Big 12 Basketball: Ranking of top 20 overall players since 2000

4. Michael Beasley – F Kansas State (2007-2008)

Career Stats (1 season): 26.2 PPG, 12.4 RPG, 53% FG

Frank Martin has delivered quite a few good seasons for the Kansas State Wildcats program. The start of an era was when Kansas State landed the #4 overall recruit in Michael Beasley. The 6’9 star from Washington D.C. made the impact he came for and then some.

His notable games consisted of making an immediate impact with 32 points and 24 rebounds in their season opener against Sacramento State. He led the Wildcats to big wins over Kansas at home, California, and a road win over Iowa State and Blake Griffin-led Oklahoma, where Beasley scored 32 points and 11 rebounds.

Although there are other members on this list with better career numbers, none of them had as big of an impact on the glass than Beasley. Beasley recorded a double-double every single game, apart from four. Two of those four were nine-rebound performances against Iowa State and Texas A&M.

There’s an argument for Beasley to be the best player to come through the conference. However, Beasley was an average three-point shooter and had turnover issues. Even though the Wildcats won, Beasley had two instances where he turned the ball over eight times. He had twice as more turnovers than assists.

Beasley swept all of the Big 12 Awards, while also being a Consensus All-American. Kansas State lost in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament, with a 23 point, 13 rebound performance from Beasley.

He ended up being the #2 pick in 2007 and has had a long career, to where he made his return to the league last year after playing overseas for a season. That was until his contract was voided after testing positive for COVID-19.

Even if his NBA career didn’t go the way he may have liked, in terms of individual stats, he is still among the best players in Big 12 History.