Best Conference in Men’s College Basketball? The Big 12.

The dominance was made even clearer on Saturday, when Big 12 teams were 7-3 against SEC teams in their interconference challenge event. In the most eye-opening game, unranked Oklahoma, which is only 2-6 in Big 12 play, smashed then-No. 2 Alabama, 93-69, behind 30 points from guard Grant Sherfield.

The Big 12’s success has come even though the depth brings with it an unfortunate handicap: The teams have to play most of the second half of the season against one another other. So almost every night a strong Big 12 team is losing to another strong Big 12 team. Those extra L’s on the record often bring less respect from Top 25 voters and sometimes the N.C.A.A. seeding committee.

Nevertheless, ESPN’s Bracketology projects the Big 12 to receive two 2 seeds (Kansas and Texas), a 3 seed (Kansas State) and three 4 seeds (Baylor, Iowa State and T.C.U.) of its eight projected tournament teams.

Even the teams at the bottom of the Big 12 are pretty good. Oklahoma, Alabama’s recent vanquisher, is tied in second-to-last place in the conference standings but is ranked in the 30s or 40s nationally by computers, and could well make the tournament. Last-place Texas Tech has a 1-8 conference record but is still ranked in the top 65 by most computers and won its challenge game as well, beating L.S.U.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/sports/ncaabasketball/big-12-mens-college-basketball.html