Big 12 Basketball questions: POY picks, top surprises and disappointments

5. How many bids will this conference get in the NCAA Tournament?

Watson

The Big 12 is somewhat limited by being just a 10-team league, although that will change as realignment settles over the next few seasons. They just don’t have as many teams overall as the ACC (15) or Big Ten (14) but make no mistake, the Big 12 has been and still is the most difficult league in college basketball from top-to-bottom.

That said, I’ll pin the Big 12 as an eight-bid league, which is absurd for a league with only 10 teams. At the end of the day, I think both Oklahoma schools get left out with West Virginia squeaking in as a double-digit seed. Six bids would be the absolute basement. Seven or eight bids seem likely.

Burgess

The fan in me wants to say 10, just so we can say we’ve seen an entire conference get bids. I don’t think that is realistic because whenever a conference is this strong, the teams usually end up beating up on each other and I think will knock some out of the field. I think they will end up with 7 bids, although it wouldn’t surprise me if the other three teams just miss the field.

Rosenberg

I think they’re going to get six. Kansas, Texas, Iowa State, Kansas State, and TCU are my guarantees. I think Baylor will somehow sneak in there like they always do.