Big 12 announces Baylor stands atop its 2022-23 men's basketball preseason poll

On3 imageby:Andrew Graham10/13/22

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The Big 12 dropped its preseason basketball coaches poll on Thursday and Baylor just pipped Kansas for the top spot. Behind the last two national championship winners, which got five and four first place votes, respectively, Texas got the only other.

The assorted Big 12 basketball coaches all vote in the poll but cannot vote for their own teams. Point values are awarded for votes and the highest point total gets picked first. Baylor had 77 to 73 for Kansas.

“The Big 12 has won the last two national championships as Kansas brought home the 2022 trophy following Baylor’s title in 2021. Big 12 teams have played in the last four Final Fours and the last three national championship games,” the release with the poll noted.

Beyond the three first-place vote getters, the Big 12 coaches seems to be bullish on TCU, plus Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, which are tied for fifth.

Rounding out the poll, in order, are Oklahoma, Iowa State, West Virginia and Kansas State.

Full Big 12 preseason coaches poll results

  1. Baylor (5 first place) — 77 points
  2. Kansas (4) — 73
  3. Texas (1) — 64
  4. TCU — 58
  5. Oklahoma State — 42
  6. Texas Tech — 42
  7. Oklahoma — 32
  8. Iowa State — 30
  9. West Virginia — 20
  10. Kansas State — 12

The Big 12 made a key decision on future basketball schedules this week

The Big 12 is set to welcome BYUCincinnatiHouston and UCF to the conference in 2023, and is already putting together a new basketball schedule to accommodate those additions.

CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein reported Wednesday that the league has decided which conference matchups will take place twice in both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. Below is the full list of games, which includes the Sunflower Showdown between Kansas State and Kansas, as well as the Bedlam rivalry between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

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After 2025, Oklahoma and Texas will leave for the SEC and the Big 12 basketball schedule will have to be reorganized once again. That will put the conference back to 12 teams for the first time since 2010-11. Back then, the conference was divided into divisions consisting of six teams, and each team played its other five divisional opponents twice, and opponents outside that division once.

CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd reported back in January that the conference is once again headed toward a divisional split when the four teams are added in 2023.

It will also be interesting to see Cincinnati and West Virginia reunite after spending seven seasons together in the Big East. The two schools have not played against each other since 2012, when the Mountaineers left to join the Big 12. WVU won that contest 77-74, but trails 7-9 in the all-time series.

Other than the Mountaineers, Iowa State is the only current Big 12 member set to play one of the new additions twice. The Cyclones will face BYU for just the sixth and seventh time in history when the Cougars join the conference in 2023-24.

Finally, four of the five Texas teams in the conference are set to square off twice. The Longhorns will meet Texas Tech two times, while TCU and Baylor will also play a pair of games. Houston will stick with its AAC partner UCF.