PAGE 6
MONDAY,OCTOBER 31,2011
FROM PREVIEW ON PAGE 3
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Marcus Denmon
Oklahoma State was just one possession away from defeating the top-seed Kansas and advancing to the semifinals of the Big 12 tournament last March. In the end, the problem for the Cowboys was a lack of post players when Matt Pilgrim, Marshall Moses and Jared Shaw all fouled out in the second half. This year, the Cowboys will again be without those three post players, except now they must endure an entire season without them.
What Oklahoma State is lacking in the post it make up for on the wings. The only returning starter is 5-foot-9 senior Keaton Page, who will approach the mark of 200 3-point field goals made in his career at Oklahoma State. Sophomore Mark Brown also returns after recording the most blocks in a season by a Cowboy guard in school's history.
KEY PLAYER LOSSES:
Le' Bryan Nash
KEY NEWCOMERS:
Marshall Moses
Matt Pilgrim
A new addition to the Cowboys is the Big 12 Preseason Freshman of the Year Le'Bryan Nash. The 6-foot-7 McDonald's All American is the only big
12 player on the Wayman Tisdale Award watch list as a National Freshman of the Year candidate. Like 6-foot-6 junior Jean-Paul Olukemi, Nash can play as a guard or fowrward that is athletic and versatile.
Oklahoma State will need that versatility from its wing players with such a depleted group of post players. Coach Travis Ford will likely try a rotation of five guards at some point this season.
Missouri breaks in a new coach Frank Haith this year replacing Mike Anderson, who left to coach Arkansas.
Haith previously coached Miami (FL) where he posted a 129-101 record in seven years with the Hurricanes.
The Tigers were scheduled to return all five starters, but senior forward Laurence Bowers tore his ACL during a pick-up game on Oct. 3 that will force him to miss the entire season.
Bowers started 27 games averaging 11.6 points and 6.1 rebounds last season.
This leaves junior forward Ricardo Rattcliffe as the only experienced big man to stabilize Missouri's front court.
With Bowers injured, senior guard Kim English will step into the power forward position.
KEY PLAYER LOSSES:
Laurence Bowers
— Max Goodwin
The Tigers must rely heavily on their experienced guards to lead them back to the NCAA Tournament.
KEY NEWCOMERS:
None
Senior guards Marcus Denmon and Matt Pressey bring the most experience to the table. Both will see extended minutes in their final season in a Tiger uniform.
Look for guards junior Michael Dixon and sophomore Phil Presley to also be factors on both ends of the floor.
— Ryan McCarthy
Texas A&M was picked to share the Big 12 title with Kansas this year in the Big 12 coaches preseason poll. The Aggies are adjusting to new head coach Billy Kennedy, replacing Mark Turgeon, who departed for Maryland in May. Kennedy is coming from Murray State, where he led them to the Second Round of the NCAA tournament in 2010.
Kennedy is currently taking a medical leave of absence and is resting at home. In the meantime, assistant coach Glynn Cyprien has taking the reigns, but Kennedy is expected to return
but Kennedy is expected to return at some point this season.
The Aggies return three starters from last season's team, including Junior forward Khris Middleton, a unanimous preseason first team All-Big 12 selection. Middleton led the Aggies with 14.4 points per game and was second on the team with 5.2 rebounds per game.
KEY PLAYER LOSSES:
BJ Holmes
Nathan Walkup
Middleton is joined up front by
KEY NEWCOMERS:
Jamal Branch
6-foot-8 senior forward David Loubeau, who was the second leading scorer for the Aggies last season averaging 11.8 points and 5 rebounds per game.
The Aggies will make their much publicized move to the Southeastern Conference next season and their in-state rivals have expressed a lack of desire to put them on their non-conference schedule for the foreseeable future, so this could be a bit of a farewell tour for the Aggies through Big 12 country.
Ethan Padway
KEY PLAYER LOSSES:
Cade Davis
Nick Thompson
James Fraschina
Romero Osby
Sam Grooms
Casey Arent
Amath M'Baye
The Sooners hired Kansas graduate Lon Kruger to replace Jeff Capel as head coach on April 1, and have brought in freshman guard James Fraschilla from Dallas, Texas. The team returns four of its five starters from last year, only losing guard Dane Davis. The Sooners have high expectations for their team this year after adding four college transfer players and one walk-on freshman to their roster. Kruger brought two assistant head coaches from UNLV to Oklahoma, also director of basketball operations, Mike Shepherd. Chris Crutchfield will also serve as an assistant head coach after being at Oral Roberts for four seasons. The Sooners have a young team with only two seniors on the active roster.
— Lauren Drummond
Coach Frank Martin has a similar mindset as Bill Self: lose a player, have somebody else step up and take his place. That's going to be difficult for Martin to find this year as he lost Jacob Pullen and Curtis Kelly to graduation. Pullen averaged 20.2 points and 3.7 assists per game, while Kelly averaged 10.5 points and 5.5 rebound per game. Pullen put his team on his back in a Valentine's Day victory against Kansas that saw
valentines day victory against Kansas that saw fans rush the court — he scored 38 points in the 84-68 victory.
Martin will need junior guard Rodney McGruder and senior forward Jamar Samuel to step in as the key players. McGruder was second on the team scoring 11.1 points per game, but he will also need to be the vocal leader.
Martin doesn't take the preseason polls with much value,but the Wildcats were picked to finish sixth by the coaches. It seems to be reason-
KEY PLAYER LOSSES:
Jacob Pullen
Curtis Kelly
KEY NEWCOMERS:
KELLY COUMER
Adrian Diaz
Thomas Gipson
Jeremy Jones
Omari Lawrence
Angel Rodriguez
able for a team that has a lot of questions going into the season. Martin continued recruiting in South Florida by picking up freshmen center Adrian Diaz and guard Angel Rodriguez, both from the Miami area. However, this year's class was pretty weak overall.
Mike Lavieri
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