KANSAS CITY, Mo. — With less than four minutes remaining and play stopped for a television timeout, fans chanted for the team in the lead.
No, it wasn’t “Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.” No, it wasn’t “Cyclone Power.” It was something else.
“U of A! U of A!”
It was Arizona fans urging the Wildcats on to what became a 79-74 Big 12 Tournament championship game victory over Houston on Saturday at T-Mobile Center.
If Houston’s title last year was a changing tide, Arizona’s title this year is a sea change for an entire league.
Big 12 Sea Change
The old Big 12 is dead. It’s been augmented into a new order were the two programs that have dominated Kansas City for a decade — Kansas and Iowa State — have been replaced by terrific programs who have a combined five years of Big 12 experience.
You don’t need gimmicks like a glass floor when you have programs of this caliber. The Big 12 is the best conference in college basketball. Arizona and Houston don’t just fit in. They stand out.
“The Big 12 is a great league,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “Coaches are all conditioned to say their league is the best but it’s not always the case. There is now question that our league, top to bottom, is the best.”
He would know. When he was at Oklahoma, he led the Sooners to three straight Big 12 Tournament titles from 2001-03. Two of those titles were at Kemper Arena in Kansas City.
Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd doesn’t have that experience with the Big 12. But he won two Pac-12 Conference Tournament titles in his first three seasons before the Wildcats joined the Big 12. Winning three games in three days isn’t foreign to him. But, when Arizona joined the league, he knew which team he was chasing.
“I was at a place where you were on top of the conference a lot,” Lloyd said. “And then we got to the Big 12 we learned real quick that we were looking up and chasing a program and it was Houston. We weren’t fixated on it but it gave us a great barometer for what he had to improve on to get better.”
Big 12 History
The Tournament’s history is instructive. It features lines of demarcation. Big 12 fans have witnessed one the past two seasons. That last line was in 2012, when Missouri won the Big 12 Tournament on its way out the door for the SEC. The Tigers beat Baylor, 90-75.
From there, Kansas or Iowa State won nine of the next 11 Tournament titles. Kansas won four. Iowa State won five. The Cyclones didn’t just make up Hilton South. They earned it. During that run, the only title game without both Kansas and Iowa State was in 2021 when Texas beat Oklahoma State. Every other year one of them made it. Twice they played each other.
The Longhorns were the only team to break the hold on the title, winning it in 2021 and 2023. Just like Missouri, Texas slammed the door on the Big 12 on the way out to the SEC, beating Kansas.
Houston, along with BYU, Cincinnati and UCF joined the following season. The Cougars reached the Big 12 title game against Iowa State and got their own dose of Hilton South, losing 69-41. At the time, some thought it was the Cyclones putting the Cougars in their place. In hindsight, it became the following season’s origin story.
Houston won the Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles, going 19-1 in the regular season and beating one of the four newbies, Arizona, in the title game. The Cougars reached the national championship game.
Turns out last season was Arizona’s origin story for this year. The Wildcats own the Big 12 regular season and tournament titles, beating Houston to cement this year’s double. So, national title game loading for the Wildcats, right?
Houston vs. Arizona was Not a Shocker
This isn’t luck. This is two terrific coaches — Houston’s Kelvin Sampson and Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd — who have built monsters. Both have deep respect for the Big 12. But neither fear it. Sampson came by it after coaching at Oklahoma for more than a decade. Lloyd needed one year to figure it out after leaving the Pac-12.
Each program’s records and accomplishments in the Big 12 are staggering when set against their short tenure in the league:
In three seasons Houston is 95-16 overall, 48-8 in Big 12 games, has won two Big 12 regular season titles, finished second the other year, won a Big 12 Tournament title and reached the Big 12 Tournament title game the other two seasons.
In two seasons Arizona is 56-15 overall, 30-8 in Big 12 games, has won a Big 12 regular season title, finished in a tie for third the other year, won a Big 12 Tournament title and reached the Big 12 Tournament final the other year.
Saturday’s game was the first time the Big 12 Championship game was played in back-to-back seasons without Kansas or Iowa State in the title game since 2004 and 2005. Oklahoma State won the title both years, beating Texas and then Texas Tech.
This doesn’t mean Kansas is dead. This doesn’t mean Iowa State will never win another Big 12 title game. It means this “Different League,” how commissioner Brett Yormark likes to brand it, truly is different. It is not the Big 12 of a decade ago where the Jayhawks and Cyclones alternated domination in KC.
The Big 12 is now a league with tentpole programs in Arizona and Texas. The league’s “Big Monday” games are events that boost TV ratings by 20%. The barbarians aren’t at the gate. They’re at the dias holding conference championship trophies and they look the part of champions.
It means that Hilton South is going to have to share space with McKale Midwest and Houston North now. It has made the Big 12 a different league. It will also make it a better league.
“We’re getting more comfortable in the Big 12, and that’s a good thing,” Lloyd said.
The Wildcats and the Cougars have no intention of going away, either.
