It’s a mess of sleet, ice, and snow outside as the Big 12 Championships roll into the second day of action. Although temperatures are expected to be back in the 70’s within a week, Mother Nature decided that folks traveling to OKC for the tournament would just love a three-day visit from some bitterly cold weather. So rather than going out in this last gasp of winter that has gripped the city, we’ll take a look back at all of yesterday’s action from the Ford Center.

[11] Texas Tech 88, [6] Texas A&M 83

The best game of the day was certainly the last one, although it seemed like the nightcap between Texas A&M and Texas Tech was well on its way to being the worst of the four first-round match-ups. In fact, when we finally threw in the towel at halftime and hit the exits, the Aggies led by 19 points, and there were no more than 1,500 hardy fans remaining in the seats. But those who stuck around were treated to the single most-impressive performance in the history of the Big 12 tourney.

Mike Singletary — a forward whose role all season long was simply that of an effective sixth man — scored 35 points in the second half, including 29 straight for Texas Tech, and led the Red Raiders back from a 22-point deficit to steal the win. Oddly enough, we were joking midway through the first half that Singletary was Tech’s entire offense. At the time, his four points were all that Tech had mustered in the first seven minutes of the game. Who knew how accurate our wisecracks would actually be?

[9] Baylor 65, [8] Nebraska 49

While Nebraska’s four-guard sets have sometimes made it difficult to rebound against bigger teams, it seemed that a match-up with the similarly guard-oriented Baylor Bears might hide that weakness for Coach Doc Sadler and the Cornhuskers. That was anything but true in this one, as the Bears outrebounded Nebraska by a ridiculous 43-18 margin. Perhaps even more impressive is the fact that Kevin Rogers grabbed more boards than Nebraska all by himself. Rogers posted a double-double with 20 rebounds and ten points.

It’s also notable that this game started the day off with three technical fouls. There were three more in later action, and an additional warning on the Oklahoma State bench even after they had already been tagged with a T. Despite the temperatures outside, it was quite heated inside the Ford Center.

[7] Oklahoma State 81, [10] Iowa State 67

Perhaps the most heated of all the action came in the prime-time game, featuring the Cowboys from OSU. The Pokes hail from Stillwater, just 66 miles NNE of the Ford Center, and the arena was packed to the gills with folks wearing road-cone orange. Craig Brackins took charge early for Iowa State, as he often does, and drew not only tons of whistles from the refs, but the ire of the OSU faithful as well. The fans grew more and more restless as the fouls piled up for Oklahoma State, while the Cyclones stayed foul-free.

With seven minutes left in the first half, the Pokes had seven team fouls to the zero for Iowa State, and some additional commentary from the OSU bench heading into the media timeout resulted in a technical foul. The irate crowd absolutely ate up the tactical maneuver from Coach Travis Ford, and when the Cyclones were finally whistled for their first infraction with only three minutes left in the first half, mock cheers rained down on the court and Ford slapped the scorers table so hard it could be heard from across the arena.

Interestingly enough, foul calls in the second half were much more even until Iowa State was forced to intentionally hack at the Pokes in the final minutes. It’s tough to tell if this was a result of Ford’s lobbying or of OSU’s newfound commitment to pounding the ball down to Marshall Moses in the paint, but the newfound whistle equity allowed the Cowboys to cruise to a first-round win.