Big 12 Basketball: Final Team Grades and Rankings for the 2017-18 season

7. Oklahoma Sooners 18-14 (8-10)

2017-18 postseason result: NCAA Tournament First Round

Season Grade: B

The “D” level performance in the final two months of the regular season nearly cost the Sooners an NCAA Tournament bid, but it was the “A+” of the non-conference that saved them. Those grades also would work for Trae Young and his teammates at times this season.

No matter how bad Oklahoma looked to end the season, the team still won eight Big 12 games and made the Big Dance. It was an overall great year for a team who won just 11 games the season prior.

6. Texas Longhorns 19-15 (8-10)

2017-18 postseason result: NCAA Tournament First Round

Season Grade: B+

After really struggling a year ago as a team, Texas turned it around and put themselves in position for a bid, thanks in part to their SOS numbers.

But what made this season for the Longhorns all the more special was how the team responded when guard Andrew Jones went down after a Leukemia diagnosis. In that same day of the announcement, Texas pulled off the miracle win over TCU, which led them to the NCAA Tournament.

5. TCU Horned Frogs 21-12 (9-9)

2017-18 postseason result: NCAA Tournament First Round

Season Grade: A

After winning the NIT title the previous season, Jamie Dixon and TCU continued the positive momentum to the program’s best season in nearly 30 years. They won a Big 12 record nine games, while finishing in the top half of a difficult league.

I’m sure the Horned Frogs would’ve prefered to do more damage, but this was the first season in a long time that the basketball program outshined their football counterparts, making this a wildly successful season.