Although Kansas State is the team with all the pre-season accolades, there isn’t huge gap between the Wildcats and the rest of the conference. KSU, Missouri, Kansas, Texas or Baylor seem almost equally capable of winning the Big 12, which makes it similar to the Big Ten in that respect… There’s still a lot that needs to be sorted out personnel-wise during the course of the season before we can determine the true contenders; will Josh Selby or Tony Mitchell become eligible for Kansas and Missouri, respectively, and what is Lacedarius Dunn’s status at Baylor?... After ripping lazy analysts for using the Star-Player Theorem with Penn State, I’m going to be a hypocrite and use it for Colorado. Much like PSU, the Buffaloes weren’t very good last year. Colorado actually brings back two star players in senior Cory Higgins and sophomore Alec Burks. There’s a few main differences though. First, Colorado won twice as many conference games as Penn State last season. Secondly, it’s reasonable to expect Burks to make even more strides, considering he’s just a sophomore. And, most importantly, Colorado has a new coach in Tad Boyle. He’s an enormous unknown after spending a brief time at Northern Colorado, but he’s at least bringing new energy into the program. That can’t be said about Ed DeChellis at Penn State… Texas Tech’s returning everyone from last year, but Pat Knight’s team simply fails to play good basketball consistently. Much has been made of the defensive issues under his regime, so I won’t get into that, but it’s obvious that something’s not working in Lubbock. Knight admitted that himself when he questioned his own job status this fall.

3. SEC