although I’m not completely sold on OU being the third best team in the conference. I think they are going to struggle a little without the Griffins and the recruiting class will take a little time to settle in. Warren is a baller, but I don’t think he can carry a whole team on his back – ask Craig Brackens and Cory Higgins.

Mark me down with OU as the #3 with an asterisk. If the freshman can deliver, then they can merit the 3 spot. If not, they’re still in the top half of the conference, but might slip out of the bye in the conference tourney.

It’s refreshing to see a sports writer/columnist in a college town that has an ounce of objectivity. Although, I’m with mystman about whether or not OU is going to finish 3rd.

I chuckled at this comment.
What it’s lost: Hard-working 6-11 forward Darren Kent, which K-State fans will tell you on some nights would have felt like a good thing.

He must have read some of our Live Game Threads….

…made a good point, in that all the schools from No. 3 to No. 7 could be fairly interchangeable. In that group, you have teams like Oklahoma and Missouri, who made deep runs into the tourney but lost a ton of good players. You have teams like Texas A&M and Oklahoma State, who made it into the tourney, didn’t go very far, lost some good players, but added some good players. And then you have K-State, which barely missed the tourney, didn’t lose much, and added a ton of players. On paper, that’s a pretty tough call. I tend to think we’ll be more toward the top of it, as Walentik predicts, but we still have quite a bit to prove.

Agreed, EMAW. Not only was he pretty objective, he actually did some research and set out the basis for his opinion.