Bracketology 2021: Texas, Tulsa, and Clemson among biggest winners

Oklahoma

There’s a clear divide in the Big 12 between the top half and bottom half of the league. Last week, the entire top half of the Big 12 was in the top 15, while the rest of the conference remained unranked, with plenty left to prove. This past weekend, several of those highly ranked teams were defeated, setting up what’s going to be an exciting Big 12 regular-season title race.

Oklahoma got themselves their first big win of the season by beating #9 West Virginia at home on Saturday. Umoja Gibson’s shooting helped get the job done, as he led the way with his 29 points. It’s true that the Mountaineers are dealing with some issues and that Oklahoma nearly blew an 18-point halftime lead, but they still got the solid win that will really help them against other bubble teams later in the year.

It’s important that Oklahoma got this key win, as they play at Baylor and at Kansas this week. As previously mentioned, the Big 12 title race is going to be very competitive, especially if Oklahoma and the other unranked teams can keep pulling these upsets. Oklahoma does have a 22-point loss to Xavier and a tough home loss to Texas Tech already on their resume, but by avoiding losses they are putting themselves in a great position for later in the season.