If a game as gargantuan as the Big Monday matchup in Norman between Oklahoma, which could be ranked No. 1 in the nation by then, and Kansas, which has lost only once in the Big 12, were to take place in college football, the daily buildup to the event would dominate headlines.

Not so with college basketball. Understandably, the only opponent coaches and players discuss is the next one. In the case of Kansas, that’s Iowa State tonight in Allen Fieldhouse, where a 20-point lead within 10 minutes of tipoff seems likely. For Oklahoma, a Saturday trip to Austin to face underachieving Texas looms. Kansas plays a home game against Nebraska that day.

It shouldn’t be tough for the players to keep their minds on the games they play before the game. For the rest of us on the outside, the games serve the purpose of distracting us for two hours from Big Monday, a game so super-colossal this week is crawling at the pace of a period film. In most parts of the country, workers yearn for Friday. In Big 12 country, we’re all dying for Monday to get here.

Big Monday in Norman qualifies as the marquee game of this Big 12 season. A victory for Kansas represents its only realistic shot to earn a Big 12 title.

For Oklahoma, the game represents a chance to virtually lock up the conference regular- season title and enhance star post player Blake Griffin’s candidacy for national Player of the Year honors.

It’s amazing Oklahoma has turned into such a juggernaut so quickly considering how dim the Sooners’ short-term outlook appeared when Kelvin “Can You Hear Me Now?” Sampson bolted for Indiana and successor Jeff Capel watched signees Damion James (Texas) and Scottie Reynolds (Villanova) ask out of their commitments. OU didn’t play in the postseason in the first year under Capel, now in his third season. What a turnaround.

The Sooners are no one-man team. Blake’s brother Taylor Griffin joins him up front in the starting lineup and Austin Johnson, Tony Crocker and Willie Warren play on the perimeter.

In a weak year for freshmen in college basketball, Warren has been among the nation’s best. Rivals.com ranks him as the fourth-best freshman in the nation and the country’s 12th-best overall shooting guard. Crocker shoots .387 from three-point land. Reserve Juan Pattillo, a junior college transfer and an active inside player, originally planned on red-shirting, but changed his mind because he realized he could help the team this year and he was right. He has played in eight games and already has made Oklahoma better.

Johnson is the player who seems to swing the Sooners’ fortunes most. A look at the last 50 games shows that Johnson, whose range is as deep as any college basketball player’s, shoots well in victories and atrociously in losses. In the 40 wins, he has averaged 10.3 points, hit 43 percent of his shots and 37 percent of his three-pointers. In the 10 losses, he has averaged 3.1 points, hit 19 percent of his field goals and 16 percent of his three-point tries.

How will Johnson shoot against KU? We won’t know until one of the longest weeks and weekends of our lives are over.