How Selection Sunday Will Work for Big 12 Basketball
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Now that the Big 12 Tournament is over, it’s on to March Madness, the NCAA Tournament, and the rest of the postseason.
How will all of this work? Between men’s and women’s college basketball, there are actually five postseason tournaments of note — two for the men and three for the women. These tournaments are where all of the Big 12’s bids will end up.
Here’s your road map to the selection process and who will — most likely — go where.
Men’s NCAA Tournament
The Men’s NCAA Tournament selection show will be on CBS starting at 5 p.m. CT. The 68-team field will be revealed. The Big 12 Tournament champion has the league’s automatic bid.
The Big 12 appears likely to get nine teams in the field — Houston, Iowa State, Baylor, Texas, BYU, Kansas, Texas, TCU and Oklahoma. Kansas State and Cincinnati are the most likely bubble teams.
The selection show takes about an hour and it takes another hour to get full game times and schedules for the first round, which are on Thursday and Friday (a Big 12 team could be picked to play in the First Four either Tuesday or Wednesday). But, by late Sunday evening, fans can plan their travel accordingly.
Women’s NCAA Tournament
The Women’s NCAA Tournament selection show will start at 7 p.m. CT on ESPN. So no rest for the weary. During this window the 68-team field is revealed. Texas has the Big 12’s automatic tournament bid and could be a No. 1 seed.
The Big 12 is expected to get seven bids — Texas, Iowa State, Oklahoma, Kansas State, West Virginia, Baylor and Kansas.
By the end of the evening, the television schedule should be set as well.
Men’s Postseason NIT
The Men’s Postseason NIT field will be unveiled at 8:30 p.m. CT on Sunday.
The format is the same but the selection process is a bit different. For each of the six high-major conferences, their two highest teams in NCAA NET not taken by the NCAA Tournament get an automatic bid into the NIT.
Assuming the NCAA takes the nine teams projected, the Big 12’s automatic bids would be Cincinnati and UCF. Kansas State is ranked behind the two but could get an at-large bid. If Cincinnati were to get into the NCAA Tournament field as a 10th team, then K-State would get in automatically.
Games will start as early as Tuesday.
WBIT and WNIT
There are now two postseason invitational tournaments for women this year.
The NCAA created the Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament after a recommendation by the NCAA to create an equal event for women (the men’s NIT is owned by the NCAA). The Women’s NIT, which is not operated by the NCAA and has been around since 1998, will also field a tournament. But, it has reduced its field from 64 teams to 48 teams.
The WBIT will select its field first and unveil its 32-team field at 8 p.m. CT at NCAA.com. The WNIT will then select its field and release its bracket on Monday.
Each tournament has its own criteria, but the WNIT generally doesn’t select teams with losing records. But, with a combined 80 teams going to two invitational tournaments, that’s a possibility this season.
Assuming the NCAA takes seven Big 12 teams, here are the remaining Big 12 teams the committees could choose from by overall record:
TCU: 20-11
Texas Tech: 17-16
BYU: 16-16
Oklahoma State: 14-16
Houston: 14-16
Cincinnati: 14-17
UCF: 12-17
Based on history, TCU, Texas Tech and BYU are the most likely Big 12 teams to be considered for both tournaments. It should be noted that Oklahoma State had the best conference record (7-11) of these seven teams.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
