We didn’t get to this yesterday, because a Thursday when I travel Friday is a brute, but we should have expected something similar to start this season because the conference made no sense last season. The Big 12’s preseason poll came out yesterday and West Virginia was sixth. Sixth. Now, we can understand the Big 12 is a difficult conference.

/Googles any Huggins article from the last three weeks
//Settles on this one

“It amazed me when I saw the statistics that the Big 12 has the second-most lottery picks in the last seven years or nine years or whatever it was, but it has the second-most lottery picks of any Power 5 conference,” Huggins said. “It has the second-most first-round picks and the second-most picks.

“Then you stop and think about it, and the other people have 16 teams. This league has 10 teams. It’s mind-boggling the talent that has come out of this league, and you can’t play in the NBA and not be a great athlete.”

(Mostly, though, get your Esa Ahmad fix there, please and thank you.)

Kansas is the preseason favorite because Big 12 basketball. Oklahoma is second, and that’s somewhat noteworthy because Iowa State is actually higher — No. 7 to No. 8 — in the preseason top 25 poll the coaches put out Thursday. They are but two points apart in the Big 12 poll, and Nos. 4-6 are separated by four points. Nos. 8-10 look possibly dreadful, and woe those stories about how the Big East had a bunch of soup cans and the Big 12 does not.

But Texas was No. 4 in the Big 12 poll, and this is not football, and Shaka Smart is new and has a quirky roster not yet catered to his chaotic press and eager offense. The Mountaineers are 11 spots higher in the preseason top 25 with nearly 100 more points. The Mountaineers are No. 23 — buried the lede there — and Texas is kind of receiving votes. These are preseason rankings, so give them a once over and maybe a second glance, but that one felt weird.

I’m up in the air today, but let’s hear predictions for tomorrow’s game and a line or song title from former Baylor student Willie Nelson.