A quick prediction as to what will win best picture at next year’s Academy Awards, before getting back to the entertainment form that dominates the rest of March: college basketball.

Given all the buzz surrounding “Brokeback Mountain” at last night’s Hollywood ego party, and the fact it didn’t win best picture, look for a sequel to win the Oscar that “Raging Bull” didn’t win in 1980.

Now comes the tricky part: what to name the sequel to the gay cowboy love story.

Hmmm.

Got it: “Lonesome Doug.”

Now, back to the present.

The Big 12 Conference regular season is over, and my ballot for conference honors has been sent. Here’s how I voted:

Player of the Year: P.J. Tucker (Texas).

Coach of the Year: Bill Self (Kansas).

Newcomer of the Year: Michael Neal (Oklahoma).

Freshman of the Year: Brandon Rush (Kansas).

First team: Tucker, LaMarcus Aldridge (Texas), Jarius Jackson (Texas Tech), Richard Roby (Colorado), Terrell Everett (Oklahoma).

Second team: Daniel Gibson (Texas), Rush, Taj Gray (Oklahoma), Cartier Martin (Kansas State), Acie Law (Texas A&M).

Third team: Mario Chalmers (Kansas), Curtis Stinson (Iowa State), Joseph Jones (Texas A&M), Thomas Gardner (Missouri), Will Blalock (Iowa State).

Why Tucker as Player of the Year? Easy. He influences games in more ways than anybody in the league. A 6-foot-5 junior, he plays to about 6-8, is a rugged rebounder, a versatile scorer and a tough, unselfish presence on the league’s best team.

Why Self as Coach of the Year? Easy. The Jayhawks start three freshmen and two sophomores and are co-champions of the Big 12. They went 6-2 on the road. All six were double-digit victories, and the average margin was 14 points. When noting the Jayhawks are shy of glamour wins, the selection committee should keep that statistic in mind.

Gardner (19.9 points per game) and Stinson (19.3) ranked second and third in the conference in scoring. Why did they only make the third team?

After Quin Snyder quit in midseason, Gardner looked like a kid firing spitballs from the back of the room with a substitute teacher filling in for the sick regular. His effort wasn’t the same.

Stinson’s a ballhog; a strong, quick, tough, talented ballhog, but a ballhog just the same. He has a reputation as a dirty player, but say this for dirty players: If they didn’t care about winning, they wouldn’t bother going to the trouble of playing dirty.

Why no Rush on the first team? Plenty of time for that. Here’s guessing I’ll vote him to the first team next year, when he might even be improved enough to dethrone Tucker.

And Darrell Arthur, should he decide to come to KU, could compete with Sherron Collins for Freshman of the Year, while Chalmers and Julian Wright strive for first-team honors. Enough about the future, though it is difficult to keep the mind from drifting to a rotation that would blend those two freshmen with this year’s three freshmen, along with Russell Robinson, C.J. Giles, Sasha Kaun and Darnell Jackson.