Big 12 Basketball Tournament Seeds Entering Final Two Weeks

There are four games left in the Big 12 men’s basketball regular season and there is little standing in the way of Houston winning the regular-season crown.

Perhaps Texas Tech, which will face Houston on Monday, might be the last possible impediment to a Cougar coronation. Odds are by the end of this weekend, Houston will have the No. 1 seed in the Big 12 Tournament, which starts on March 11 in Kansas City.

Now that the weekend’s action is done, it’s time to recalibrate what the Big 12 Tournament seeds would look like if the event started today.

As a reminder, we used the Big 12 rules on the web site for tiebreakers.

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 (15-1)

No. 2 Texas Tech (12-4)

No. 3 Arizona (12-4)

No. 4 Iowa State (11-5)

So how do we break the tie between Texas Tech and Arizona? Well, the two split the season series. So, the next tiebreaker is record against the top team in the standings. For now, Tech gets the nod as the only team to beat Houston in the Big 12.

Monday’s game between Houston and Tech obviously has huge ramifications. If Houston wins, the Cougars clinch a share of the regular-season title and the No. 1 seed. Why? With three games left, the worst they could finish would be 16-4. Houston owns the tiebreaker with Arizona, and at that point, the Wildcats would be the only team able to catch the Cougars. Houston would also clinch a double bye as a result.

The other double byes are still up for grabs. Teams with double byes don’t play until the quarterfinals.

Seeds Nos. 5-8: Single Byes

No. 5 BYU (10-6)

No. 6 Kansas (9-7)

No. 7 TCU (8-8)

No. 8 Baylor (8-8)

BYU is the one team with a realistic chance of crashing the top four seeds. The Cougars are only one game back of the Cyclones with four games left. BYU will get its shot at ISU next week. That game could mean something.

This week the single byes are far easier. Kansas is at No. 6. TCU gets No. 7 because of its earlier win over Baylor, though the Horned Frogs and Bears will meet again.

First Round (Seeds 9-16)

No. 9 West Virginia (7-9)

No. 10 Utah (7-9)

No. 11 Kansas State (7-9)

No. 12 Cincinnati (6-10)

No. 13 Oklahoma State (5-11)

No. 14 UCF (5-11)

No. 15 Arizona State (4-12)

No. 16 Colorado (2-14)

So, K-State, Utah and WVU were tied the last time we did this. The round-robin tiebreaker hasn’t changed. So, what’s changed?

The standings above them. Houston is still first. But Texas Tech is now second. So how did each do against Tech? No change. They all lost to the Red Raiders. Arizona is in third. So that means the three teams remain in the same order as last week. Or does it?

ESPN’s standings have WVU in ninth, Utah in 10th and Kansas State in 11th. They tend to mirror the tiebreakers. The same goes for the official Big 12 standings. To validate that, look at TCU being ahead of Baylor in the standings, knowing that TCU has the tiebreaker in hand. It leads me to believe that I did something wrong with the tiebreakers in our last exercise. I tend to believe the standings are accurate, though I’m not sure why the tiebreakers aren’t yielding the result I think they should.

Any way you look at it, Utah plays Arizona next and that will settle the matter, assuming all three teams are still tied. It’s the risk one takes when trying to break ties when the picture isn’t fully painted.

As for OSU and UCF, that’s much easier. Oklahoma State beat UCF in their only meeting. If only the tiebreakers could be that easy.