A lot of losses for the top teams in the country last week, giving blogpollers the unenviable task of deciding which defeats were most damaging. What is the value of a road loss when compared to a home loss against another ranked opponent? Do you favor the overall profile when you vote, or do you give more weight to recent results? The balloting process was certainly much more interesting at the top this time around, with the different voting philosophies evident in the individual rankings. Here’s this week’s poll with my comments, and as always you can review everyone’s ballot here.

As a reminder, all ballots were cast following Monday night’s action, meaning that Purdue’s win over Michigan State did not factor into the rankings.

This week’s blogpoll consisted of votes from March to Madness, March Madness All Season, Rush the Court, A Sea of Blue, Tar Heel Mania, Storming the Floor, Vegas Watch, Super, Scintillating, and Sarcastic, George Mason Basketball, College Hoops Journal, Gopher Nation, Bryce’s Brackets and Observations, Making the Dance, Bizzaro Joe Lunardi, and yours truly. Six bloggers absented from this week’s vote.

There weren’t many outliers on my ballot this week, with the biggest variance between my rankings and the consensus coming with Washington State, K-State, and Purdue. In retrospect, I have the Cougs too high as a result of trying not to penalize them for “good” losses. But in reality, their résumé is rather lacking in the quality win department, so they’ve really got to prove things down the stretch against Zona and the Cardinal.

And while K-State has solid wins over A&M and Kansas on their home floor, the overall body of work is a bit sketchy. The main problem, though, is that this description could fit a ton of teams between 15 and 35. Of course, the Wildcats are in the middle of laying a huge egg in Lubbock as I write this, so it looks like their up-and-down year may continue.

Purdue also has some really questionable losses early in the year, but their win over Sparty last night will certainly propel them up the ranks in next week’s vote. While the talk has been about MSU, ‘Scon, and Indiana all year, the Big 10 could very easily be won by the Boilermakers. It ought to be quite the interesting stretch run.

Not a whole lot of time for the preview today, but suffice it to say that Texas has its work cut out for it tonight against Kansas. The Jayhawks run ten deep, and practically every one of those players could start for any D-1 school in the country. The biggest changes between this year’s team and last year’s squad are the improved play of Sasha Kaun and Darnell Jackson. The added threat provided by these two down low means that defenses can no longer key on Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur, Brandon Rush, and Sherron Collins. The Texas defense is going to have a tough time guarding all of the scoring threats on the Kansas roster.

If you are looking for a way to beat Kansas, there isn’t much data to draw on. With only one loss — on the road to Kansas State — the Jayhawks have often seemed flawless. But Kansas also struggled with Colorado and against Arizona, so with the help of Ken Pomeroy we can look for the common thread. According to Pomeroy’s metrics, their opponents effective FG% was above 50% in all three of those games. The eFG% measure gives added weight to three-point shots, and that seems to be a good strategy against the high-pressure, turnover-forcing D of the Jayhawks. In the games against K-State, Colorado, and Arizona, the Jayhawks gave up 31 three-pointers. Even against Baylor on Saturday, Kansas allowed 12-of-29 shooting from behind the arc. While Texas will certainly need big games from its role players in this one, the Horns will have their best shot if they are knocking down the trifectas.

Andrew from Burnt Orange Nation pointed out in his Iowa State wrap that Texas bench play is going to be huge today. Kansas is a much deeper squad, and this is only their second game since last Monday’s win over Missouri. The Longhorns had to make two tough road trips and played an extra five minutes against ISU on Saturday. The guards are definitely going to get tired in this one, so they need to slow down the tempo and not play into the Jayhawks’ game plan.

That’s about all I’ve got time for now, as the power source outside the Erwin Center is turned off today and the battery on the laptop is running low. For a great pre-game, check out another post from Andrew previewing the match-ups. Tip is at roughly 8 PM on ESPN, which will be airing the game in beautiful hi-def. See you back here tomorrow morning for the post-mortem.

Back in Austin, alive and generally in one piece. Going to press right on with the remaining Kansas tape, as work is only a few hours away. I’m hoping to get the Monday Fast Break and KU preview written before I start my shift, but if not I will finish it up in the afternoon while waiting in line at the Erwin Center.

As is usually the case with road games, the wrap will have to get pushed back. Hopefully on Tuesday I’ll get a chance to quickly hit the highs and lows from the OU and ISU road wins, and then use the rest of the long week to get things organized around here.

For now, check out the folks at Phog Blog for some Jayhawk flavor.

On Wednesday, Texas started off its brutal three-week march of death on the right foot, winning a road game in Norman. Today they face a team that doesn’t look to be threatening based solely on record, but the truth is that the Iowa State Cyclones can be a dangerous ball club. And even when you look past the teams themselves and just examine the history, you find that the Longhorns are only 2-5 all-time in Hilton Coliseum, a gym that can be incredibly loud and unnerving when ‘Clone fans fill it up.

This is something of a “must-win” for the Horns, as that death march gets only tougher from here. The next five games for Texas are against teams all ranked 38th or better according to Ken Pomeroy’s RPI approximations. And while Iowa State has won all three home games in Big 12 play, this is the most winnable game over the next three weeks for Texas.

By the numbers

The Cyclones’ offense is fairly anemic, but their defense is solid enough that they can grind out wins without scoring many points. That defense has been even better at home for Iowa State, as they’ve held opponents to only 58 points per game in conference play. For comparison, they’ve allowed 76 points per game on the road in conference games, although that stat is still a little inflated as two of the three teams included were Kansas and Kansas State.

Iowa State also plays really good defense without letting its opponents get to the line. On the season, they have taken 424 shots from the charity stripe, yet only sent opponents there 348 times. According to Pomeroy, their defensive free-throw rate (FT attempts/FG attempts) is 15th-best in all of NCAA basketball. While this would seem to be a good thing for a Texas team that shoots poorly from the line, it also means that a huge part of D.J. Augustin‘s game will be missing from his repertoire. If he can’t drive to the rim and draw fouls, the defense could be less-inclined to help, limiting the number of open looks that D.J. can dish for.

Texas fans can expect a slow, grind-it-out game from the Cyclones. Their tempo is ranked in the bottom-third of NCAA D-1 schools, which allows them to keep the score low enough to steal victories. With the number of possessions limited, Texas cannot afford to jack up ill-advised shots early in possessions, and they absolutely must crash the offensive glass. If Iowa State can somehow keep the Longhorn offense within the 60-point range, they could have a shot today.

The starters

The key to the Iowa State offense is guard Wesley Johnson, a Texas kid who got away. He leads the team in scoring with 13.9 points per game, and the Cyclones often look like they’ve forgotten how to score when he’s not out there. He missed the beginning of the season with a foot injury and then re-aggravated it in the victory over Colorado, causing him to miss the game against Nebraska earlier this week. The Cyclones sputtered with Johnson in street clothes, and struggled even more when big man Jiri Hubalek was also on the bench.

Johnson is a difficult match-up for Texas, because he’s an off-guard who is 6-foot, 7-inches. Yes, you read that right. He’s got a full eight inches on the Longhorns’ own 2-guard, A.J. Abrams, meaning that Damion James will likely be tasked with guarding the prolific scorer. But when James is on the bench, other Longhorns will have a tough time with him. Gary Johnson gives up an inch or two, while Clint Chapman, Alexis Wangmene, or Connor Atchley aren’t agile enough to keep up with Johnson. Wes is going to get his points in this game, but it’s a question of how well the Longhorns can shut down the other role players for Iowa State.

The other key to Iowa State’s unsteady offense is the aforementioned Jiri Hubalek. He’s a big man from the Czech Republic who can give ‘Clone fans heart attacks. While he gets his points down low, he often fumbles the pass or rebounds, and sometimes misses point-blank shots that he has no business missing. He’s fitting in more comfortably with Coach McDermott’s system now, although early clashes with the new coach nearly led to Hubalek quitting after Wayne Morgan’s departure. Hubalek will definitely score in the paint, but the Texas bigs have faced much tougher competition down low, and they should fare well against him.

The player I’m most excited to see today is freshman Craig Brackins. He can do a little bit of everything, as he’s lethal from long range, can attack off the dribble, and has the body to play down low when he feels like it. If the Cyclones do happen to pull off an upset in this one, it could be Brackins getting hot from outside that makes the difference. Although he still needs some work, the biggest knock on his game is that at 6-10, he hangs out too far from the paint. His team is getting out-rebounded on the season, and they need his length inside. So far, he’s only grabbing five boards per game and that number really needs to go up for the ‘Clones to see more success.

The point guard for Coach McDermott is former hometown kid and former walk-on Bryan Peterson. He’s a good floor-general who doesn’t score very often, but he has a nice shot from outside when he takes it. On the season, he’s only 35.8% from behind the arc, but he is still not a guy you want to leave open. He’s not going to get the kinds of assists that Augustin racks up when driving to the lane, but Peterson keeps the offense running and is a really great story for announcers to talk about when their games are out of hand.

Rashon Clark is a senior forward for the Cyclones, and he’s a consistent, hard-nosed kid. He’s yet another Iowa State player who is really long, and is averaging nine points and five boards this year. Sometimes it seems like he doesn’t communicate as well on defense as the other Iowa State players, but his long arms make it easier for him to catch up from behind the play on the occasions when he gets out of position. He’s a quick slasher and has absolutely incredible hops, so if gets out in the open court, expect him to bring the house down with a monster jam.

Off the bench

Although Brackins is the freshman who starts for Iowa State, Diante Garrett is the point guard of the future in Ames. He’s got a ton of talent, but still needs to develop his body and his game for the college level. I have a feeling that in future years, fans of Texas and other Big 12 schools are going to be frustrated quite a few times by the Garrett/Brackins combo. For now, he’s earning a nice chunk of minutes and learning on the job. He doesn’t score often because his shooting percentage is always dipping towards the Mendoza line, but he’s got good basketball IQ and commands the floor when he’s in there.

The most important guy off the bench could be Alex Thompson, though. He’s another 6’10” forward, but he’s an absolute presence on defense. He’s been playing pretty well in conference games, but really showcased what kind of a game he could have with significant minutes when the Cyclones faced Oregon State. Yes, I realize that the Beavers are abysmal, but Thompson shot 55% from the field and had a 12/5 line in his 30 minutes on the court. Like Brackins, he should really rebound better for a guy his size, but when he’s in the game he definitely makes opponents think twice about driving the lane.

Sean Haluska eats some minutes at the guard position, but he’s more famous for having a talented brother than for anything he’s done thus far in Ames. Other than that, Coach McDermott throws in a few minutes here and there for the rest of his bloated bench, but none make any contributions of note.

What to look for

Texas is going to have a tough time getting fast breaks going against the ‘Clones. Their transition D is solid, as the team gets back in a hurry to not only cut off the fast break, but get set up in position to prevent a secondary break, as well. If Texas can force some turnovers, they should certainly try to grab the easy points, but should not force the issue if the Cyclones cut it off. As I previously mentioned, possessions will be limited in this one, so the Horns can’t throw away the extra ones by pressing too hard against a good transition D.

The resiliency that the Horns showed on Wednesday night in Norman will also be big here. Iowa State is a great defensive team, and Texas could start out shooting poorly once again as a result. They need to keep pressing on like they did against the Sooners, and eventually their talent should win out. The nice thing about Iowa State’s slow-down, grind-it-out game is that even if they grab a lead, the Longhorns should always be within striking distance. Over a forty-minute game, I like Texas’ odds to end up on top.

With the game being more of a half-court affair, will fans be treated to more time from Dexter Pittman? With Coach Barnes bringing Damion James off the bench in the last two, Pittman, Chapman, and Wangmene have seen more minutes. This could be a chance for Pittman to eat up some PT and chip in some points down low against the Cyclone frontcourt.

On a related note, will this mark the return of James to the starting lineup? Nobody else really matches up with Wes Johnson, so leaving him out there against a Longhorn defense without DaMo to start the game could prove costly. I’d like to see James back in the starting five and hassling Johnson for 36+ minutes. This also leads to the point that James cannot afford to get in foul trouble in this one.

For another look at the match-ups, check out the interview that CrossCyed of Clone Chronicles gave the good folks at Burnt Orange Nation today. CC is a quality blogger and knows this team very well, so be sure to give it a look.

While this one is on ABC, it’s a split-national telecast with the Washington State/USC tilt airing at the same time. Check your local listings to see if its on in your area. If it’s not, you can check it out on ESPN360.com, although I’ve never messed with that and can’t really tell you how it works.

I may try to head all the way back to Austin tonight, so the post-game might take a while in coming. If I happen to stop somewhere for the night, I’ll try to tap it out then. Otherwise, look for new content on Sunday evening.

Getting a little later start this morning than I’d anticipated, but I guess I needed to stock up on the sleep before the long drive. If I’m not completely exhausted when I get to Des Moines late tonight, I’ll try to wrap up the OU win. But even if I pass out before I get to that, check back Saturday morning for the Cyclone preview.

Checking in on this week’s new power rankings, Texas climbed five spots in ESPN’s poll, moving from narrowly unranked last week to the 12 slot this week. Meanwhile, Luke Winn found the Horns unworthy of a poll position. He’s got the Horns sitting at “17th,” claiming that a win over Kansas on Monday would move them into the top 10. You think?

I wanted to link this article for the UNC/Duke game, but the whole trip-to-Norman thing got in the way. As much as I loved the V-Tech students chanting “Eat shit, Paulus” a few weeks back, the folks over at Super, Scintillating, and Sarcastic have a pretty good take on why even Duke haters should snap for Paulus. And, you know…as long as the Blue Devils aren’t the 1-seed in a Texas bracket, perhaps I won’t root so fervently against them this year.

Anybody familiar with Ames or Des Moines? Got any places around there I should check out tomorrow while I’m in town? Bonus points for recommendations on the ISU campus, and points off for any suggestions involving corn.