timing is not everything

-- Oklahoma soundly defeated Oklahoma State last night, affirming Kelvin Sampson's status as among college basketball's elite coaches -- despite a down year or two -- and (more or less) introducing Drew Lavender to the nation. Kevin Bookout and Taj Gray both played well, whereas OSU's John "garbage time" Lucas did not. With five minutes left in the first half, OSU was in danger of pulling a Washington State.

-- Stanford's Dan Grunfeld the nation's most improved player? He's scoring 18.6 a game after contributing only 3.9 last year.

-- Dirk Chatelain of the Omaha (NE) World-Press wonders how good is the Big 12? His answer? Not very good. But only because Chatelain puts too much stock in Kansas' loss to 'Nova, not enough hope in Oklahoma's return to glory, and demonstrates precious little respect for either Oklahoma State's or Texas A&M's March potential.

-- Great! Now, instead of not watching Mountain West Conference basketball games at midnight on ESPN, I can not watch them at 10 PM on CSTV.

-- Now that I reside in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area rather than the greater Boston metropolitan area, what can you expect? More from the Post (e.g. here and here) and less from the Globe (e.g. here). Ivan Carter of the Washington Post fails to give his home-town squad a little respect, arguing the Colonials are unlikely to receive an NCAA Tournament bid without winning the Atlantic 10. After Saturday's loss to Richmond, I tend to agree. Still, a good article about George Washington's lack of consistency.