Big 12 Basketball: What is the current state of the conference entering 2019-20?

Big 12 Basketball has been a conference that has always been very good, but never really competed for a national title outside of Kansas.

The Big 12 is a conference that will always have around 3 or more teams ranked in the top 25 and usually one of them in the top 10. With that said they only have 1 national title since the conference was founded in 1994. That honor belongs to the 2008 Kansas team, that consisted of Mario Chalmers and Brandon Rush. This is also the first time in over a decade that Kansas did not win the regular season title. Texas Tech did manage to come out and make it all the way to the National Championship, but they lost in overtime to Virginia.

But there just does not seem to be the competition or the consistency that we see in other top conferences. Look at the Big Ten and ACC for example. Every single year someone in those 2 conferences could cut down the nets. Technically so could the SEC and Big 12 , but both of those conferences are one trick ponies with Kentucky and Kansas.

I want to give my thoughts on the direction that the Big 12 is trending in. This conference has to be one of the more bipolar conferences in all of college basketball.

The Good

This conference will always have one of the blue bloods of college basketball in Kansas, but they also have other schools that have coaches that know how to win. West Virginia although they had a down year Bob Huggins is a great coach that will turn the program around very quickly. Think back to the 2 years they struggled before with Eron Harris and Juwan Staten. Then they brought in Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles, then they made 3 trips to the Sweet 16 in 4 seasons. Chris Beard who has taken over the Texas Tech program and just led them to a conference title and a trip to the championship game, he will however, have to deal with the loss of Jarrett Culver next season.

I also mentioned earlier how this conference usually has at least three teams ranked. The ACC is the only other conference that can really say that. The Big 10 typically has Michigan and Michigan State, but Purdue and Wisconsin can be very hit or miss. Not many conferences have that claim to fame as Kansas and at least 2 others every year seem to find themselves in the top 25.