The Big 12 continues to fly high.
Unlike the Big Ten, the Big 12 has several reasons to feel good.
The last two national champions came from the league, with Baylor cutting down the nets in 2021 after beating an undefeated Gonzaga squad in the final and Kansas overcoming a huge deficit against North Carolina last season. (Another Big 12 team, Texas Tech, lost to Virginia in overtime of the 2019 national championship game.)
Entering this season, five of the league’s 10 teams are ranked in the top 25.
Kansas had to replace the N.B.A. first-rounders Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun, as well as big man David McCormack, one of the heroes of the championship game. But Jalen Wilson is poised to become a star, Texas Tech transfer Kevin McCullar is a proven commodity in the Big 12 and freshman Gradey Dick is an elite shooter.
Baylor returns guards L.J. Cryer and Adam Flagler and adds star freshman Keyonte George, giving the Bears arguably the best trio of guards in the nation.
“The coaching in our league is fantastic,” West Virginia Coach Bob Huggins, who was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in September, said in a recent interview.
“If a guy retires or moves on, a Lon Kruger comes in,” Huggins added, referring to the recently retired Oklahoma coach who was replaced by the former Loyola Chicago Coach Porter Moser last season. “Lon Kruger can really coach. And then Lon retired and moved out, and they bring another guy in who can really coach.”
The Big 12 is set to add Brigham Young University, Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida next July and then lose Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC in the summer of 2025.
Baylor Coach Scott Drew asked KenPom.com to analyze the new league and the site determined the new-look Big 12 with its future members would be the strongest men’s basketball conference in the nation, ahead of the Big Ten.