Big 12 Men’s Tournament Seeding Scenarios for March 2

Posted on March 2, 2023

The Big 12 men’s basketball tournament is a week away. With five games remaining, here’s how seeding and scenarios shape up.

Note: Scenarios were updated after Wednesday’s games. Tiebreaker rules are set forth by the Big 12.

No. 1 Seed: Kansas

With a two-game lead with one game to play, the Jayhawks will be the No. 1 seed in Kansas City. Lock it in.

No. 2-4 Seeds: Baylor, Kansas State, Texas

With Texas losing to TCU on Wednesday, we have a three-way tie for second place. This is the seed range for all three teams. None can drop any lower than No. 4, as they are all two games ahead of TCU.

Plus, all three have played each other twice. So we can build scenarios pretty easily:

All three win or all three lose on Saturday (three-way tie):

Big 12 tiebreaker rules stipulate that in this case “Results from the collective head-to-head competition during the regular season among the tied teams in a mini round-robin format, ranking the tied teams by winning percentage from highest to lowest will be used to determine the seeds.”

So let’s look it up:

Kansas State: 3-1 (2-0 vs. BU, 1-1 vs. UT)

Texas: 2-2 (1-1 vs. BU, 1-1 vs. KSU)

Baylor: 1-3 (0-2 vs. KSU, 1-1 vs. UT)

Easy peasy. KSU is No. 2, UT is No. 3 and BU is No. 4.

Two-way tiebreakers:

This assumes two teams win and one team loses:

Baylor and Kansas State win, Texas loses: KSU is No. 2, BU is No. 3 and UT is No. 4.

Baylor and Texas win, Kansas State loses: To break this tie, per the Big 12 “Each team’s record versus the team occupying the highest position in the final regular season standings, and then continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.”

In this case, that means KU. That means if UT wins, both BU and UT will have split with Kansas. With KSU now behind them, the noted head-to-head tiebreakers above would apply. UT would be No. 2, BU would be No. 3 and KSU would be No. 4.

Kansas State and Texas win, Baylor loses: Both KSU and UT will have split with Kansas, so it comes down to the BU head-to-head. KSU would be No. 2, UT would be No. 3 and BU would be No. 4.

Nos. 5 Seed: TCU, Iowa State

Entering Saturday TCU is a game ahead of Iowa State for fifth place. If both teams win, then TCU is No. 5 and ISU is No. 6. If TCU loses and ISU wins, then ISU is No. 5 and TCU is No. 6 (ISU swept TCU). If TCU loses and ISU loses, TCU is No. 5 and ISU is … well … it’s complicated.

No. 6 Seed: Iowa State, Oklahoma State

TCU can be no worse than a No. 6 seed because it is now two games ahead of Oklahoma State with one to play. But things could get complicated at No. 6.

Assuming a TCU win, if ISU wins on Saturday, it is the No. 6 seed. If ISU loses and OSU loses, ISU is the No. 6 seed.

If ISU loses and OSU wins, then the pair are tied for sixth place and OSU is the No. 6 seed and ISU drops to No. 7 because OSU owns the head-to-head sweep.

No. 7 Seed: Oklahoma State, West Virginia

ISU cannot drop any lower than No. 7, but it cannot end up in a tie with West Virginia. So, if ISU wins, then No. 7 would work like this.

If OSU wins and WVU wins, or if OSU loses and WVU loses, then OSU is No. 7.

If OSU loses and WVU wins, they’ll be tied for seventh and will have a head-to-head split. So then we have to apply the two-team tiebreaker from above. Let’s break it down.

Kansas: Both were swept.

Kansas State: OSU was swept, WVU split.

Baylor: Both were swept.

Texas: Both were swept.

Since we know that those four teams will be the Top 4 seeds regardless of what happens on Saturday, then in this scenario WVU would be No. 7 and OSU would be No. 8.

No. 8-9 Seeds: West Virginia, Texas Tech

Above is the only scenario that allows WVU to move up a spot. WVU, even with a loss on Saturday, can be no worse than the No. 9 seed. A win guarantees them of no worse than the No. 8.

Texas Tech is a game behind WVU. If TTU wins and WVU loses, the pair will be tied for eighth and seeding will hardly matter. But, since the pair split, either could be No. 8 or No. 9.