Big 12 Conference (conference rank: 1st)
March 8-11
All games at Kansas City, Mo.
kPOY: Johnathan Motley, Baylor
Regular season champ: Kansas (preseason #3 / 1st Big 12, current #9)
Overachiever: Oklahoma State (preseason #60, current #19)
Underachiever: Texas (preseason #45, current #76)

One of the main arguments about conference superiority is that the ACC is going to get the most tournament bids. Obviously, the Big 12, or Big East for that matter, is unable to realistically compete with any conference that gets nine (or even eight) or more bids. That approach is unfair to smaller leagues.

However, even taking the more intellectually honest tactic of looking at the percentage of bids a conference gets has its flaws. The ACC, Big East and Big 12 had 10, seven, and five of its teams, respectively, finish with conference records of .500 or better. According to bracketmatrix.com, the ACC, Big East, and Big 12, are slated to get 10, seven, and five NCAA bids, respectively.

This isn’t all that unusual. Sometimes a team gets an at-large bid with a losing conference record, but normally the number of bids a top conference gets is very close to the number of teams with a non-losing conference record. And the middling Big 12 teams would have had a better conference record if they had teams as bad as DePaul or Boston College or N.C. State or St. John’s in their league. But, alas.

Kansas is given halfsies on home-court advantage here.

                  Qtrs Semis Final Champ
 1 Kansas          100  83.2  56.0  33.5
 2 West Virginia   100  80.5  49.9  26.9
 3 Baylor          100  71.0  34.3  17.4
 5 Oklahoma St.    100  53.0  21.8   9.1
 4 Iowa St.        100  47.0  17.5   7.6
 6 Kansas St.      100  29.1   9.4   3.2
 7 Texas Tech     67.2  15.9   5.8   1.3
 8 TCU            56.2  10.4   3.5   0.8
 9 Oklahoma       43.8   6.3   1.2   0.1
10 Texas          32.8   3.6   0.7   0.1