The Big 12 Tournament gets under way tonight at the Sprint Center in Kansas City with #8 Kansas State taking on #9 TCU followed by #7 Texas battling #10 Texas Tech. Five teams appear safely into the NCAA Tournament along with two other hopefuls, but the determination of how many bids the league will ultimately get is just one of several storylines to keep an eye on this week. Here are five others.

1. Hobbled Kansas – The Jayhawks enter the week with the conference tournament’s top seed, but injuries to Wayne Selden and Perry Ellis (who sat out the team’s regular season finale) mean the team is playing at less than 100 percent. Cliff Alexander‘s NCAA case is also moving slowly and Bill Self is already planning as if he won’t return. Because of the strength of the teams the Jayhawks will be playing in Kansas City, it’s tough to picture Kansas falling to anything worse than a #3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. It’s also fairly certain that no matter what happens there, Kansas will only have to travel three hours to Omaha for the opening weekend. The 11-time Big 12 champions could certainly be in a worse position, but it will be interesting to see how the team adjusts to those personnel issues.
   

   Will the Cyclones repeat as Big 12 Tournament champs?

2. Iowa State Looks to Protect Its Crown – The Cyclones had a solid season but it had to be at least slightly disappointing to fail to match Kansas in the league standings with a team that finally had a legitimate rim-protector and a strong returning core. All is not lost, though, as Fred Hoiberg’s team has an excellent chance to repeat as Big 12 Tournament champs. With three wins this week, it can become the first team to do so since Kansas pulled the trick in 2011 and the first non-Self team to pull it off since Oklahoma State in 2005. The Iowa State faithful turned out at the Sprint Center in huge numbers last year, so while Oklahoma is probably the second-best team in the Big 12, the ideal atmosphere would be a championship game pitting the Cyclones and Jayhawks.
3. Contenders for Protected Seeds – The knock on the Big 12 all season has been that, while the league is full of very good teams, none really jump out as a legitimate national title contender. That perception won’t change over the course of the Big 12 Tournament (nor should it), but how Kansas, Oklahoma, Baylor and Iowa State play this week could largely determine where they end up playing next week. If all four nab protected seeds and get to play relatively close to home, that would be one small step toward a win in the fight against another national perception: the league’s annual disappointment in the NCAA Tournament. The odds are favorable that at least two teams other than Kansas will secure top-four seeds regardless of how they fare in Kansas City this week, but it’s still important for the league’s super-competitive top half to put itself on solid footing moving forward.
4. How Long Can West Virginia Last Without Staten and Browne? Big 12 first-teamer Juwan Staten was sidelined with a knee injury for the Mountaineers’ last three regular season games and it remains unknown as of Tuesday night whether he’ll be able to play in the quarterfinals on Thursday. Fellow senior Gary Browne has also missed time with an ankle injury that he sustained against Baylor on February 28. West Virginia’s results without the duo on the floor have been mixed as they lost easily to the Bears but took Kansas to overtime before ultimately falling victim to the Phog. Bob Huggins’ team then closed out the regular season with a home win over Oklahoma State. West Virginia’s first game in Kansas City will come against the same Baylor team against which it’s struggled mightily this year, so getting both Staten and Browne healthy would significantly help the Mountaineers’ postseason prospects.
5. Teams Making Late Pushes – Back in November, neither Kansas State nor Texas expected to need Big 12 Tournament wins to feel comfortable with their postseason prospects, but here we are. The Wildcats probably need to make a run to the championship game on Saturday to put themselves back in the bubble conversation, and even then, they might still need help. As long as Kansas State remains alive, regular season winners among the mid-major ranks will have few bigger fans than Bruce Weber’s team, as each bid thief will put a dent in the Wildcats’ bleak chances of cracking the field. The situation isn’t quite as grim in Austin, but the Longhorns will definitely feel better about their chances with each additional win, although that shouldn’t distract you from the fact that their season hasn’t gone very well at all. Oklahoma State should be fine too, but while it’s improbable that the Cowboys will make a run this week, removing as much doubt as possible from the minds of the Selection Committee with a couple wins would serve the Pokes very well.

Brian Goodman (987 Posts)

Brian Goodman a Big 12 microsite writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BSGoodman.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2015 at 11:31 am by Brian Goodman and is filed under 2015 conference tournaments, big 12, microsites. Tagged: baylor, feature, iowa state, juwan staten, kansas, kansas state, oklahoma, perry ellis, texas, Wayne Selden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.