While Big 12 Basketball only has ten teams and doesn’t have to deal with a ton of bad teams weighing them down, the conference is consistently the top-rated league (KenPom). This hasn’t been noted by many until recently as the conference has had major NCAA Tournament success. With the past two national champions playing in the league, the Big 12 looks to advance as a whole.
At the near halfway point of conference play, nine of the ten Big 12 teams are in the top 50 in KenPom. The conference also boasts five of the top 15. While we haven’t seen the NCAA Tournament success this year and there is no guarantee that it comes, there is one main reason why the conference excels: Coaching.
Self not just by himself
From the 02-03 season to the 17-18 season, Kansas and Bill Self had earned at least a share of the Big 12 regular season titles. The 16 conference titles in a row are absurd, ridiculous and likely won’t ever be done in a high major league again. While the Jayhawks are still the elite of the league, other programs are catching up and it’s because the coaching has advanced. Not every coach has taken the same recipe either.
The rebuild of a lifetime
The first coach that comes to mind outside of Self in the league is Scott Drew of Baylor. Drew took over a program with a complete mess on its’ hands and promised a national championship. It took some time, but nearly two decades after taking the job, Baylor has established itself as a top-five program in the sport. Drew has not only won the championship but has won at least a share of the Big 12 regular season two years in a row. He has also won the coach of the year award in the conference for three years running. For Kansas to have competition, there needed to be a team with them at the top. Baylor has gotten there.
The “no one believes in us” coaches
Let’s start with the Scott Drew disciple himself. Jerome Tang hasn’t even coached a full season yet at Kansas State, but the former Baylor assistant is already considered a top-15 coach in the sport. In his first year in Little Apple, Tang’s team sits at 17-3 and 6-2 in the conference. They’ve already beaten both Kansas and Baylor despite being picked to finish dead last in the conference. His offense, while not ridiculously efficient, lets Markquis Nowell and Keyontae Johnson make plays with a ton of space. Tang took a bunch of players that many people hadn’t even heard of, let alone believed in, and now is in prime position for a top-three seed in the NCAA Tournament and a potential Big 12 regular season title.
While not as successful in year one, T.J. Otzelberger’s job at Iowa State could be thought of as equally impressive as Tang’s. Otzelberger took over a team over a year ago that hadn’t won a single Big 12 game the year prior. He took a bunch of players that were considered role players in their previous situations and got them to the NCAA Tournament.
His development of Izaiah Brockington was incredible and when the team needed a secondary scorer, Tyrese Hunter was as good as you could ask for out of a four-star freshman point guard. Otzelberger then lost both Brockington and Hunter and his team got significantly better offensively. This year’s team still is elite defensively and they play together even better than the previous year.