Kansas City, Mo. ? Big 12 Conference men’s basketball coaches placed the monkey on the back of Kansas during Thursday’s Media Day.
“Kansas could run away with the league. They’re that good,” veteran Oklahoma State coach Eddie Sutton said. “The key is their big center. I thought last year (Eric Chenowith) would be terrific, but he had an off year.”
Said Oklahoma’s Kelvin Sampson: “Our league is too good to pick a 1-2. Kansas has the best chance because of the kids coming back. They have great size. They have a chance to be really, really good. They have a chance to be one of the better teams in the nation.”
Kansas State coach Jim Wooldridge realizes expectations are low with the Wildcats picked to finish last in the league coaches poll.
“We have preached the whole is bigger than any one part. We say, ‘This is how you can get out of last place.’ We use it as motivation. We were the only team in the league to not have one player mentioned (for all-league honors). That’s another reason to stress team over individual.”
Oklahoma State’s Gallagher-Iba Arena renovation project still isn’t complete. “We feel like a bunch of gypsies,” OSU coach Sutton said. “We’re going to have a great arena, but we’ve had to practice all over town.”
Three Kansas City Metro area players could start for Oklahoma State Shawnee Mission East’s Fredrik Jn, KC Schlagle’s Andre Williams and Victor Williams of KC Wyandotte. Victor Williams sat out last season after transferring from Illinois State.
OSU’s Sutton on Melvin Sanders, a 6-foot-5 sophomore from Liberal: “He reminds me of Desmond Mason who was a much better athlete than he was a basketball player when he came here. Sanders can high-jump 7-2, but he has a lot to learn about basketball.”
Oklahoma State’s Antonie Broxsie, a 6-foot-10 transfer from Minnesota, is in limbo while his part in the UM probation is sorted out. “That thing is still being investigated,” Sutton said, “so we’re not depending on him to play.”
Oklahoma’s Kelvin Sampson on the departed Eduardo Najera: “Sometimes you don’t realize how much you miss a guy until he’s gone. Well, I’m coming out of the closet today. God, I miss that guy.”
OU’s Sampson on the Sooners’ lack of experienced big men. “I said to my players in practice that if size and strength are so important, what happened to the dinosaurs? They didn’t have any answers.”
Iowa State’s Paul Shirley, a small-town Sunflower State boy, on teammate Jamaal Tinsley, a street-wise Brooklynite: “He has a certain swagger that someone from Meriden, Kansas, doesn’t have.”
Shirley on losing Marcus Fizer: “He was probably the best player in the country last year, but we have five seniors and we know how each other plays and that’s good.”
ISU coach Larry Eustachy on Tinsley: “He really struggled with conditioning and structure at this time last year. There was an over-and-under whether he’d make it to Dec. 1. He said he didn’t come on a track scholarship so why was he doing all that running?”
Eustachy doesn’t have another Fizer waiting in the wings, but he’s high on Omar Bynum, a 6-7 sophomore transfer from an Iowa junior college. “Bynum is kind of the Scottie Pippen type,” Eustachy said.
Colorado has a 21-year-old freshman player from the West Indies. He’s Michael Morandais.
“At some point he’ll be a real special player in this league. He’s the most athletic wing player we’ve had. He’s dunked on every player on our squad and he can shoot the basketball,” CU coach Ricardo Patton said.
Nebraska coach Barry Collier on the new emphasis to cut down on physical play: “Steffon Bradford is 6-6, 240. He doesn’t want to see it get cleaned up at all. I like a physical game. I think it’s part of the league we are in. I think the top leagues in the country play that type of game and I don’t want to see it completely disappear.”
Missouri will play Rhode Island, DePaul, St. Louis, Iowa, Indiana and Illinois and also is in the Great Alaska Shootout. “I think it sets the bar high for us early on. It forces you to grow. Sometimes it’s painful,” MU coach Quin Snyder said.
Baylor coach Dave Bliss on the Bears: “We’d like to have a winning season. We’d like to have a run at postseason play. For us that might be the NIT. But that is what you have to have as a carrot to keep the program going.”
