Bracketology Losers: Lumps of coal this Christmas for the Pac-12 and SEC

BIG 12

There were plenty of losses to go around in the Big 12 last week, from the top to the bottom. With parity in the league behind the top four, it will be tough for this conference to get bids as they eat each other alive.

And that gap at the top got smaller, too.

Kansas had only just become the #1 team in the country when they just as quickly became the latest #1 to lose. The Jayhawks fell to Villanova by just a point, but it was enough to knock them from the pinnacle of the national rankings. Baylor is gaining fast on them, growing into a Top 10 team and a legitimate contender for the Big 12 crown. Texas Tech and West Virginia are slowly rising in the polls, too. But despite the loss, Bill Self isn’t going anywhere. The Jayhawks look like they could start another Streak this season—and that might not be the only championship they win.

But it was tough sledding for much of the rest of the conference.

Texas probably had the ugliest loss, falling by 22 to a Providence team that has already been described as beatable once in this piece. The Longhorns started 9-1, but major questions now surround Shaka Smart—what else is new?—as the team’s best win is a November 9 victory of Purdue that hasn’t aged as well as it seemed it would back then.

Oklahoma State lost to Minnesota, who is pulling off upsets left and right. Across the state, Oklahoma fell to Creighton. Another Big East team claimed victory of the Big 12, as Xavier beat TCU on Sunday. Kansas State also took another loss and slid down toward the bottom of the league.

Despite the quality of the teams in this league, the Big East and Big Ten are setting up to eat up a huge portion of the available at-large bids for the NCAA Tournament, leaving a dearth of space to operate for the Big 12’s middling programs. The top four are probably safe, but the Sooners and Cowboys do not need to give the selection committee any reason to leave them out—especially with Iowa State also in the picture. The Horned Frogs have a good-looking record, but it’s mostly hollow.

Oklahoma was able to stop its bleeding, but just barely. The Sooners prevailed over UCF in a hard-fought 53-52 victory on Saturday, but they had lost two straight game to a couple of good Tornado Alley teams in Creighton and Wichita State. Those Shockers also beat OSU, part of a larger stretch in which the Cowboys have lost three of four after starting 7-0.

There’s really not much separating Texas, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State at the moment. If the season ended today, I’m not sure if any of them has done enough to warrant a bid. They’ll all need to punch up and take down someone from the top four in order to gussy up their profile.

The Big 12 wasn’t the only league to see widespread woe sweep across its plains. The next conference on our list saw its week dotted with letdowns galore.