When it comes to college football, the Big 12 hasn’t been one of the big winners of conference realignment. The league admirably responded to the departures of Oklahoma and Texas, striking fast to add BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF, and a year later, Colorado, Arizona, Utah and Arizona State. However, without the Sooners and the Longhorns, the conference will lack the kind of traditional gridiron heavyweights competing in the SEC and Big Ten.
But when it comes to college basketball, particularly on the men’s side, the Big 12’s time in the spotlight is here to stay. It’s no secret that realignment is largely about TV deals and the revenue king that is football, but while college hoops has sometimes been left by the wayside in this national process, the Big 12’s moves may only boost it on the hardwood. (It helps that the departure of Texas and Oklahoma isn’t a crushing blow to men’s basketball the way it is in football.)
For years, the 10-team Big 12 has had a strong claim to being the best men’s college basketball conference in the country. It’s home to two of the last three national champions, and it ranked No. 1 on KenPom’s analytical conference rankings in eight of the last 10 seasons, finishing no lower than second in that time span.
Of the Big 12’s four additions this season, Houston is the crown jewel, with Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars having made the last four Sweet 16s and reaching two Elite Eights and a Final Four in that window. Of the other three new teams, only UCF feels out of place in men’s hoops, having made just one NCAA Tournament since 2005.
Then there are the Pac-12 defections. While that league has had its share of men’s basketball struggles in recent years, landing Arizona is a coup for the Big 12. The conference’s 2024-25 hoops roster currently includes 16 schools, led by the likes of Kansas, Baylor, Houston, Arizona, Kansas State and Iowa State. And on the women’s side, the league adds a program (Arizona) that played in the 2021 national title game, a typically strong mid-major (BYU) and multiple programs that made the 2023 tourney (Utah, Colorado).
The conference’s realignment might not be done yet, either, with reports that the league has resumed talks with perennial West Coast Conference basketball giant Gonzaga. Last week, The Messenger reported that the Big 12 and Gonzaga have “resumed top-level discussions about the possibility of the school joining the conference in all sports, perhaps as early as next year.” This would be an aggressive move for the Big 12—an expansion to the West Coast and a rare NCAA realignment decision made with basketball, not football, in mind. Gonzaga is routinely among the nation’s elite on the men’s side and a consistent NCAA tournament presence on the women’s side. The Zags haven’t had a football program since 1941, which would make them outliers from the rest of the conference.
The Big 12 has also been linked to UConn, though those talks have reportedly been tabled ever since the addition of the four Pac-12 teams were announced. But given that a potential addition of Gonzaga would bring the league to an odd number of teams (17), it wouldn’t be surprising to see the conference try to round that out in the future.
The appeal of Gonzaga and UConn (whose independent football team has been to just two bowl games since 2010) becomes greater for the Big 12 if it can successfully market its men’s basketball rights on their own. According to The Messenger, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is hoping that when the league’s media rights deal expires in 2031, it can sell those men’s basketball rights in a package separate from football. The conference is clearly thinking long-term right now, and men’s basketball just might be its ticket toward continued national relevancy.
