We're at the 1/3 mark and history looks to be repeating itself; Big 12 basketball comes down to Kansas and then everyone else fighting for 2nd place. Once again a Bill Self team is dominating efficiency with solid shooting and rebounding while avoiding the dumb losses. Meanwhile Hoiberg continues to find ways to lose on the road and it appears once again the Cyclones will struggle to surpass 4 true road wins on the season. 2nd through 8th is a logjam when you look at efficiency differential with no team better than +.03 and no worse than +.01 in that group.
Then you have oscar's surging Cats sitting in 2nd place at 5-2, despite only having a +.02 differential. Thanks to Nino, the Cats have become a solid 2PT% team with okay 2PT% defense while not being really good or really bad at anything, expect oscar's patented #assistketball. The Cats are also shooting fewer 3s than any other oscar coached team in major conference play (only 21% of shots in Big 12 games), but still finding ways to win games. Holding serve at home and winning a road game in Norman are huge for this team, now we'll have to see if that continues. If the Cats can manage 3 Big 12 road wins and hold serve at home (they could probably even afford a single home loss to KU or ISU), then they will be squarely in the NCAA conversation when March rolls around.