The Big 12 Tournament takes place at the Spring Center in Kansas City, Missouri, this year, a centrally located major metropolis for the Big 12 member schools. This tournament has had a history of somebody sneaking from the first day into a later round, and usually in normal years, you have to consider Kansas and Texas the teams to watch, although Texas is all the way down to a 6th seed this year, and actually has to play on the opening day. Here are the fourteen highest lifetime returning scorers coming back to this year's Big 12 tournament...
#1: Damion James (Texas guard/forward; 98 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - This is supposed to be James' year, as he is a Senior on a team that was at one point ranked #1 in the country. But they have chronically underachieved the second half of the regular season, all the way out of the Top 25, and find themselves playing Iowa State for the right to play a Baylor team that blew them out earlier this year in the Big 12 quarterfinals. Still, you can never count Texas out.
#2: LaceDarius Dunn (Baylor guard; 89 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - After being the Big 12 Sixth man of the year last year, he became a prominent force this year as a Junior, and is part of a two-pronged guard attack that could make Baylor a surprise in the Big Dance, being they're not exactly a storied program or anything. LaceDarius is not afraid to take a shot.
#3: Sherron Collins (Kansas guard; 85 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - This is his senior season, although it seems like he's been in college at Kansas for about 9 years now already. Kansas is once again the top seed in the Big 12 tournament, and once again a legitimate threat to win it all on both the Big 12 and NCAA Division I level, which would give Collins two national title runs under his belt.
#4: Obi Muonelo (Oklahoma State guard; 77 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - Obi Muonelo has a funny-looking head where he wears his African guy high toppish fade hairstyle, and he is a Nigerian national. I support Nigeria in their late '70s funk music, in their World Cup bid on African soil this summer, and in blowing up airplanes. It is a country after my varied and discombobulated heart.
#5: Mike Singletary (Texas Tech forward; 74 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - In last year's Big 12 tournament against Texas A&M, Singletary dropped 43. That was the springboard to which he became the star of this Red Raider team this year. 43 points is a lot of points to score in a college basketball game.
#6: James Anderson (Oklahoma State guard; 68 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - The Junior guard is the Big 12 Player of the Year, but Oklahoma State still only got a 7-seed in the Big 12 tourney, and faces state rival Oklahoma for a chance to square off against the re-emerging Kansas State juggernaut in the quarterfinals in Thursday night's nightcap.
#7: Dexter Pittman (Texas center; 56 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - A big part of Texas' trouble this season has been their big man in the middle, who has struggled to stay healthy. Still, he seems to be in fighting condition, at least or the time being, and this being the last run together he and Damion James and Justin Mason get to make, they could rally for a strong March showing.
#8: Tony Crocker (Oklahoma guard; 55 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - Crocker is yet another great Senior guard making his last run through the Big 12 tourney, yet the thing I am most struck by when looking him up is he has a teammate in the Oklahoma Sooner starting lineup named Tiny Gallon.
#9: Bryan Davis (Texas A&M forward; 48 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - Davis is the Aggies rim-rattling dunkard man of excitement creation. This is his Senior year, and another trip to the Sweet 16 like in his freshman one seems highly unlikely, so he will have to live with the memories he has.
#10: Tweety Carter (Baylor guard; 45 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - Carter is the other prong in Baylor's two-pronged attack of relentless fury, in his Senior season. It's hard to imagine a guy called "Tweety Carter" being anything other than a professional lounger. Apparently, he got his nickname from his grandmother because of the way he cried as a baby. If I could waste money doing any one thing for online posterity, it would be a database of how people with fucked up names got their fucked up names. That is an important work that has yet to be done.
#11: Craig Brackins (Iowa State forward; 43 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - Learning that Craig Brackins is a Los Angeles kid gone to Iowa State to play basketball sort of mixes the entire Ice Cube early IMDB filmography in my head, along with Menace II Society, and he has gangster friends and a girlfriend with long ass extensions and fancy painted fake nails who stretches his first name into nearly two syllables, not quite but definitely more than one. HAARP beams have made my brain fucking stupid.
#12: Justin Mason (Texas guard; 41 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - The third part of the three-headed Senior monster that hopes to right Texas' wayward season.
#13: Donald Sloan (Texas A&M guard; 38 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - Senior guard who is bad as shit, and plays with an intensity that has there is no use for in the NBA, because the NBA is boring as fuck. Sloan should make tons of money and fans overseas somewhere next year, where they still like basketball and not everybody circling around while one dude tries to do this thing real quick.
#14: Zaire Taylor (Missouri guard; 36 previous points in the Big 12 tournament) - You know, when I saw him playing in a Missouri game last year during tournament time, I thought I recognized that name more than just being a wacky name. Sure enough, his first two years were spent playing for Delaware in the CAA. Originally from Shaolin, New York, he was on the Big 12 All-Tourney team last year when Missouri upset the normal flow of things Big 12 by beating Baylor in the championship game.
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