While Kansas, K-State, and Texas are fighting it out atop the conference standings, there’s another interesting battle brewing for that fourth and final first-round bye in the post-season tournament. While Baylor’s early play made it seem they could be the frontrunners for the 4-seed, losses in six of their last seven games have made the picture a little more murky for Scott Drew’s bunch.

Now, a look ahead at the next games for the top teams in the league…

Kansas Jayhawks, 9-2
This week: at Oklahoma State (Sat)
The Jayhawks get a long week to rest and a cupcake of an opponent to feast on this weekend. Only one team from the Big 12 South has ever won in Allen Fieldhouse, and I wouldn’t put money on Sean Sutton to win a second-consecutive road game. Kansas essentially gets a full-speed practice in preparation for a battle the following weekend with K-State.

Texas Longhorns, 9-2
This week: vs. Oklahoma (Sat)
Texas took care of business against the Sooners in Norman and are playing some incredibly impressive basketball at the moment. Without Longar Longar, OU could find itself in some trouble come Saturday afternoon.

Kansas State Wildcats, 9-2
This week: at Nebraska (Wed), at Baylor (Sat)
The roadie with Baylor this weekend could be a trap game, with the Wildcats potentially looking ahead to its next two with Texas and Kansas. Add to that the fact that the Bears desperately need some résumé-building upsets to offset their recent slide, and the Ferrell Center could be a very dangerous place for Beasley’s Bunch.

Texas A&M Aggies, 6-5
This week: vs. Nebraska (Sat)
After dropping two straight games, the Aggies have a chance to get well against Big Red at home. The tussle with the Cornhuskers is the most winnable contest that A&M has left, so they’ve got to get things clicking early in front of the Reed fans, who are becoming restless as of late.

Oklahoma Sooners, 6-5
This week: at Texas (Sat)
The last two Sooner wins came on insane three-pointers (and a foul), but they’ll have to work extremely hard to keep the momentum going in Austin on Saturday. As mentioned earlier, the loss of Longar to a stress fracture makes an already-thin Sooner frontcourt look like Kate Moss, so they can’t afford foul trouble on the road.

Baylor Bears, 5-6
This week: vs. Kansas State (Sat)
If Baylor is going to stop the bleeding, they’ve got to do it against the ‘Cats. A loss drops them even further out of contention for the first-round bye, and is one of only two remaining chances for a marquee win. (The other comes against A&M in the last week of the season.) If Baylor loses this one, fans might want to start printing up those green-and-gold NIT shirts.

#13 Connecticut 65, DePaul 60 – The Huskies nearly fell asleep on the job against the streaky Blue Demons, but put on a late run to dig out of a 13-point hole. Hasheem Thabeet was thisclose to a triple-double in the ballgame, scoring 16 points, grabbing 13 boards, and blocking a ridiculous eight shots. It was the 10th-consecutive win for UConn, who pulled within a half-game of Big East leaders Georgetown and Louisville.

#14 Indiana 77, #15 Purdue 68 – It may have been the last game at the helm for a beleaguered Kelvin Sampson, but the Hoosiers came up with a second-consecutive home win over the best that the Big 10 has to offer. Assembly Hall was absolutely rocking for the rekindling of this time-tested rivalry, and the Hoosier faithful were treated to a yeoman’s effort from senior D.J. White, who posted a sick 19/15 line with an injured knee. The win pushes IU into a three-way tie with both the Boilermakers and Wisconsin atop the league standings.

Bradley 72, #18 Drake 71 – Jeremy Crouch’s jumper put Bradley ahead with 11 seconds to go, and the Braves withstood three last-gasp shots from the homestanding Bulldogs to escape Des Moines with a huge road win. Perhaps Drake was looking ahead to this weekend’s Bracket Busters match-up with Butler, or maybe this was a letdown game after clinching the league title on Saturday. But the uncomfortable fact is that this the second loss in only eight days for the Bulldogs, who had dropped only one of their first 23 games. Should fans start to worry?

Oklahoma 92, Baylor 91 (OT) – For the second-straight game, the Sooners needed an improbable play from behind the arc to stun their opponents. But on a night filled with a bunch of crazy moments, it really didn’t seem that surprising. Tony Crocker was fouled by Aaron Bruce on a made three-pointer with only 7.3 seconds left in overtime, and the ensuing free throw put the Sooners up by a point. But Curtis Jerrells got to the line for Baylor with just over a second remaining…and missed both attempts. A Kevin Rogers putback was no good at the buzzer, and OU earned their third-straight win heading into the game with Texas on Saturday.

Texas travels to Waco today, riding high after the home-court upset of Kansas on Monday night. The win was the fourth-straight for the Longhorns and their seventh victory in the last eight games. Texas also has a much longer streak hanging in the balance tonight, as they have won all 21 games against Baylor since Rick Barnes arrived in Austin for the 1998-99 season.

For an in-depth look at the Baylor players, you can re-read the game preview from the February 2nd match-up between these two teams, a game which Texas won by an 80-72 count. That loss was the start of a rough February for the Bears, who have since lost two of three. The ensuing game was an 80-72 home victory for Baylor over Texas Tech in Pat Knight’s first game as head coach. But since then, the Bears have dropped a pair of road games against Kansas and Oklahoma State, and are more than ready to return to the friendly confines of the Ferrell Center.

Just a week ago, there was a clear dividing line in the conference standings, with five teams lumped at the top and the other seven teams wallowing in mediocrity. But with Baylor’s recent dive, they now find themselves caught firmly between the two groups, and a loss today could drop them into the muddled middle of the conference.

It’s a “Gold Out” today in the sold-out Ferrell Center, so if you don’t have tickets you’ll probably want to plop down in front of the television. This ought to be another great match-up of two solid backcourts, and it’s one you won’t want to miss.

The first twelve minutes of Saturday’s game with the Baylor Bears felt all too familiar for Longhorn fans. Spurred by a hot 4-of-6 start from three-point range, the visitors had jumped out to a daunting 31-17 lead with eight minutes left in the first half. The team looked flat and the arena was dead — if you could manage to ignore the vocal Bear contingent in the upper deck that had bused down I-35 for this Big 12 showdown.

But unlike the debacle on Wednesday, Texas fought back with smart play. There weren’t defensive lapses to kill the comeback push, and there was a welcome lack of momentum-quashing technical and flagrant fouls. The Longhorns used some hot shooting of their own the rest of the way, while holding the Baylor sharpshooters to just 4-of-19 from behind the arc from that point on.

When all was said and done, the Bears had put a scare into the Longhorns for a fourth-straight time. But a much longer streak was still intact, a 21-game string of victories over the Bears dating back to 1998. This Baylor team is good enough to exorcise that demon on February 16th in Waco, but for now the Texas dominance continues.

Rick Barnes didn’t live up to his promise of keeping Damion James out of this one, but did keep him out of the starting lineup. Dexter Pittman earned the starting nod, and played hard-nosed basketball down low before picking up a pair of quick fouls and sitting the rest of the way. The message seemed to be received by James though, as he scored 17 to go along with eight rebounds in his 34 minutes on the court.

Point guard D.J. Augustin had a quiet scoring night, but played a very smart game. He was often turned back by the Baylor posts on drives to the bucket, but was smart enough to pull it back out and reset. Many times this season, Augustin would have pressed on in those situations and had a shot blocked or just turned it over. But in this game, he played much more like a floor general. He attacked the rim and drew fouls when he could, and he dished out seven assists when he couldn’t create on his own.

Justin Mason was tasked with running the point on a few possessions, even some where Augustin was on the floor. It was a new look for the Horns, and it actually seemed to work. It seems like this might be more exhausting for D.J. as he works to get open, but it was reassuring to see Mason handle the ball and finish with only two turnovers in the game. He also made a huge hustle play during a Longhorn run where he sprawled out on the floor to corral a loose ball and call the timeout. It got the crowd fired up, and it kept Baylor from stopping the Texas momentum.

During the initial spurt by Baylor, A.J. Abrams was about the only person performing for the Horns. He hit runners, he hit floaters, and he fueled the offense with 4-of-8 shooting from behind the arc on the night. His 20 points led the way for Texas, and he hit four clutch free throws, including a pair after a technical on Baylor coach Scott Drew.

The re-emergence of Connor Atchley continued, as the lanky forward hit 2-of-4 from long range and grabbed seven boards — six of them on the offensive glass. For a Texas team that is second in the Big 12 in offensive rebounding, Atchley plays a huge role. He keeps possessions going after some of the ill-advised shots that the guards occasionally throw up, and gets a few easy putbacks in the paint as well.

Atchley’s 14 points marks only the second time since the Oral Roberts game that he has reached double digits in scoring. Over that stretch, the Longhorns went 6-4, winning both of his 10+ point games. Clearly he is a key part of the offense, so one can only hope that this performance carries over to a tough test against a solid Oklahoma frontcourt on Wednesday.

Perhaps the biggest story of the night, however, was a solid outing from Gary Johnson. Apart from a good game against St. Mary’s, Johnson has struggled with his baptism by fire in the Big 12. He’s often appeared lost on defense, been out of position on rebounds, missed a ton of bunnies, and was abysmal at the line. Against Baylor, he attacked the bucket, drew fouls, and finished with a great 12/7 line. He even improved his free throw shooting, going 6-of-10 from the charity stripe after starting the year with a painful 4-of-16. Like Atchley, Gary is going to be needed down low on Wednesday night, and we hope that this is a sign of things to come for the affable freshman.

Clint Chapman was the only other Horn to play, as Coach Barnes used his shortest bench of the year. Chapman didn’t make a huge impact in the contest, seeing the court for only seven minutes to give some of the other bigs a breather. While he didn’t steal the spotlight, his role was important with Alexis Wangmene serving an unofficial suspension for his elbow against Texas A&M. Chapman was needed to simply eat up some minutes without making mistakes, and he was able to do that.

Texas certainly needs to work on sticking shooters a little tighter coming out of the gates, but we’ll leave the bitching for another day and just enjoy the victory while we can. It was reassuring to see the Longhorns battle through after taking it hard on the chin to start the game, and it was also great to see them bounce back from a 52% night at the line in College Station.

With the exception of next Saturday’s game against Iowa State, the rest of the month is going to be an absolute nightmare for the Horns, so every win is huge. This puts them in third place in the Big 12 with a chance on Wednesday to knock off one of the competitors nipping at their heels.

Texas returns home after a lopsided mid-week road loss to Texas A&M, hoping to rebound against Baylor this afternoon. In previous years, that would be just what the doctor ordered — beat up on the Bears, pad the stats, and move on to another conference test. But not any longer. This Baylor team is one of the league’s best and is the first one in school history to play Texas with a national ranking in hand.

Evidence of Scott Drew’s turnaround on the Waco campus could be seen last season, as Baylor took Texas down to the wire in all three games last season. That included a near-upset in the Big 12 Tournament where the Bears built a 20-point lead in the second half, but were overcome by the heroics of Kevin Durant and Craig Winder. This year, close enough isn’t good enough for Baylor, and they want to announce their legitimacy with a huge road win in Austin.

By the numbers

Baylor is a very solid team on both sides of the ball, with both offense and defense better on the perimeter. The Bears have an adjusted offensive efficiency of 112.3, while holding opponents to 93.4 points per 100 possessions. Baylor finds a lot of success in both departments by forcing turnovers and pushing the break, as 25% of their offense this season comes off of the transition game, according to Coach Drew.

On the other side of the ball, the Bears maintain great ball control with a turnover percentage (TO/possessions) that is 16th best in the entire nation. Scott Drew starts three solid guards and has two exciting younger ones that come off the bench, so forcing the issue will not be easy for the Texas defense.

Those guards are also great at guarding the three-point line, and they will make it difficult for D.J. Augustin and A.J. Abrams to get going from long range. Baylor can be absolutely abused inside, though, as Oklahoma proved in their win on Saturday. The Sooner post play was so troublesome that the Bears switched to a 2-3 zone to stop the bleeding, so if Texas can establish inside play perhaps they can open up their outside shooters this way.

The starters

Austin native Curtis Jerrells is the team’s leading scorer and one of the three excellent guards for the Bears. He’s started all 19 games for Baylor this season and averages 14.4 points per game. As is the case with all of the BU backcourt players, he’s quick with the ball, has great handles, and can attack the rim off the bounce. He’s a pretty good shooter from long range, too, but is overshadowed by some even better sharpshooters on the roster.

Aaron Bruce is benefiting from a more balanced Baylor attack this year. Without having to carry the entire team on his back, he has exhibited better shot selection and become an even more efficient scorer. He only plays 25 minutes a game this year, leaving him with fresh legs late in the games. He’s the best three-point shooting starter for the Bears, knocking them down at a scary 42.4% clip.

The other starting guard for Coach Drew is Henry Dugat, who is averaging 12.1 points per game coming into this one. Like Jerrells and Bruce, Dugat can attack the paint and score, or shoot it in your eye from behind the arc, where he’s hitting at 37% on the year.

The key big man down low is Kevin Rogers, and he is picking up the trash for Baylor in the paint. He’s the team’s leading scorer and seems to quietly rack up his points each game on putbacks and tip-ins. The Bears don’t have a ton off assists on the books, but the ones they often record come after one of the guards draws a collapsing defense in the lane and leaves the bigs wide open down low under the rim.

Josh Lomers is improving in his second season on the Brazos, but he still looks a bit raw. He reminds me a lot of Connor Atchley in his first two years, in that the kid clearly has potential but isn’t fully realizing it yet. Lomers was an absolute stud back at Boerne High, but the post players in high-level D1 basketball are a far cry from the poor kids he was abusing back in mid-level UIL play.

Off the bench

Tweety Carter is the smallest guy on the court for Baylor, and possibly the fastest. He can knock it down from anywhere, and was the leading all-time scorer in Louisiana high school history. His three-point percentage is a sky-high 43.3%, but teams that play up in his jersey will find him blowing by for an easy layup.

The other solid guard off the bench is freshman LaceDarius Dunn, another long-range dead-eye who is also a 43.3% shooter behind the arc. I know it sounds like a broken record, but Dunn is another quick one who is going to cause problems for the tired Texas guards when he comes in well-rested off the bench.

Delbert Simpson and Mamadou Diene are key reserves in the Baylor frontcourt, with walk-on Mark Shepherd earning some minutes as well. All three are still pretty unrefined, although Diene’s post defense can change the flow of a game. He’s a really long kid down under the rim, and he loves to block shots with authority. Offensively, he’s not much to write home about, but if Texas doesn’t stay on the boards, he’s going to get some garbage buckets.

Shepherd does all the little things right, much like former high school teammate Ian Mooney. He moves well without the ball, sets good screens, and hustles all over the place. He only averages two points a game, and if you see him shoot, you’ll understand why. But he’s something of a glue guy when the starters need a breather, and he’s fundamentally sound.

Simpson, a JuCo transfer, has really soft hands in the paint but often seems a little too excited with the ball. He’ll force shots that aren’t there instead of looking for the open man, and sometimes shuffles his feet in his rush to get the ball off. If Texas emphasizes the post game for a third-straight contest, he’ll likely be relied on for minutes when the Baylor bigs get into foul trouble.

What to look for

The key in this one is going to be limiting the Baylor three-pointers. For a Texas team who doesn’t like to guard the perimeter with any consistency, this will be a tall order. The Bears can quickly take the home crowd out of it with a long-range barrage, and they have made a ton of runs from deep deficits this year simply by riding the three-ball. Texas cannot afford to give up open looks downtown, and need to force Rogers and Diene to beat them down low.

For Texas, they need to try to expose the weakness inside for Baylor. Dexter Pittman should get a bunch of minutes again and needs to be fed the ball to take advantage of the Bears’ post D. If Rick Barnes doesn’t follow through on his threats to bench Damion James, DaMo will need to crash the glass and give another double-double performance.

And finally, if this game is close, Texas needs to improve from the line. The Bears lead the Big 12 from the line, hitting 73% of their attempts at the charity stripe. As has been well documented, the Horns haven’t been able to consistently hit free throws since early December. If the game is decided by a few points, this free throw disparity could unfortunately give the edge to the Bears. And when you consider that all three of the Baylor losses have been by seven points or less, the chances are good for another close one today.

As of 5 P.M. yesterday, there were still 1,000 tickets left for this one. I suspect that walk-up crowds will make it a sell-out, but if you’re thinking of catching the game, please come down to the Drum. If you happen to stay home, check out the affiliate list that’s linked at the top of this post to see which of your local networks will be carrying this ESPN+ telecast.