Hey guys, welcome back to another Big 12 Weekly Shootout. Friends Cody Goggin and Frank Fanelli already do weekly articles about ACC and Big Ten basketball, respectively, so I now am starting my own about Big 12 basketball. I will be recapping the previous week, as well as looking forward into the upcoming week. Look out for these on a weekly basis if you like Big 12 basketball, as well as listening to me and Frank’s national basketball podcast, Quadruple Double, coming out every Wednesday.

Misery of the Week: Well this one is pretty easy for me because I go to West Virginia in case y’all didn’t know. Last Monday, in basically the game of the week nationally, WVU was leading Kansas by 14 with under 3 minutes to go and it seemed like Bob Huggins and the Mountaineers had it under control after also beating Kansas by 16 earlier in the year. Bill Self got something to click with Kansas and they came roaring back. In those last 2.5-3 minutes Kansas made up for the entirety of the 14 with help from Josh Jackson, Frank Mason, and sharpshooter Devonte Graham. Kansas  forced overtime, where they dominated the Mountaineers. WVU had it close at the end until a dumb mistake (which i will mention later) cost WVU the chance to come back. Congrats to Kansas on basically clinching another Big 12 title.

Performance of the Week: For this week I went with Juwan Evans from Oklahoma State. On Saturday against Oklahoma he had 27 points, 9 assists and 4 rebounds, on almost 50% shooting from the field. I almost went with, from the same game, Oklahoma’s Rashard Odomes, who had 29 points 3 assists and 10 rebounds. The only reason I gave the nudge to Evans was because Olahoma State pulled out a tough 96-92 win over the Sooners, and, for this, game outcome is as important as individual statistics.

Game of the Week: This was a tough one between the tough overtime game between WVU and Kansas (WVU dominated for most of that game), or I could have went  with the double overtime game between WVU and Texas Tech (though WVU went 11 minutes without a FG).In the end I’m going with the Baylor vs Kansas game on Saturday. Baylor led for most of the game until Kansas took a 49-47 lead with 11 minutes left in the game. The rest of the game was one of runs. Kansas had an 11-0 run, followed by Baylor’s 9-0 stretch. I love to see a game full of runs because you can really see what’s happening as it’s happening and it’s fun the watch the game toss and turn. In the end, Kansas finished on an 8-0 run, of course, and pulled out a 67-65 win to further cement their standing in their 13th straight Big 12 title.

Game to Look Forward To: This week I went with a game that didn’t necessarily have  national implications but rather had conference implications. Wednesday at 9, Kansas State plays host to Oklahoma State. Neither are nationally ranked, but Oklahoma State holds a 1 game lead  in the conference standings over a couple teams, one of which is Kansas State. With Kansas State as the host, they have a vital opportunity to score a win and make up some ground in the standings to get a higher seed heading into the conference tourney, which should help with their tourney matchups. If Oklahoma State pulls off the win, they’d all but cement that 5th seed in the conference tourney with the only other team one game behind them is a lackluster TCU team.

Shoutout:  As I said  in my misery of  the week, I’d make a reference  back to the Kansas- West Virginia game later. Kansas and WVU were in overtime with 14 seconds left, WVU down by 4, with Kansas at the free throw line. The free throw shooter missed and as the rebound came off the rim, WVU senior, the hometown boy, Nathan Adrian took his eyes off the ball for a split second. The ball hit off of him and went straight out of bounds, giving the ball back to Kansas and throwing a way any chance West Virginia still had in this game. That missed rebound cost WVU their last chance to comeback and sealed the win for Bill Self and the Jayhawks.