Seven Big 12 men’s basketball teams are in the field of 65 going dancing.
The overall top seed of the tourney is Kansas, seeded in the Midwest and playing their first round game in Oklahoma City. Joining the Jayhawks in Oklahoma’s capitol city will be 2-seed Kansas State in the West regional.
The Baylor Bears are heading to New Orleans as the 3-seed in the South, as is Texas, the East’s 8-seed. Texas A&M is the 5-seed in the South and are packing their bags to head up to Spokane, Washington.
Oklahoma State weighs in as the 7th-seed in the Midwest and has earned a spot in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s opening rounds. Missouri rounds out the Big 12 field in the NCAA tournament and will be heading up to Buffalo as the 10-seed in the East.
The first round games for the Big 12 schools are as follows (all times central standard time):
Thursday, March 18th -
(1) Kansas vs. (16) Lehigh – Oklahoma City (8:30 p.m.)
(2) Kansas State vs. (15) North Texas – Oklahoma City (1:40 p.m.)
(3) Baylor vs. (14) Sam Houston – New Orleans (1:45 p.m.)
(8) Texas vs. (9) Wake Forest – New Orleans (8:35 p.m.)
Friday, March 19th -
(5) Texas A&M vs. (12) Utah State – Spokane (3:45 p.m.)
(7) Oklahoma State vs. (10) Georgia Tech – Milwaukee (6:15 p.m.)
(7) Clemson vs. (10) Missouri – Buffalo (1:45 p.m.)
Should the Big 12 schools win their opening rounds, Kansas would face the winner of (8) UNLV/(9) Northern Iowa, Kansas State would take on (7) BYU/(10) Florida, Baylor would match up with (6) Notre Dame/(11) Old Dominion and Texas would have a chance at (1) Kentucky/(16) East Tennessee State on Saturday, March 20th.
The possible Sunday matchups are Texas A&M against the winner of (4) Purdue/(13) Sienna, Oklahoma State pairing up with (2) Ohio State/(15) UC-Santa Barbara and Missouri taking on (2) West Virginia/(15) Morgan State.
Texas Tech was also invited to a post-season tournament and will play at Seton Hall on Tuesday evening at 8:00 p.m. The Red Raiders are a 5-seed and face a second round potential matchup with (1) Arizona/(8) Jacksonville.
OSU and GT should be a great game and Texas vs Wake Forest as well. If Texas wins this one, I would not be suprised if they upset Kentucky.