Joe Lunardi reveals how entire Big 12 can make NCAA Tournament
The Big 12 is solidly the best conference in college basketball this season. At least, based on the stats.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi revealed how the entire conference could get into the NCAA Tournament, which would be unprecedented. Currently, Lunardi projected Kansas, Baylor, Texas, Iowa State, Kansas State, TCU, Oklahoma State and West Virginia in the field of 68.
But how do Texas Tech and Oklahoma get in? Lunardi explained on College GameDay.
“It would be the wackiest thing ever,” Lunardi said. “In all the years I’ve been doing this and secretly I’m kind of rooting for it. But here’s what would have to happen. You mentioned the seven quad one wins between the two teams at the bottom. Well, they also have 20 quad one losses and the only win on the road is against each other: Oklahoma at Texas Tech.
“So those two teams, both have road games today they’d have to win. And then they get huge neutral opportunities in the Big 12 tournament. So let’s say a championship game between Oklahoma and Texas Tech and they’re all going (to the tournament).”
Lunardi also evaluated where the conference stands at the moment.
“We’re talking about a historic impact on the bracket here, guys, currently, eight of 10 Big 12 teams are solidly in the field,” Lunardi said. “West Virginia, a little bit shaky, but we’ll see. And when I look at that, historically, that’s 80%. You talked about math, only the Big East in 1991 got seven out of nine. So that’s 78% No matter how you slice it, the Big 12 is breaking every bracket record.”
While Oklahoma is ninth in the vaunted Big 12, they’re 13-13 on the season and looking to make a late-season run. Their best shot at getting to March Madness is through the Big 12 Tournament, so head coach Porter Moser hoped to get his team playing similar basketball over the next month, as they did against Kansas State.
“I thought where we grew was where we talked about handling runs. Handling and bouncing back,” Moser said. “Let’s just take this game. We jumped out to a lead, like we did the other night against Kansas. Then Kansas State came right back, punched us in the mouth and took the lead. That’s what Kansas did, and we were down 13 at half. We fought back and then tied it.
“I thought the guys came out in the second half. I thought our second half defense was very good. I mean, they’re so hard to guard. … Their length. They’re really tricky to guard. There’s a reason why they’re so good. But I was proud of our guys on how we fought back after we got punched in the face. We’ve seen us get that snowballed in some recent games, and we didn’t tonight.”