FMCBCP: We’re Picking Big XII Winners

FMCBCP is a stupid acronym I just came up with.  When it’s not football season, we do a FWP (Fearless Weekend Predictions) post every Friday where one of us predicts what will transpire over the upcoming sports weekend.  Well, College Basketball is about to start so we needed to do FMCBCP (Fearless Men’s College Basketball Conference Predictions) to document all our picks for the 2008-09 season.  I wanted to do a post that would feature a comprehensive coverage of all the conferences together.  EDay then reminded me that might be a 25,000 word post.  Since most of our readers (and contributors for that matter) have the attention span of a three year-old monkey, we decided to break each down by conference.  We’re only doing major conferences, so don’t whine when you don’t see the MEAC being featured.  We’ll be picking conference winners, POYs, COYs, FOYs, biggest disappointments and number of tournament teams.  As always, this will be done in a way that only APIAS.net can.

Today, the Big XII…

Big XII Champion

Bru’s Pick: Oklahoma

TGC’s Pick: Oklahoma; this is the year the Sooners make it to the top with the likes of Texas and Kansas.  And destroy them.  Mwahhahaha.  Sorry.  Should be some good hoops on this year in the 10:00 time slot thanks to these 3 teams.  Which means good news for Winchell’s!

EDay’s Pick: Texas; I love teams that play 27 people.

Smoothron’s Pick: Oklahoma; Blake Griffin + Willie Warren + Jeff Capel – Kelvin Sampson’s taint stain on the program = Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Jump for more Big XII goodness.

Even APIAS.net can agree on Blake Griffin, so he must be good.

Big XII Player of the Year

Bru’s Pick: Blake Griffin

TGC’s Pick: Blake Griffin; Okay I succumb to the ’09 Mock Draft Board like everyone else, this kid is good.  I sure don’t see anyone in the Big XII stopping him.

EDay’s Pick: Blake Griffin; Though I’m not sure where that cat came from, strictly speaking of his lineage, he can ball.  ‘Nuff said.

Smoothron’s Pick: Blake Griffin; Back when I was winning money by gambling, I bet on Oklahoma about ten times last year solely based on Griffin.  I think I went 8-2 on OU last year.  He should win the award just based on that.

Big XII Coach of the Year

Bru’s Pick: Bill Self

TGC’s Pick: Jeff Capel; His legacy at VCU is still being felt, he’s in his third year with the Sooners, they have the best young talent in the league, and 28-30 wins isn’t out of the question.  Plus remember that 40 footer he hit against UNC in ’95?

EDay’s Pick: Billy Gillispie Scott Drew; He’s not winning any championships this year, but he’s going to keep the Bears on the attack.  Look out Colbert!

Smoothron’s Pick: Scott Drew; Just because it’s Baylor.  Have we, as a society, really grasped what happened in this program five years ago?  A basketball player was murdered in Waco, TX and it’s barely brought up, but three Duke lacrosse players might have raped someone and it was headline news for two years.  Sorry, soapbox… Scott Drew is good.

Big XII Freshman of the Year

Bru’s Pick: Willie Warren

TGC’s Pick: Willie Warren  Any questions:

EDay’s Pick: Tyshown Taylor; I think his parents were sitting in the hospital room with the nurse and the husband said, “I really like the name Sean, honey,” to which she replied, “Yes, that’s a good name, dea, but it’s not quite as flamboyant as I would like our son to be.  Let’s add Ty to the front and spell Sean differently.  How about T-Y-S-H-O-W-N?”  Husband, “Marvelous, darling, I knew there was a reason I keep you around!”  To which everyone has a hearty belly chuckle.

Smoothron’s Pick: Willie Warren; you saw the video, didn’t you?

Not enough to save CO.

Big XII Disappointment of the Year

Bru’s Pick: Texas A&M

TGC’s Pick: The Colorado Athletic Department.  I’ll be impressed if they can get 20 wins this year… across the board.

EDay’s Pick: Watching the joke of a team that K State will have post-Beasley and Walker.

Smoothron’s Pick: That more games in Boulder, CO aren’t televised.  I’m not trying to be a cynic, but I think it’s pretty well understood most some college athletes smoke marijuana.  Yeah, that’s all good and well until they have to go play ten miles above sea-level (just an estimated guess).  You will never see more guys coughing and begging for subs than in these games. 

Number of Big XII Teams in the NCAA Tournament

Bru’s Pick: 5; Kansas, Texas, Baylor, Oklahoma, OK State

TGC’s Pick: 6; Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Baylor, A&M and Travis Ford.

EDay’s Pick: 6; The number of teams that will make the tournament, no more and no less.

Smoothron’s Pick: 5; Oklahoma, Texas, Baylor, Missouri, Oklahoma State

That’s it for the Big XII, a conference which has been one of the more entertaining in the last couple years.  Jeff Capel is no doubt praying every night that Willie Warren can have half the impact that Durant and Beasley did as freshmen.  Kansas’ quest to repeat, programs trying to build themselves up and Oklahoma trying to get past Kelvin Sampson should be just a few of the storylines for the conference this year. 

Tomorrow, the Pac-10.