The Big 12 In The NCAA Bracket: They Can Dance, But Can They Win?

Is the Big 12 the best conference in NCAA basketball?

It’s always a challenge to determine the best overall conference in the country. Once conference play starts, for every conference win, another team in that conference is picking up a loss. Still, at some point in conference play this year i’it became trendy to say the Big 12 is the best conference in the country.

While Big Ten favorites like Wisconsin and Ohio State were getting off to extremely shaky starts in conference, the Big 12 was consistently producing high-entertainment televised games. Games like Iowa State knocking off Oklahoma State 98-97 in triple OT were awesome to watch, but viewer appeal alone doesn’t win basketball games.

The answer, of course, depends on how you define best conference.

NCAA Tournament Bids: Could The Big 12 Get Seven Teams In?

First, it looks like the Big 12 will be sending the highest percentage of available teams to the NCAA tournament. Despite having two fewer teams than the Big 10 (makes sense, right?), our bracketology algorithms project the Big 12 to get, on average, 6.2  NCAA bids. As of today, it looks like Kansas, Iowa State, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas State have all but locked up NCAA tournament berths. Oklahoma State and Baylor currently have 69% and 53% chances, respectively, meaning that we’d expect at least one of them to get in, with an outside shot of both of them making it.

All told, the Big 12 currently has about a 35% chance (roughly 1 in 3) of getting seven out of 10 teams into the field of 68. That would be an extremely impressive feat and certainly fits the national narrative of the conference.

NCAA Tournament Wins: How Will The Big 12 Fare In The Tourney?

Selection Sunday should be a great day for the Big 12, but what about the weeks to follow? Interestingly, despite the Big 12 projecting to get the most teams into the 2014 NCAA bracket, both the Big 10 and ACC figure to win more tournament games, according to our NCAA bracket predictions by conference.

Our bracket advancement projections use sophisticated algorithms that factor in team strength as well as the wide array of potential NCAA seeding outcomes, given the current resumes of all potential tournament teams. So it’s notable that of the seven Big 12 teams with high NCAA tournament aspirations, right now Kansas is the only one with greater than 10% odds of reaching the Final Four. In comparison, the Big 10 has five teams and the ACC has three teams with a greater than a 10% chance of making it to Arlington, according to our numbers.

In Vegas, as of today, the second most likely Big 12 team to win the NCAA tournament was Iowa State, with 35-to-1 odds. The futures markets are slightly more favorable to the Big 12 than our numbers, seeing the Cyclones as the 16th most likely team to cut down the nets this year, with Kansas the second most likely national champion at 7:1 odds.

Seeding will likely play a big role in determining the Big 12’s destiny, though, as Texas and Kansas State may both have to defeat either a one seed or a two seed in the round of 32 just to advance to the second weekend. So it’s not only the Final Four that might end up lacking Big 12 teams. Our NCAA tournament advancement odds expect, on average, just 1.8 Big 12 teams to make the Sweet 16.

This is not to say that the Big 12 doesn’t deserve six or seven bids. However, while the conference may become the primary media narrative of Selection Sunday, expected seedings and win probabilities imply that the focus will shift to the Big 10 and the ACC once the tournament starts rolling.

Full Big 12 NCAA Tournament Advancement Odds

For the full picture, here’s a look at our current Big 12 advancement odds by team (click to enlarge):

 Big 12 NCAA Tournament Advancement Odds