Midseason Form For All Of Us

I have a confession to make. I’m sending you my midseason All-Big 12 basketball awards a week early today because I messed up. I forgot that this year's Big 12 schedule is 20 games instead of 18. 

Conference realignment gets the best of all of us sometimes. 

Please forgive me and enjoy the midseason All-Big 12 awards anyway…after the headlines.

What You Need to Know

• Houston beat Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse on Monday, and if you haven’t seen how the first overtime ended, you have to watch this. The Jayhawks were up by six at the free throw line with 18 seconds left in OT and found a way to lose. You truly have to see it to believe it. KU has now lost three of its last six Big 12 home games inside Allen Fieldhouse. 

• Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy finally spoke about everything that happened with his contract negotiation during an hour-long press conference. He definitely said the right things about still being energized and excited to coach football in the NIL/portal era. Check out a great recap here. 

• A new CBS Sports mock draft has three Big 12 players in the top ten–the same number of players the SEC has. This particular mock even has a Big 12 player going number one overall, and it’s not the guy who won the Heisman. 

• According to Circa Sports, K-State and Utah have the best odds to win the college football national championship next year. You’ll be surprised by how low Arizona State and BYU are on this list. Ohio State is Circa’s favorite to win it all.

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Midseason All-Big 12 Men’s Basketball Awards

Alright, here are your way-too-early midseason All-Big 12 awards. 

I’m sure there will be disagreements, and I welcome your feedback. Reply to the email with what you think I missed here. You might just see your comment make it into the next Open For Business. 

Coach of the Year: Kelvin Sampson (Houston) and T.J. Otzelberger (Iowa State)

Before losses to Arizona State and K-State last week, I leaned toward West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries. After a brutal week for the Mountaineers and a gritty, gutsy, and improbable win at Kansas for Houston, I’m going with Sampson and Otzelberger.  

Giving the Coach of the Year award to the guy with the best record can be boring. Nobody likes doing it. Hell, Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid only has one NFL Coach of the Year award (it’s rigged!!!). 

I’m cool with not always abiding merely by the standings to give out the big awards, but in this case, it fits. 

With DeVries out, this had to go to Kelvin Sampson or T.J. Otzelberger—two coaches with teams at the top. 

Houston's non-conference performance was somewhat disappointing, but nobody should crush them for their tight losses to Auburn and Alabama. 

There’s no denying they have lived up to the hype in Big 12 play. Six of their eight conference wins have come by double digits. They’re just demolishing teams. 

Winning on the road is always huge, but picking up a win in Allen Fieldhouse is next-level, even if it’s become more doable lately. 

Otzelberger stubbed his toe at West Virginia last week, which put him a game behind Sampson in the title race. But don’t let that take away from a masterful coaching job.

Wins over Baylor, Marquette, and Texas Tech stand out on the Cyclone’s resume. They’re poised for a run at a number one seed (and maybe they won’t get screwed by the selection committee this time). 

If you factor fiscal responsibility into your Coach of the Year criteria, Otzelberger would be the clear winner. Iowa State’s roster doesn’t stress donors’ wallets like many others, and he seems to have mastered the art of the NIL/transfer portal era. 

Player of the Year: Javon Small (West Virginia)

If you haven’t watched Small play this year, do yourself a favor and make it happen asap. 

The numbers are eye-popping. He leads the Big 12 in scoring and is top five in assists. Six times he’s scored 25+, including a 31-point outburst in a win over Gonzaga. 

He lost his tag team partner in guard Tucker DeVries to an injury in early December and has had to carry the load for the league’s most surprising team ever since. He’s played at least 34 minutes in all but one game since Thanksgiving. Three times, he played more than 40 minutes when the Mountaineers endured overtime. 

Small was a monster pickup for head coach Darian DeVries in the transfer portal. 247 Sports listed him as the best point guard available. 

He’s been everything the Mountaineers could have possibly expected and more. 

All Big 12 Team: 

Javon Small, West Virginia
Curtis Jones, Iowa State
Emanuel Sharp, Houston
JT Toppin, Texas Tech
Norchad Omier, Baylor

Also considered: Hunter Dickinson (Kansas), Keshon Gilbert (Iowa State), J’Wan Roberts (Houston), Milos Uzan (Houston), LJ Cryer (Houston), Joseph Tugler (Houston) 

One of my biggest hurdles here was narrowing down a pick from Houston. I felt strongly that the Cougars needed to be represented, but they’re the true definition of a team. Four or five players could legitimately make a case for inclusion. 

The numbers certainly suggest that Dickinson belongs. KenPom still lists him as the best player in the league so far. I just can’t get there right now, especially when Omier has virtually the same stat line, and I know most Kansas fans would agree with me.

Biggest Surprise: West Virginia

The timing on this pick isn’t working out very well for me. It would have been a slam dunk if I were putting this together last week. But West Virginia lost twice last week to bottom four teams in the league. 

I will stand by head coach Darian DeVries and the job he’s done this year. 

DeVries took over a program picked 13th in the Big 12. West Virginia was coming off of a 9-23 season filled with drama over the untimely exit of a legendary head coach–not an easy situation to step into. 

The non-con performance turned heads. WVU picked up wins over Gonzaga and Arizona, thanks in part to big performances from star guard Tucker DeVries. 

DeVries went down with an injury in early December, though. How would the Mountaineers handle life in the rugged Big 12 without him? 

They started with a win at Allen Fieldhouse and knocked off top-five Iowa State at home en route to a 4-2 start to league play. 

The win in Lawrence came without key contributor Amani Hansberry, who also missed time due to injury. 

Landing guard Javon Small in the portal has been a massive key to the success. Coach DeVries has the Oklahoma State transfer playing like the Big 12 Player of the Year right now.

They need to recover quickly from this midseason slump, but wins over Gonzaga, Arizona, Kansas, and Iowa State give the Mountaineers plenty of cushion to make the NCAA tournament field. 

My other primary consideration for biggest surprise was Arizona after the Wildcats started the year 4-5. Head coach Tommy Lloyd has figured it out, and they’re a legitimate Big 12 title contender at 7-1. 

But I’m sticking with my gut. DeVries deserves recognition for what he’s achieved despite plenty of adversity. 

Biggest Disappointment: K-State

Unfortunately, this is a year where there is some good competition in this category. 

There was a lot of buzz around Cincinnati heading into the season. They were picked just behind the group of favorites in the preseason Big 12 poll and started the year 10-1 before dropping four straight and six of eight to start conference play. 

Kansas has fallen out of the Big 12 title race and clearly isn’t a team up to Bill Self’s elite standard. It’s just hard to cite a top-15 team as the biggest disappointment in a league that has been underwhelming. 

It pains me to type it, but K-State is easily the biggest disappointment this year. 

Much was made of the Wildcats’ expensive roster. They spent $2 million on Illinois transfer Coleman Hawkins, and national reporter Jeff Goodman believes K-State has one of the five most expensive rosters in the sport. 

That should buy you more than an 8-11 record. 

Head coach Jerome Tang seems to have had his team playing better in the last two weeks, but it’s already a lost season. 

Highly-touted transfer Achor Achor left the team. Kentucky big Ugonna Oneyso hasn’t seemed fully bought in. Tang built the entire transfer class around guard Dug McDaniel, and he struggles to stay out of the doghouse. 

The Wildcats have learned the hard way that money can’t buy everything. 

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