for the 6-3 Wildcats.
If Kansas St. wants to challenge for an NCAA tournament berth and potentially be a darkhorse Big 12 title contender, they’ll need more than Beasley to produce consistently. The Wildcats have only three players averaging double figures right now, as opposed to Kansas and Texas both having five players averaging that amount. The Notre Dame game showed that they need to have multiple options in case Beasley gets shut down, or even worse, injured. Bill Walker did score 30 points against Cal, but he needed 22 shots (7 of 22) and 16 free throws (14 of 16) to do it, and excluding he and Beasley, the rest of the team scored only 33 points.
They’re certainly missing the presence of senior David Hoskins, who hasn’t played this season, and very well may not play at all this year, due to a knee injury. And, K-State’s only 7 of 39 from behind the line in the last two games, so they’re going to have to improve their outside shooting, because when the time comes for that big shot, you want to be able to count on your guys to make it.
Tags: Big 12 Basketball, Kansas Jayhawks, Kansas State Wildcats, Michael Beasley, Texas A&M Aggies, Texas Longhorns