Baylor Bears

Baylor Picked as Big 12 Men’s Basketball Preseason Favorite

By Bryan Clinton

Posted on October 13, 2022

The 2022-23 Big 12 Men’s Basketball Preseason Poll was released on Thursday and the coaches around the conference have spoken: the Baylor Bears are the team to beat in 2022-23.

This is the second time in three years that the Bears have been selected as the preseason favorite in the conference, just edging out last year’s Big 12 and National Champion Kansas Jayhawks.

The Big 12 released the poll results via press release on Thursday and laid out the results from first to tenth.

Baylor received five first-place votes and totaled 77 points to edge out Kansas for the top spot. The Jayhawks had four first-place nods and 73 points to place second. Texas was picked third with the final first-place vote and 64 points. TCU was chosen fourth followed by a tie for fifth between Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. The remainder of the poll included Oklahoma in seventh, Iowa State eighth, West Virginia ninth and Kansas State 10th.

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 Big 12 is the first conference to win back-to-back national championships since 2009 and 2010 and is the only conference to have three different teams play in three consecutive championship games. Sixty percent of Big 12 institutions have advanced to the Final Four since 2002, the highest percentage among conferences.

Here is a quick look at the poll, courtesy of the Big 12 Conference.

2022-23 Big 12 Preseason Poll

Coaches are not permitted to vote for their own team.