Big 12 hoops can legitimately brag about being the nation’s top conference. Here’s why
Through the years, Big 12 men’s basketball told a story with legendary leaders and top-notch talent.
Hall of Fame coaches like Eddie Sutton, Roy Williams and Bob Knight and future NBA stars such as Kevin Durant, Paul Pierce and Blake Griffin turned Big 12 hoops into must-see viewing and gave it national credibility.
RPI and NET computer rankings elevated the conference, too, with the Big 12 rating among the country’s top leagues on a regular basis.
So the Big 12 filled nearly every box, except one: The jewelry box. There just weren’t enough national championship rings.
That’s no longer the case.
Kansas’ NCAA title last season followed Baylor’s national net-cutting ceremony the previous year. That gives the Big 12 three total national championships, including the Jayhawks’ in 2008.
It was this close to three straight: In 2019, the last tournament before the COVID-canceled 2020 tourney, Texas Tech lost the championship game in overtime.
Through the years, coaches in the Big 12 have stressed the difficulty of competing in the league, especially in the 10-team era — teams play each other twice in the regular season now, beating each other up with regularity.
No doubt the Big 12 was a rocky road. But there just wasn’t enough payoff in the NCAA Tournament to tout this conference as the country’s best.
“I remember as a coach I’d be frustrated because we’d have teams going to the Final Four, we know the depth, the RPI rankings, but you’d hear that knock,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said Wednesday. “Not enough national championships. You have good teams, but not enough national contenders.”
Now the Big 12 has been home to three parades in 25 seasons. There’s still plenty of catching up to do if the Big 12 is going to match the leaders during that time: The ACC has won eight championships, the Big East seven. Heck, even the SEC has four.
But those trophies won in the past two seasons have helped the Big 12 gain some momentum and separate itself from the Big Ten and Pac-12, fellow power-five leagues with just one NCAA title apiece in the last quarter-century.
The Big 12 hasn’t lacked hype or bravado over the years. Now it can walk the talk.
“It’s hard to say that you’re the best when you don’t produce when it actually counts the most,” Kansas coach Bill Self said.
Self said he’s reminded of some of his teams that looked like national championship contenders but didn’t finish the job.
“We’ve had a large number of very good teams that basically had a possibility of winning a national championship and didn’t get it done,” Self said. “For us, we owed it not only to our schools but to our league to actually deliver on those opportunities.”
The Big 12’s strength was on full display during last year’s NCAA Tournament. Not only did KU win its fourth NCAA title, erasing the largest deficit ever overcome in a title game — recall that the Jayhawks were down 16 at one point against North Carolina — the conference performed well on the bracket with a collective 13-5 record.
Iowa State, a No. 11 seed, finished 7-11 in Big 12 play and entered March Madness on a three-game losing streak. The Cyclones knocked off sixth-seeded LSU and No. 3 Wisconsin to reach the Sweet 16 in coach T.J. Otzelberger’s first season.
Entering the tourney, Otzelberger said, Iowa State was glad to leave behind the bruising schedule of the Big 12.
“As we heard our name called on Selection Sunday,” he said, “we felt good that, since it wasn’t going to be a Big 12 team (they’d be playing against), we had a lot of confidence going in, regardless of who we drew.”
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said this week that he wants to “nationalize” the conference brand as an attraction for top talent.
He was speaking about football.
For basketball, that may already be the Big 12’s rep.
“This is definitely the hardest league in America,” said Kansas guard Kevin McCullar, a transfer from Texas Tech who played on the Red Raiders’ 2019 NCAA-finalist squad. “If you want to play the best of the best, the Big 12 is where you want to be.”
This story was originally published October 19, 2022 at 2:13 PM with the headline "Big 12 hoops can legitimately brag about being the nation’s top conference. Here’s why."