Joe Lunardi Features Eight Big 12 Teams in Way-Too-Early Bracketology

While the 2026 NCAA Tournament is more than 11 months away, it’s never too early to talk bracketology, at least in the eyes of ESPN’s Joe Lunardi.

On Tuesday morning, Lunardi gave his picks for which teams he expects to earn an invite to the Big Dance, which featured eight teams from the Big 12 Conference.

The seven participating league members included (1) Houston, (2) BYU, (3) Arizona, (3) Iowa State, (5) Texas Tech, (7) Kansas, (8) Cincinnati, and (9) Baylor.

Despite offseason improvement for most of the Big 12 Conference’s basketball programs, Lunardi left the likes of Arizona State, Colorado, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, UCF, Utah, and West Virginia out of the tournament field.

While the Big 12 has, without question, earned the right to dub itself the nation’s premier college basketball conference, in Lunardi’s update, the SEC and Big Ten both placed more teams in the tournament than the Big 12, with 13 SEC participants and 12 from the Big Ten.

In the scenario listed above, the matchups based on seeding would look like this.

(1) Houston vs. (16) Southeast Missouri State

(2) Texas Tech vs. (15) Idaho

(3) Arizona vs. (14) Troy

(3) Iowa State vs. (14) South Dakota State

(5) Texas Tech vs. (12) Illinois State

(7) Kansas vs. (10) Miami

(8) Cincinnati vs. (9) Georgia

(9) Baylor vs. (8) Texas