I’m using my ratings and Bill James’ log5 formula to estimate the chances of each participating team advancing to a particular round of its conference tournament.

Big 12 Conference
Location: Kansas City (Sprint Center)
Dates: March 12-15
Chance of bid thief: 4 percent
Current kPOY: Andrew Wiggins, Kansas

Projections:

              Qtrs  Semis  Final  Champ
 1 Kansas      100   74.2   56.3   43.0
 2 Oklahoma    100   56.7   34.6   13.2
 4 Iowa St.    100   58.1   18.8   10.2
 7 Baylor     91.3   42.7   24.7    8.7
 3 Texas       100   57.3   25.1    7.9
 8 Okla. St.  73.6   22.2   12.8    7.5
 5 Kansas St.  100   41.9   10.9    5.0
 6 W. Virginia 100   42.7   15.6    4.0
 9 Texas Tech 26.4    3.5    1.2    0.4
10 TCU         8.7    0.7    0.08   0.004

The absence of Joel Embiid is not well accounted for in Kansas’s rating, so the Jayhawks’ chances are a bit overstated. (Future generations will look back on the all-Big 12 team with bewilderment that Embiid wasn’t on it.)  I’d still argue they are the obvious favorite here even without their talented center.

But that doesn’t mean the Jayhawks are a shoo-in to win it. Far from it, even if they had a healthy Embiid. A potential quarterfinal game against Oklahoma State figures to be a very competitive game, even with the proximity bonus I’m assuming Kansas gets at the Sprint Center. In fact, you’ll be hard pressed to find a third-to-last seed better than Oklahoma State in recent times. In other low-seed excitement, Baylor is the fourth choice despite being seeded seventh. The Bears get the virtual bye in the opening round and a quarterfinal game against Oklahoma will be a coin flip. The Big 12, like the Pac-12, does not have incredibly low odds for the seven-seed playing the eight-seed for the title.