Tramel's ScissorTales: Big 12 Conference likely to move women's basketball tournament to T-Mobile Center

The Big 12 has returned to congruent basketball tournaments. The men and the women playing at mostly the same time, in Kansas City, Missouri.

The events start only a day and 0.3 miles apart, the men at the T-Mobile Center and the women at Municipal Auditorium.

It’s a novel concept, great for fans of both sports and university administrators who don’t have to make tough decisions on which event to attend.

But the format is not sustainable. Municipal Auditorium is a fabulous, historic venue. The art deco design takes you back in time.

Going back in time is problematic, though. Municipal has the amenities and comforts of a building constructed in 1935.

So expect the Big 12 to soon move its women’s tournament to the ultra-modern T-Mobile Center. A conference source said the move is likely, with a schedule that includes a Tuesday night conference championship game, followed by the start of the men’s tournament the next day.

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The last thing the Big 12 needs is to be on the wrong end of a tweet about the disparity between the men’s and women’s facilities. That’s what hit the NCAA year ago, when Oregon player Sedona Prince took to Twitter to shine a light on the inequalities between the men’s tournament in Indianapolis and the women’s tournament in San Antonio. The tweet went viral, and the NCAA was sufficiently shamed.

Prince was right, and so would be a Big 12 female pointing out the difference between the plushness of T-Mobile and the sparsity of Municipal.

For example, like most contemporary arenas, T-Mobile has four pristine locker rooms that can accommodate teams at the same time. Municipal has two acceptable locker rooms, neither of which can be called pristine.

With T-Mobile sitting there, ready for more basketball, it’s a natural move by the Big 12. Start the women’s tournament on the previous Saturday, play the quarterfinals on Sunday, the semifinals on Monday and the title game Tuesday night.

The downside, if there is one, is the longer break for the women. The finalists would have at have at least a 10-day layoff before the start of the NCAA Tournament.

Of course, looming is conference realignment, when OU and Texas leave for the Southeastern, while Cincinnati, Brigham Young, Houston and Central Florida arrive to return the Big 12 to a dozen members. And bridging those events could be a year or two with the newcomers, but still having the Sooners and Longhorns.

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With a 12-team format, the Big 12 Tournaments wouldn’t change much. Just four games instead of two in the opening round. But BYU’s presence means nothing can be scheduled on a Sunday, so while the men would keep a Wednesday-Saturday format, if the women move to T-Mobile, they would need to start on Friday, play Saturday, take off Sunday, then resume Monday with the semifinals.

But a couple of years with a 14-team league would be wild.

I assume the Big 12 will adopt the Big Ten’s bracket, since the Big Ten has 14 members.

In the Big Ten, the top four seeds don’t start playing until the quarterfinals, and the next six seeds get a bye into the second round. That leaves the bottom four seeds playing first-round games.

That format requires five days of competition. So the men would start on Tuesday.

Those two first-round games could be played Tuesday afternoon, before the Tuesday night women’s championship game. The women would need to start the previous Thursday.

Hassle? Yes. BYU’s fault? No. The Big 12 invited BYU into the conference, knowing the Cougars’ stance on avoiding Sunday competition.

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BYU brings a ton of attributes to the Big 12. No-Sunday play is one of the downsides.

The other major conferences generally don’t play their men’s and women’s tournaments in the same city/same time.

The SEC, where OU and Texas are headed, goes to different cities. With a 16-team league looming, the SEC will need 15-game tournaments, unless it wants to banish some teams from the event.

The SEC has a couple of options with a 16-team tournament.

The SEC could play a straight bracket, without bye. Four rounds. To alleviate the physical demand of four games in four days, the SEC could allow the top four seeds to play first-round games on Day 1, take Day 2 off while seeds 5-8 play, then hit the quarterfinals.

Or the SEC could adopt the tiered format used by the 15-team Atlantic Coast Conference: four first-round games on Day 1, with eight teams getting a bye; four second-round games, with four more byes, on Day 2; and finally eight teams in the Day 3 quarterfinals.

The SEC traditionally has finished on Sunday, so either 16-team format would start on Wednesday.

Lots of basketball. But not as much basketball as we see in the Big 12, where the men’s and women’s tournaments are played together, and likely soon to share a venue.

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Bud Wilkinson talks quarterbacks

Bud Wilkinson had three all-American quarterbacks during his 17 seasons as the OU football coach – Jack Mitchell (1948), Darrell Royal (1949) and Eddie Crowder (1952). All became successful head coaches.

But Wilkinson’s teams were little known for quarterbacks. On occasion, his quarterbacks didn’t even lead the Sooners in passing for a particular year. Great linemen, great halfbacks, great linebackers. But not quarterbacks.

The ScissorTales continues a series of Wilkinson interviews conducted by Georgia historian Loran Smith some four decades ago. Smith shared the transcripts with me, and I’m sharing them with you.

And today, Wilkinson talks quarterbacks.

“One of the things that probably is interesting – when I say this, some people don’t believe it – all the time that we were running the split-T, we were always talked about as a team that never threw the ball.

“About 45 percent of our plays called for passes, but they were all option to pass/run. Half the time or more, when the option was better running than throwing. So the statistics never include what option was there. They just include what happened. We were a much much more pass-oriented team than anyone has ever given us credit for being. Which is why we moved the ball as well as we did. If you’re not throwing it, the defense knows you’re not going to throw it, down your throat, you know.

“Our quarterback was not in the best position to throw. It was more important to have both halfbacks be able to throw. But if we had a quarterback could throw, we had a lot of play-action and rollout passing, that kind of stuff, where we had the option to pass/run. They had to throw a little bit. We only had one quarterback -- (Eddie) Crowder probably would have been, but we moved the ball so well on the ground that we didn’t throw it that much – but when Claude Arnold played (1950), he later went to Canada and was a great passer in Canada, he was one of the two or three people that I coached that was good enough throwing the ball to move the ball through the air consistently.

“Another thing about Oklahoma at that time, one (stadium) end was open. First year I was there, both ends were open. First couple of years. Then, Kansas State’s a wind tunnel. Iowa State was a wind tunnel, and the wind blows like hell in the Midwest. That’s another factor. If you’re counting on a dropback pass game, you’re going to play some days when it’s just impossible. And if it’s an option to pass/run, the guy’s so open, you don’t need to be much of a thrower, if he’s open. We were very conscious of that.

“Most of our patterns were short. Down and out. The option was, the halfback threw it. (Defenses) had three people deep, but the guy on his side wasn’t very deep. Then we got into two quick receivers out there before the safetyman could come over to cover, when it was a 3-deep defense.”

More: Which players have committed to Oklahoma football's 2023 recruiting class?

Kansas City travelblog: The Garozzo’s story

Thursday and Friday in KC meant wall-to-wall basketball – three OU games in a span of 29 hours (two Sooner men, one Sooner women), and the OSU-Baylor women’s game. Plus a Thursday trip to Municipal Auditorium to chat with OU women’s coach Jennie Baranczyk, away from the dreaded Zoom.

But I found time for two field trips. Breakfast Friday with old friend Jim Poteet and dinner Friday with OU athletic director Joe Castiglione and some of his staff at Garozzo’s.

Joe C. loves Garozzo’s as much as I do, and owner Mike Garozzo regaled us with the Garozzo’s story.

I learned of Garozzo’s a quarter century ago, courtesy of radio partner Jim Traber, who discovered Garozzo’s on road trips with the Orioles, when he playing baseball.

Soon enough, I began writing about Garozzo’s in my travelblog, I met Mike Garozzo, and he’s always treated me fantastic. Garozzo sent his daughter to OSU, for its superb hotel/restaurant management program, and he annually hosts teams in town for the Big 12 Tournament.

Garozzo told us his story. He grew up in St. Louis, on the Hill, the famed Italian neighborhood that begat Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola.

Garozzo’s natural charm and Italian persona add to the allure of his world-class restaurant.

Garozzo, a devout Catholic, says that Jesus was Italian: lived at home until he was 33, ran around with the same 12 guys and His mother treated Him like He was God.

Garozzo moved to Kansas City in 1979 to help a friend run a restaurant and eventually opened his own.

Garozzo developed a menu for his place, but this was 1989, when everyone was worried about cholesterol. His uncle told him he didn’t have enough chicken dishes. The uncle suggested that Garozzo add a chicken spiedini – a spiraled skewer of chicken prepared a variety of ways.

“Put it on now, if it doesn’t sell, we’ll take it off,” the uncle said. The spiedini remains on the menu. Chicken spiedini became the Garozzo’s calling card.

“Nobody had ever had it,” Garozzo said. “My friends say they had had it, which is bullcrap. Now everybody has it. Blue Hills Country Club has it.”

Garozzo began to advertise on Chiefs radio and even recited the jingle that appeared on pregame and postgame shows.

Now Garozzo’s is a Kansas City institution, an intimate, colorful restaurant that smacks of old Italian haunts. The inside walls are lined with family photos; the small hallway that leads to the dining room is lined with photos of celebrities who have darkened Garozzo’s doors.

Tony Bennett – the famed singer, not the Virginia basketball coach – twice has eaten at Garozzo’s. Bennett tried the artichoke dip and said it was better than his mother’s, “and that’s high praise,” he told Garozzo.

Through Garozzo’s help with the church and his standing in the city, Garozzo once had an audience with Pope John Paul II. A photo of the Pope and Garozzo is on the wall. A patron once cracked, “Who’s that guy in the funny hat, with Garozzo?”

The dinner was superb, as always, with Garozzo ordering our appetizers. No one is more proud of his restaurant than is Garozzo, and no one should be.

But the best part of the night was getting to dine with Joe C., assistant athletic director Joey Bailey and associate athletic directors Zac Selmon and Marcus Bowman. Of course, I’ve known Selmon since he was a kid. But I hadn’t met Bowman, hired in 2020, until this trip. Blame Covid. But we shared a space before – he was on the Pittsburgh basketball team that made the Sweet 16 before being beaten by OSU’s great 2004 team. And I hadn’t met Bailey until Garozzo’s.

In the old days, I knew virtually all the administrators at both OU and OSU. Of course, athletic departments have exploded, I’m busier than ever and such relationships no longer are possible. But anytime we can break bread and break down some of the walls, it’s a good thing. Much credit to Castiglione for facilitating such nights.

Breakfast was great, too, at First Watch in Westport, with Poteet. The long-time basketball coach (Bethany Nazarene) and administrator has become a great friend. He’s now 81, still working as vice president of athletics at Kansas Christian College in suburban Overland Park.

We get together when he comes back to Bethany or when I came to KC. We solve all the world’s problems, most of them related to basketball. Poteet knows most everyone connected with Oklahoma basketball, between 1960 and 2010.

Nice diversions from wall-to-wall basketball.

More: Did OU do enough to make the NCAA men's basketball tournament? Here's a look at the Sooners' case.

The List: Big 12 teams in the NCAAs

The NCAA Tournament starts next week. Here are the 10 schools, with NCAA Tournament record and ranked by NCAA Tournament success:

1. Kansas 108-47: Three NCAA championships, 15 Final Fours

2. Oklahoma State 38-27: Two NCAA championships, six Final Fours

3. Oklahoma 42-32: No NCAA championships, five Final Fours

4. Kansas State 37-35: No NCAA championships, four Final Fours

5. Texas 35-37: No NCAA championships, three Final Fours

6. West Virginia 31-29: No NCAA championships, two Final Fours

7. Baylor 14-14: One NCAA championship, three Final Fours

8. Iowa State 19-20: No NCAA championships, one Final Four

9. Texas Tech 16-18: No NCAA championships, one Final Four

10. Texas Christian 5-8: No NAA championships, no Final Fours

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Mailbag: Thunder rebuilding

The Thunder’s rebuilding status and tankathon journey has some fans frustrated.

Robert: “How long will the OKC fandom put up with our ‘rebuilding’ of the Thunder? The league is full of former Thunder players who are better than most of our current players.”

Tramel: I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like OKC fans have put up with it much at all. Attendance has cratered. And it’s only been two seasons, one of which was virtually fanless.

But the notion of quality Thunder alumni dotting other NBA rosters is not a problem unique to the Thunder.

Let’s see. Chris Paul, Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday all have played for the Pelicans. James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Paul and Kyle Lowry all have played for the Rockets. DeMar DeRozan, Kawhi Leonard and Lowry all have played for the Raptors. LeBron and Kyrie Irving have played for the Cavaliers. DeRozan and Kawhi have played for the Spurs.

That’s the way the league operates.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Big 12 likely to move women's basketball tournament to T-Mobile Center