Over the course of the conference season I begin to intuit things, perhaps wrongly, that "feel" true about the league. Here is a list. It makes little sense and is full of inconsistencies. You may in fact be spending your time more wisely by simply heading straight to the comments so you can opine on your own feelings, which is fine with me. There’s no judgment here.

If any of you feel like sullying yourself and leaving comments that attempt to dissuade me of my feelies, please be apprised that no amount of new information is going to disabuse me; trying to get me to talk sensibly about this is like engaging your uncle Ralph at the 4th of July cookout on humanity’s influence on global warming. He and I are taking this shit to the grave.

Actual Basketball Feelies

• Kansas gets more swipes on drives from off ball defenders without fouling than any other team in the league. I’m not sure if this is strategically coached or because they have better athletes or if something nefarious is afoot or what.
• Monte Morris, who is really good, isn’t as good as his A/TO ratio suggests (and Big 12 coaches agree btw). When you adjust for both pace and minutes played, Morris’ league-only total assists and scoring become significantly less impressive. ISU fans were upset at his first team "snub," but teams with two first teamers don’t flirt with .500 in league play.
• Tarik Phillip is my favorite bench player in the league.
• Jaysean Paige is my second.
• West Virginia’s press is fun and I don’t mind their pace of play.
• Cyclone defensive possessions are the ugliest basketball I watched all season.
• Coach of the Year should almost always go to the league champion.
• Bill Self probably cares a lot more about his 12 league titles than his 5 conference CoY awards.
• Texas Tech and Kansas were the only teams that clearly got better in February.
• Javan Felix has gotten more undue shit from Texas fans than any amateur athlete not named Blake Gideon or Dylan Haines: life is hard on light skinned dudes.
• A healthy Cam Ridley has Texas winning at least two more conference games.

Officiating Feelies

• Texas routinely failed to get home cooking on their court in league play. I don’t really have thoughts on why this may have been. Except that maybe sometimes refs become conscious of perceived home cooking and overcompensate.
• Prince Ibeh averaged an extra foul a game because he has the reputation of a fouler. Ibeh fouls a lot, but once a game he’d get a phantom call because refs expected him to foul because he is Prince Ibeh and has been fouling at a high clip for four years.
• The refs think Zay Taylor is a flopper. Zay gets a lot of contact that ends with him on the floor and no call. (I happen to think Zay is so much quicker than most of the guys he plays against that guys are frequently in poor position and Zay gets bumped in ways that are difficult to see clearly.)
• Refs are more often subject to simple human psychology than I am willing to admit during a game.

Feelies I Am Unequivocally Right About

• Bill Self’s head follicles look like an expensive facsimile of hair.
• Scott Drew has the face of an over fed mustelid; also, he’d look like a prototypical croupier if he had one of those translucent green visors.
• Travis Ford feels like Rick Barnes with less recruiting success and worse luck.
• Baylor fans are largely apathetic to their perennially ranked team and top half conference finishes.
• Bob Huggins can drink more than me.
• Lon Kruger has either a dentalized or lateral lisp (I can’t quite tell), which somehow makes him more compelling.
• Oklahoma still sucks.
• People like Baylor head coaches are the reason God doesn’t talk to us anymore.