As the 2024-25 college basketball season continues to move closer, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi released a bracketology update that features nine teams from the Big 12 Conference earning an invite to the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
The nine teams listed as tournament participants are (1) Kansas, (1) Houston, (2) Iowa State, (3) Baylor, (3) Arizona, (4) Texas Tech, (5) Cincinnati, (7) BYU, and (9) Kansas State.
Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks earned the top overall seed in Lunardi’s bracket after constructing one of the best off-season portal hauls in college basketball history. The group is headlined by All-American center Hunter Dickinson, veteran point guard Dajuan Harris, reliable forward KJ Adams, and a cast of multiple impressive transfers.
While the Big 12 has without question earned the right to dub itself the nation’s premier college basketball conference, in Lunardi’s update, the SEC placed more teams in the tournament than the Big 12, with ten teams a piece. The Big Ten tied the Big 12 with nine tournament teams.
In the scenario listed above, the matchups based on seeding would look like this.
(1) Kansas vs. (16) Colgate
(1) Houston vs. (16) Quinnipiac
(2) Iowa State vs. (15) Oakland
(3) Baylor vs. (14) Charleston
(3) Arizona vs. (14) Ohio
(4) Texas Tech vs. (13) Vermont
(5) Cincinnati vs. (12) High Point
(7) BYU vs. (10) Ohio State
(9) Kansas State vs. (8) Michigan
While the 2025 NCAA Tournament is still nearly five months away, the nine teams listed above from the Big 12 Conference are currently passing the eye test as tournament bids, at least in the eyes of Joe Lunardi.
