The battle for the Phillips 66 Big 12 Tournament Championship will kick off on Wednesday, March 7, in Kansas City, Missouri. The regular season champion Kansas Jayhawks will try to solidify their resume as a number one seed by earning the always competitive conference’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid.
The printable Big 12 Tournament bracket can be found here.
Kansas won their 14th consecutive Big 12 title despite getting blown out at Oklahoma State on Saturday, and now gets to rebound by trying to navigate what should be one of the tightest conference tournaments in the country. They’ll need a strong performance from Wooden Award candidate Devonte’ Graham, which he’s been ready to provide as of late – he enters the tournament averaging 18.9 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 6.4 assists per game since the beginning of February.
The rest of the conference is an absolute hodge-podge, with eight teams between 11-7 and 8-10 in conference between Kansas and basement-dweller Iowa State. The Big 12 conference season was a true testament to the depth of the conference. The league could get seven teams into the tournament if one of Baylor, Texas, Oklahoma, or Oklahoma State find a way to make a deep run in the tournament.
The most likely of that group to sneak into the tournament is likely Oklahoma, because of the nuclear possibilities presented by Trae Young. Young has slumped as of late as the Sooners fell off, but on a bigger stage, don’t be surprised if we get a little bit of that magic returning on a bigger stage. But, in their way stand some very polished squads, including Zhaire Smith and Keenan Evans of Texas Tech, TCU’s lightning bolt offense, and West Virginia’s press, led by Jevon Carter and Sagaba Konate.
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The Big 12 Tournament kicks off on Wednesday, March 7. The Championship game will take place on Saturday, March 10th, at 5 p.m. CT on ESPN.