With 11 days remaining in the Big 12 Conference season, two games separate the top six teams.
Utah sits in fourth place — in position for one of the invaluable byes into the tournament quarterfinals. With four games left to play, two of them are against 6th-place Oklahoma St. today, and 5th-place West Virginia (in a week, at West Virginia, where they’re undefeated).
In short, we’re one (or one-half) game behind the three teams that beat us. We’re one (or one-half) game ahead of the two teams behind us, whom we have not yet played.
Can you imagine two games more consequential and revealing those these two against Oklahoma St. and West Virginia? Well-adjusted and practical people remind themselves and others that we play one game at a time — no one ever accused me of being well-adjusted and practical, so I’ll be a mess until the seeding is set.
This is my favorite of the Roberts and Petersen teams. There won’t be another like the Vieida/Kneepkens/McQueen/Johnson group. If they won 13 straight (4 regular season, 3 conference tournament, 6 national) to make it 20 in a row, I’d be OK with that.