Jeff Capel is one of the best young coaches. Oklahoma hired him from VCU to help clean up after Kelvin Sampson put the program in shaky condition following the first round of phone sanctions. In just his second season he had them back in the NCAA Tournament.

Just as important, Capel has shown that he is a top-flight recruiter regardless of geography. Last year, he brought in a McDonald's All-American in Blake Griffin, and showed that was no fluke. His 2008 recruiting class has McDonald's All-American PG Willie Warren.

South Carolina has been rumored to have a strong interest in Capel for their open job. That was enough to spur Oklahoma to give Capel a raise and a couple more years on his deal. Actually, this is the second raise in as many years.

When he first took the job, he was getting $650,000. He got a $100K raise after his first season. This raise pushes him past $1 million per year. His extension now puts him under contract (for whatever that is worth in college athletics) until 2014. There are additional bonuses, including a longevity bonus.

This should keep Capel in Oklahoma for at least another year. It's unlikely South Carolina would make a big enough offer to have Capel turn around and jump after making the public statements. Of course, this is college sports and coaching contracts. It's probably safer to err on the side of cynicism.

Conference: Big 12
Record: 21-10, 9-7 in conference
RPI: 29
How They Got In: At-Large
Seed/Bracket: 6/East

Mascot: Sooners. You need to know your American history. It was a term for those who jumped too soon on claiming land Oklahoma Territory on April 22, 1889. Eventually the term got changed to represent the "Progressive spirit."

Big Wins: at West Virginia, Gonzaga, Arkansas, swept Baylor

Notable Loss: Stephen F. Austin

Player You Should Know: Blake Griffin. Blake Griffin. Blake Griffin. The freshman forward was a 1st team All-Big 12 player and is the best freshman in the Big 12 not named Michael Beasley. Griffin averaged 15 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. The only issue for Griffin is that he has battled knee injuries in the season.

Outlook: The Sooners should be able to win one game. Jeff Capel is one of the best young coaches, but this team doesn't have great depth. Their backcourt is distinctly average

The Big 12 Conference named their all-Big 12 teams and handed out their awards. Not a lot to disagree, but I still feel compelled to offer my own version.

All-Big 12 team:

• Aleks Maric, Nebraska, C
• Blake Griffin, Oklahoma, F
• Michael Beasley, Kansas State, F
• D.J. Augustin, Texas, G
• Mario Chalmers, Kansas, G
• Darrell Arthur, Kansas, F

As for the individual awards.

Player of the Year:
Michael Beasley, Kansas State

D.J. Augustin, Texas

Not really much of a doubt on this one.

Throughout the season we'll look at bubble teams and assess whether they have a better chance of ending up in the NIT or NCAA Tournament.

Team: Oklahoma Sooners

Record: 19-10 (7-7 Big 12)

Good Wins: at West Virginia, Arkansas, Gonzaga, at Baylor

Bad Losses: at Colorado, at Nebraska, Stephen F. Austin

Comments: Oklahoma has withstood injuries to freshman star Blake Griffin and senior center Longar Longar. The Sooners were 1-3 in Big 12 games where either player was unavailable.

They played an above average non-conference schedule and played real road games.

Other Views: They are 30th in RPI, 59th on Basketball State, 35th by the Sagarin Ratings.

Verdict: The Sooners should be in thanks to a good non-conference schedule and performance along with a solid performance in the Big 12. The injuries suffered during the season have to be taken into account which helps their case.

No, this isn't an error replaying a post from earlier in the season when Griffin went down with a left knee injury. Oklahoma and Griffin were incredibly fortunate that Griffin was able to come back after less than 2 weeks.

Now the Sooners are facing games without Griffin once more as he hurt his right knee yesterday and immediately had arthroscopic surgery for a partially torn medial meniscus in his right knee. Losing a top player for a team that is fighting for an NCAA bid can be a killer for a team.

That's the main reason why the Oklahoma Athletic Department immediately went into spin control. They made it very clear that Griffin would only miss the final two games of the regular season. That he not only would be ready for the NCAA Tournament, but probably the Big 12 Tournament. Mainly, though, he would be ready to play by the NCAA Tournament got underway.

Oklahoma fans will probably have to sweat a little more about the NCAA than they should.

10 points.

That's how many points the Aggies scored in the the first half at Oklahoma. Texas A&M shot a pathetic 5-27 in the first half, including 0-11 on 3s. As if that wasn't enough, the Aggies committed 11 fouls and DeAndre Johnson had 3 fouls -- he was also their leading scorer with a whopping 4 points.

Oklahoma has hardly been that impressive, but the shear incompetence of A&M makes them look like a top-teir team. At the half they were up 28-10.

It seems impossible for almost any D-1 team, let alone one in a major conference fighting for an NCAA berth, but Texas A&M went from 12:51 in the first half to 16:40 in the second between scores for the Aggies. 16 minutes and 9 seconds between points.

Texas A&M is down 21 points 4 minutes into the second half. They look like they have already packed it in for the season.

The Baylor-Oklahoma game was a wild one. The Sooners came out with a 92-91 overtime win. Baylor suffered a gut-punch of a loss, while Oklahoma exhaled in deep relief at the very end.

Baylor trailed much of the game and tempers flared late. On a loose ball, Oklahoma's Blake Griffin got tangled up with Baylor's Mark Shepard on the court. Griffin ended up with his arm over Shepard's head on the floor and Shepard took exception. He appeared to catch Griffin in the face with his left elbow as they got up, the teams got into each others faces, while the officials tried to restore calm. Shepard was ejected for his elbow, as was a Baylor player who left the bench and the Oklahoma strength and conditioning coach who also ran onto the court. At that point there was about 5 minutes left and Oklahoma had an 8 point lead after Griffin made his free throws.

With under 3 minutes left, the Bears were still down by 8 when Curtis Jerrells fueled the comeback. He scored 7 points in that stretch including a layup at the end of regulation to send it to overtime.

There was a moment of surprising self-pity from Coach Mark Turgeon a couple weeks ago.

"I know no matter what I do, Gillispie is getting the credit if we win," said Turgeon, referring to former A&M coach Billy Gillispie, who guided the Aggies on a successful three-year run before leaving last spring for Kentucky. "If we lose, it's my fault. I'm in a no-flipping-win situation this year, and that puts me in a bad mood.

"I've got no chance this year. If we win, it's because of Gillispie. If we lose, it's because of Mark Turgeon. So I can't win."

Texas A&M has since responded, and Turgeon has recovered. They lost a 5 OT game to Baylor but have now won 3 straight and moved back into the upper-half of the Big 12 standings. Not coincidentally, they have allowed opposing teams to sub-60 points.

Both Oklahoma and Texas A&M feature former All-American High School players, who as freshmen have done nothing to repudiate their honors. In this game, however, Oklahoma's Blake Griffin and Texas A&M's DeAndre Jordan deferred to a couple seniors who carried their teams. Joseph Jones and Texas A&M were able to scrap out a win over David Godbold and Oklahoma, 60-52.

Yes, Kansas still is dominant in the conference. That is probably the one constant in the Big 12 this season. That and Oklahoma State still can't win a road game. Everything else is up for debate.

Last week, I noted that the Big 12 is a difficult conference to notch road wins. Naturally the road teams went 5-7 this past week to make things a little less skewed. Considering the road teams had won 5 games all season until last week, that was a huge swing.

Having a bad week: Missouri and Oklahoma State. Suspensions and extended losing streaks taking the hope out of the fans.

Having a good week: Oklahoma and K-State. Blake Griffin back much earlier than expected to help the Sooners win two big games, and the Wildcats are undefeated in the conference to make tonight's meeting with Kansas that much more dramatic.

Oklahoma's star freshman forward Blake Griffin was supposed to be out for up to 4 weeks and probably 6 games. Nope, turns out he could give the Sooners 22 minutes after missing only 1 game and less than 2 weeks. They were tremendously productive 22 minutes as Griffin grabbed 15 rebounds and 17 points in that span as Oklahoma got a road win in Waco over Baylor, 77-71.

Baylor Coach Scott Drew put the blame on the loss on himself and his staff, rather than his players.

"I guess we made a mistake on that, didn't we," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "We went over personnel, but we really never focused a game plan with him being in there."

Baylor also was dealing with the after effects of playing a few days after the quintuple overtime game against Texas A&M. It showed early, but the Bears did get back into the game late.

Oklahoma again becomes a significant factor in the Big 12 with Griffin even able to give them around 20 minutes a night as his knee heals.