Welcome to Tuesday Takes, where I give you four takes from the Big 12. It was a jam-packed week full of exciting news, but there were several things that caught my attention over the last few days.
The Big 12 Will Be Playing for A Title Next Year
With the national championship game in the rear view, we can officially close the book on the 2025-2026 season, and what a year it was. Michigan ended up on top, beating UConn, and even though the Big 12 didn’t have a team in the fight, it was still a good game.
We saw plenty of ups and downs with several Big 12 teams in the mix. Unfortunately, due to injuries, there were only two teams that I thought had a legitimate chance to win it all with Arizona and Houston. However, it just wasn’t meant to be.
Even though we didn’t end up on top of the mountain, I still believe that from top to bottom the Big 12 is the best conference in America. Don’t be surprised to see a team from the Big 12 win it all next season and as always, this conference is going to reload as usual. I can’t wait to see what next season brings.
Arizona Was Cursed
It’s no secret that the Wildcats were awful against Michigan this past weekend. Arizona scored 73 points, which is normal, but they also gave up 91, which is something I didn’t see coming.
The usual guys played well between Peat, Krivas, and Bradley, but it’s safe to say that Brayden Burries didn’t have his best performance. To make matters worse, their bench didn’t give them much at all. Usually, the Wildcats are deep, and they are always able to get solid minutes from guys off the bench, but that didn’t happen against Michigan.
I must give credit to Michigan because they shot the ball extremely well. They shot almost 50% from the field and 44% from three. The Wolverines are already good enough, but when they shoot like that, nobody is going to beat them. Unfortunately, Arizona found that out the hard way.
Tommy Lloyd Made the Right Call
While things didn’t go great on the court for Arizona, they did get some good news off the court. Last Friday, head coach Tommy Lloyd announced that he signed a new five-year contract extension to stay in Tucson.
After rumors of him going to North Carolina, and putting his foot in his mouth a little bit, it was a sigh of relief for Arizona and the Big 12. Tommy made the right call. Arizona is one of the premier college basketball jobs in the country and with him at the helm, they can be a Big 12 and national title contender just about every year.
I am Team Yormark
In case you are living under a rock, Texas Tech booster and Board of Regents President Cody Campbell is not happy with Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark. The reason? Texas Tech potentially playing a football game on a Friday night.
This is not the place for me to explain me entire reasoning for siding with Yormark here (I will do that later this week), but I understand why Campbell is upset and why Yormark doesn’t care.
I get that Texas High School football is big but at the same time I understand the value of the Big 12 playing Thursday and Friday night games. It draws more eyeballs and that is why I am in favor of the conference doing more games that aren’t on Saturday.
