Saturday morning coffee

Greetings from Oklahoma City and your traveling correspondent! Here are this Saturday's musings from the world of college and pro hoops.

- It was interesting to watch ESPN's College GameDay this morning and see the segment on the Baylor men's hoops program. The Bears are, indeed, a loose team as evidenced by their dunk contest in practice. But, as the GameDay hosts opined, perhaps they should have used that pre-Kansas game practice time to work on their defense.

- Last night's Oklahoma City Thunder game was not only a Kansas reunion but a Big 12 reunion as well. Cole Aldrich, Nick Collison and Brandon Rush all were on the floor, at the same time, in the game between the Thunder and Golden State Warriors. Other Big 12 alums who played were Kevin Durant (Texas), Royal Ivey (Texas) and Ekpe Udoh (Baylor.)

- Future first round draft pick Justin Blackmon, Oklahoma State, was in the crowd at the Thunder game last night.

- In the race for Player of the Year, I have to give the nod--naturally--to Thomas Robinson of Kansas. While Anthony Davis of Kentucky is a remarkable player and likely a number one pick in the NBA draft, he could be taken off of Kentucky's team and they'd still be a top ten team. If you take Robinson away from Kansas, they likely would miss the NCAA Tournament. Perhaps that should not make a difference but shouldn't a key criteria for Player of the Year be how valuable he is to his team?

- Durant had a stomach virus yesterday and almost did not play for Oklahoma City. He did play and went for 23 and 10--not too bad.

- Who has the best home winning percentage over the past four years in college hoops? Kansas is number one followed by arch-rival Missouri at number two. Duke follows at number three.

- Barry Tramel, a columnist for the Oklahoma City Oklahoman, wrote a piece about the Big 12 and opined that Louisville would be a good addition to the league, thus bridging the geography to new member West Virginia. West Virginia's athletics director, Oliver Luck, has stated that the Mountaineers feel very comfortable in the Big 12 and have a lot in common with land grant universities Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. However, he did acknowledge that it'll likely be hard for the school to sell its 3,850 tickets for road football games at locales like Manhattan, KS; Ames, IA; and Lubbock, TX.