Big 12 a three bid league?

By Big12-Fans Writer Josh Cline

The Big 12 might be known as a football league, but the basketball played over the ten years of the conference’s history has been pretty outstanding as well. In the nine previous seasons, the Big 12 received no fewer than four bids to the NCAA Tournament (and only four twice), and has received as many as six (five times). Only one of the nine seasons did not feature a Big 12 squad as a number one or number two seed (1999). Basically, based on the conference’s overall strength, you could count on getting at least five teams in the big dance in a normal season and one team with a clear road to at least the Elite Eight.

This year could be different. Only one team has really stepped up its play so far, and that would be Texas. While they bombed against Duke at their second home in the Meadowlands and got trounced by Tennessee at home, they also have quality victories against Iowa, West Virginia, and Memphis…all away from the Drum. Other than the Longhorns…a potential top seed, what is left? A bunch of unproven teams who need to step it up in conference play.

The problem is that the rest of the conference is on such an even playing field that it will be hard for many teams to get enough wins to earn a bid to The Dance. In non-conference play Iowa State has only one quality win over Iowa, who was without their best player, Jeff Horner. Nebraska has a quality win over Marquette, but also lost by more than 30 points to Creighton. Kansas beat Kentucky at home, but otherwise hasn’t beaten a team out of conference with more than ten victories. Quality wins dwindle the farther we go down the list.

When teams like Oklahoma are losing to Nebraska and Missouri, and either of those two teams could lose to just about anyone else in the conference, it is likely that only one or two teams can get to ten conference wins…a magic number of sorts for getting into the tournament. Sure, the NCAA selection committee will factor the conference’s reputation enough to get some sort of benefit of the doubt (though they say they won’t), but can they justify taking a team like Missouri or Oklahoma if they finish in fourth place at 9-7 with no quality wins out of conference and no big-time road wins in conference? Probably not.

Right now, I see the league probably getting four teams, but it is going to be extremely close. This season mirrors 1998 as a down year for the conference. That year the league got four teams in, three of which were eight seeds or lower. No team made it past the first weekend that year. This year the conference is struggling and it’s going to show come March. If a few teams can get hot and consistently put away the mediocre teams, the situation could change…until then, expect three bids from the Big 12.

Seed Predictions heading into 1/14: Texas #3, Kansas #7, Iowa State #10. On the bubble: Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas A&M (in that order).

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