Times are changing

One underlying theme dominated the Big 12 Men’s basketball media day in Kansas City, Mo., on Wednesday: Change. The 2007 Big 12 player of the year, Texas’ Kevin Durant, is gone. So are Texas A&M’s Acie Law and Kansas’ Julian Wright. All three are toiling as rookies in the NBA. The Big 12’s longest tenured head coach used to be Colorado’s Ricardo Patton. Not anymore. Jeff Bzdelik. former Air Force coach, replaced him. That’s just one of three head coaching changes. Former Kansas player and Wichita State coach Mark Turgeon replaced Billy Gillispie at Texas A&M, and former Kansas State assistant coach Frank Martin has turned Manhattan from Huggieville to Martinville by replacing Bob Huggins, who left for West Virginia.

Some things stay the same

Many big-name coaches and star players return, including Texas coach Rick Barnes and his star sophomore guard, D.J. Augustin, who was named Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year by the coaches.

Kansas going small

With Brandon Rush still recovering from a torn ACL, Bill Self said he expected to sometimes use senior Roderick Stewart as a small forward. Self also mentioned sophomore Brady Morningstar and senior Jeremy Case would also see more playing time. But Self didn’t hesitate when asked whether he would play his three smaller guards – sophomore Sherron Collins, junior Mario Chalmers, and senior Russell Robinson – at the same time.

“We just put three guys out there that are guards, and two guys out there that are not guards, and basically have at it,” Self said. “The key thing is you got to have one of them that’s a good rebounder and can defend the other team’s three-man, and Russell can do that. He’s tough enough, he can do that.”

Knight Speak

Not surprisingly, Texas Tech coach Bob Knight provided the funniest moments of the day. Knight spent the greater part of his 10 minutes in front of the media discussing the American League Championship Series, the Breeders Cup, and whether Tony LaRussa could end up managing the Kansas City Royals. Here are a few precious Knight gems:

Asked about whether the Cleveland Indians could beat the Colorado Rockies in a potential World Series match-up, Knight said, “If I knew whether the Indians could beat the Rockies or not, George Bush would be asking me, ‘How the hell do you get out of Iraq right now?’”

And on whether LaRussa could end up managing the Royals in 2008, Knight says,“I think that what LaRussa does I think will depend on what he thinks would be the best situation for him to have a team that can contend, which might leave the Royals out.”

Longhorns moving on

Texas understands that you can’t replace a once-in-a-lifetime talent like Kevin Durant, but junior A.J. Abrams is getting a little tired of the “How are you going to live without Durant?” questions.

“We’re kind of getting sick of it, but we know he was a big part of our team last year.” Abrams said. “But we know we got guys coming back, and guys coming in this year as freshmen to help us replace him.”

Abrams and Augustin are the two main reason Longhorn fans won’t worry too much. Abrams averaged 15.5 points per game last season, while Augustin chipped in 14.4 points per game. Texas also returns sophomore Damion James. Abrams said that James, who scored 7.6 points per game last season, would take on some of the scoring load that Durant shouldered last season.

Missouri goes to work

Second-year coach Mike Anderson’s Missouri team returns nearly everybody from a team that finished 18-12 and 7-9 in the Big 12. So that’s a positive for Anderson – sort of.

“We have a lot of guys returning,” he said. “That’s good, and bad, because it’s the same guys from last year, but at the same time hopefully they have become better basketball players.”