With the completion of Wednesday’s games, the Big 12 men’s basketball regular season is down to just five games before all 16 teams head to Kansas City.
The Big 12 men’s tournament starts on March 11. By March 8, we will know the entire tournament field. So, for now, we get to project a little bit.
This isn’t an easy exercise, either. There’s a good reason why conferences don’t break ties until the season is done. Some of the tiebreakers don’t always work as they should, and we’ll see how as we go along in this exercise. I’ll try to be logical in applying these tiebreakers. But, as we continue through this for the next five games, these seedings will be sure to change.
Related: Three Biggest Takeaways From Wednesday’s Big 12 Basketball Games
As a reminder, we used the Big 12 rules on the web site for tiebreakers. And we had a couple of doozys.
If the Big 12 men’s tournament started today, here is how the tournament would be seeded.
Seeds Nos. 1-4: Double Byes
No. 1 Houston (14-1)
No. 2 Arizona (12-3)
No. 3 Iowa State (11-4)
No. 4 Texas Tech (11-4)
This tier was simple. The Cougars have a two-game lead on the field and as long as they keep winning, they can clinch the No. 1 seed as early as next weekend. Houston can clinch a double bye outright this weekend with a win because it is five games ahead of fifth place with five games to play. Even with a loss, depending upon how things develop, the Cougars could clinch it anyway.
Arizona is a clear No. 2 seed by record. Iowa State gets No. 3 and Texas Tech gets No. 4 due to the Cyclones’ win in overtime in Lubbock last month. There is no rematch in the regular season.
Obviously, Iowa State’s game at Houston on Saturday has significant ramifications.
Teams with double byes don’t play until the quarterfinals.
Seeds Nos. 5-8: Single Byes
No. 5 BYU (9-6)
No. 6 Kansas (8-7)
No. 7 TCU (8-7)
No. 8 Baylor (8-7)
If you’ve been following the women’s seeding stories this week then you know we have to round-robin the results between KU, BU and TCU.
Kansas: 1-1
Baylor: 1-1
TCU: 1-1
Well, that was no help. Know that Baylor and TCU have a rematch on March 4 if these three are still tied.
What’s next? Per the Big 12, its “each of the tied team’s winning percentage versus the team occupying the highest position in the final regular season standings…”
For now, that’s Houston. All three lost to Houston. Next is Arizona. Now it gets interesting.
Kansas hasn’t played Arizona yet and won’t until March 8. Baylor lost to Arizona twice. TCU lost to Arizona once. Back to the Big 12 tiebreaker rule:
“…and then continuing down through the standings, eliminating tied teams with inferior winning percentage until one team gains an advantage.”
Everyone has a .000 winning percentage. Since Kansas hasn’t played Arizona yet, I’m going to take the leap that the Jayhawks, for now, would be No. 6.
If that’s correct and KU is now separated, we go back to the two-team tiebreaker rule since both Baylor and TCU lost to Arizona. TCU beat Baylor earlier this year so, for now, I think the Horned Frogs get the No. 7 seed.
One thing that is clear is that all four of these teams would get single byes and a pass to the second round if the season ended today. But I suspect we’ll see more separation with five games remaining.
First Round (Seeds 9-16)
No. 9 Kansas State (7-8)
No. 10 Utah (7-8)
No. 11 West Virginia (7-8)
No. 12 Cincinnati (5-10)
No. 13 Oklahoma State (5-10)
No. 14 UCF (4-11)
No. 15 Arizona State (3-12)
No. 16 Colorado (1-14)
You know the drill. It’s West Virginia, Utah and Kansas State round-robin time:
WVU: 1-1 (with a game left against Utah)
Utah: 1-1 (with a game left against WVU)
K-State: 1-1 (no more games left)
Geez, thanks guys. Well, they all lost to Houston. What about Arizona?
Kansas State: 1-0
Utah: 0-0 (plays Arizona on Feb. 26)
WVU: 0-1 (remember: the meeting in November was non-conference)
For now, Kansas State gets the higher seed. Utah will heavily influence what happens here with upcoming games against WVU and Arizona, assuming the three teams remain tied.
One would have thought that Cincinnati and Oklahoma State made it easy on me. But, you know what? The Cowboys and Bearcats don’t play until the season finale on March 8. If we use the standings tiebreaker, I had to go down to No. 5 with BYU, where Cincinnati is 1-1 and OSU is 0-1 to break the tie. For now, I think the Bearcats have the higher seed.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
