AMDG wrote:
RamblerNation wrote:
...I've always hated the Big 12. The most boring, least inspired, least cultured basketball after the Big 10. For all the money they have and all the "talent" they talk about, they are from a historic or impactful player on the culture of college basketball...what the big historic stories in the Big 12? For me what comes to mind are" 1) Bobby Knight going to Texas Tech and failing and 2) Scott Drew...
Yeah, what does that conference have other than one the top three programs in the history of college basketball at which the sport was created, the likely top pick in the NBA draft this year, the 2020 national champions...Horrible league, I tell ya
Thanks AMDG but I can't help but add that Big 12 (Big Eight plus Southwest Conference) history is more than KU. Bob Knight and Scott Drew are hardly historic in the conference. How about Oklahoma State and Henry Iba? Kansas State and a guy Nation may actually remember named Tex Winter? A number of teams trace back to the second oldest conference in the country, the MVC. The Big 12 is only 25 years old but there are rich basketball traditions in both of the leagues from which it was formed. Games?, e.g., Oklahoma's four point loss to Kansas in the 1988 national final is a classic. You're entitled to think it's boring, but you can't say it doesn't have significant history.
Bob Knight did not fail at Texas Tech. He executed the most amazing transition in a basketball program I have ever seen. And he did it in seven months after stripping the roster down to three players, turning a 9-19 team into a 23-9 team. He won at least 21 games in five of his six complete seasons and went to the NCAA 4 times.