How conference realignment will make Big 12 basketball tournaments in KC even better

Blair Kerkhoff
·3 min read
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Can Kansas City find room for everybody — from 16 teams — at the Big 12 basketball tournaments in successive weeks?

We’ll see, starting in 2025.

With the addition of four schools from the Pac-12 — Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah — the league will swell to 16 teams for the 2024-25 school year.

The Big 12 men’s and women’s tournaments are contracted to be played at T-Mobile Center at least through 2027.

One of college basketball’s most popular events will grow to 14 teams this year because Houston, UCF, BYU and Cincinnati are joining the Big 12 and Oklahoma and Texas will participate for a final season before shoving off for the SEC.

The Big 12 hasn’t announced a format for the 14-school basketball tournaments that will be held in March.

The most likely option would be the Big Ten model. That gives the top four seeds the first two days off while the bottom four seeds play on the first of a five-day tournament.

But when it gets to 16 teams, what format will it take? Will every team participate?

Kansas City and the Big 12 already are thinking about it.

“Conversations are ongoing with the conference and the venue as to how the schedule will work,” said Kathy Nelson, president and CEO of the Kansas City Sports Commission.

There haven’t been many Division I conference tournaments with as many as 16 teams. The ACC has been operating a 15-team tournament since 2017 that includes double byes for the top four seeds.

That could work for a 16-team event, with seeds 9-16 meeting on the first day and those winners meeting seeds 5-8 on the second day. After that, eight teams, including the top four seeds, make up the quarterfinal. Five days, with four games on each of the first three days, will be needed to complete the tournament.

Fox 4 anchor Harold Kuntz shared a look at how the bracket might look.

Had that format been in place last season, using the AP ranking at the end of the regular season to seed the 16 teams, the top four men’s teams would have been Houston, Kansas, Arizona and Baylor, with Kansas State fifth.

History provides an example of a major conference has conducted a 16-team tournament. From 1997-99, the Western Athletic Conference stood at 16, with schools spread from Houston to Honolulu.

The WAC split into two divisions and the top six of eight teams played in the tournament. Expect the Big 12 to be all-inclusive.

Kansas (four), Iowa State (four) and Texas (two) are the only schools to win the last 10 men’s Big 12 tournament championships.

The Star’s Pete Grathoff contributed to this story