Can Texas Tech basketball emulate Kansas State's turnaround in wild Big 12? | Giese
It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but it's worth pointing out.
The first week of Big 12 Conference play has been wild.
On Wednesday alone, third-ranked Kansas lost to UCF and ninth-ranked Oklahoma dropped one at TCU. These came a day after No. 2 Houston lost at Iowa State, No. 14 Baylor outlasted No. 18 BYU (which is now 0-2 in league play) and No. 25 Texas needed a last-second shot from Max Abmas to survive at Cincinnati. This coming after the Texas Tech basketball team took down the Longhorns in Austin and the Bearcats beat BYU in Provo.
With every team having two conference games to this point, just three teams have unblemished records in the Big 12.
And it could very well be down to one by the end of Saturday's games.
Texas Tech (13-2, 2-0) hosts Kansas State (12-3, 2-0) as two of the three teams atop the league standings. They are joined by Baylor (13-2, 2-0), which welcomes the Bearcats to Foster Pavilion.
The Red Raiders and Wildcats are in position to call themselves the head of the table a week into action in a conference measured as the best in the country (again) by every metric in college basketball. They've gotten to this point in pretty similar fashion: so-so non-conference slates and two decisive wins to open conference play.
That's not the only similarity the teams share, though.
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In a sense, Grant McCasland is trying to replicate what his former Baylor colleague Jerome Tang achieved in his first year in Manhattan.
When Tang took the Kansas State job, he inherited a team that returned just two total players and one double-digit scorer (guard Markquis Nowell) from a team that finished 14-17 overall, 6-12 in Big 12 play, was ninth in the conference standings in 2021-22 and closed the season with a loss to West Virginia in the first round of the Big 12 tournament.
McCasland took on a Texas Tech team that had five returning players and one double-digit scorer (guard Pop Isaacs) from a squad that went 16-16 overall and 5-13 in conference, tied for ninth in the Big 12 and closed the 2022-23 season with a loss to West Virginia in the first round of the conference tournament.
It also doesn't hurt that McCasland and Tang are both disciples of Scott Drew, having served on Baylor's coaching staff together from 2011 to 2016.
When asked about his team's turnaround to become an Elite Eight participant in his first year, Tang didn't have much an answer other than building relationships.
"Man," Tang said at Big 12 media days in October, "if I could tell you how to replicate it, and it would give you those results, then man, I'd be an incredibly rich man. I'll tell you this: I believe that we've found winners. We had 10 state championships on our team last year, guys who had one. They'd won the last game in their career at some point in time.
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"Then I have a staff that loves me, like really loves the guys, and they were willing to be honest with me when we weren't going in the right direction of something needed to be changed. When you get people who are transparent with each other and operate out of a mode of love, you can accomplish anything."
"Love" is a word McCasland uses frequently about his team. He used it three times in his postgame presser following the win over Oklahoma State on Tuesday.
Plenty of parallels exist between McCasland, Tang and their first teams at their respective schools. And it feels appropriate that it's their former boss — Drew — that they're tied for first in the Big 12 with.
But which will get to say they're still in first place after Saturday's games?
Big 12 Men's Basketball
Kansas State at Texas Tech
When: Saturday, 3 p.m.
Where: United Supermarkets Arena
TV: ESPN2
Records: Kansas State 12-3, 2-0; Texas Tech 13-2, 2-0
Recent results: Kansas State def. West Virginia 81-67 (Tuesday); Texas Tech def. Oklahoma State 90-73 (Tuesday)
Notable: Kansas State's Tylor Perry (15.1 points per game) was the point guard for McCasland's North Texas team that won the NIT Championship last season. Perry considered joining McCasland at Texas Tech before transferring to K-State.
Big 12 Standings (Entering Saturday)
Team Overall Conference
Baylor 13-2 2-0
Texas Tech 13-2 2-0
Kansas State 12-3 2-0
Houston 14-1 1-1
Kansas 13-2 1-1
Oklahoma 13-2 1-1
TCU 12-3 1-1
Iowa State 12-3 1-1
Texas 12-3 1-1
Cincinnati 12-3 1-1
UCF 10-4 1-1
BYU 12-3 0-2
Oklahoma State 8-7 0-2
West Virginia 5-10 0-2
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Giese: Wild Big 12 presents Texas Tech basketball an opportunity to strike
