The Depth of The Big 12 Conference is Pure Insanity
Every year, there is a great debate that rages across the college basketball landscape: Which conference is the "best"?
In most years, your answer to this question is a good way to get insight on what you value as "most important" in determining the relative strength of conferences.
Do you value having multiple top-end teams that could compete for a national title? You probably answered the ACC, which has been dominated by a pair of teams each year for the last few seasons.
Do you value the sheer number of teams ranked in the AP Poll? There is a good chance you would have responded with the 14-member Big Ten conference, which typically is well-represented in the polls with several "good enough but not great" teams.
Do you value top-to-bottom strength of the conference? You most likely have pointed to the Big 12, which has rated as the top conference according to KenPom in 7 out of the last 9 seasons, including this year.
In fact, as shown in the table below, the Big 12 has ALWAYS had at least 50% of the conference in the top 40 of the final KenPom rankings in those seasons. In all but two of those years, 70% or more were in the top 50. Four times EVERY team was in the top 100, and four other times only ONE team was outside the top 100.
| Season | Top-40 | Top-50 | Top-60 | Top-100 | Overall Conf Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2014 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 1 |
2015 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 1 |
2016 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 1 |
2017 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 1 |
2018 | 6 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 1 |
2019 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 1 |
2020 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 10 | 2 |
2021 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 2 |
2022 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 1 |
All this is to say that the depth of this conference has been absolutely insane for basically a decade or more. But as I discussed with Matt Wilson of Our Daily Bears on today's episode of the Rock Chalk Podcast, this year takes it to a whole new level.
At this point in the season, the Big 12 boasts the following:
- Every team is in the top 70 in adjusted efficiency margin
- Every team is in the top 50 in defensive efficiency
- Two teams are in the top 5 in offensive efficiency (Kansas at 3, Baylor at 5)
- 7 of 9 teams eligible for the NCAA tournament are projected to make the field in ESPN's latest Bracketology, with West Virginia the first team out.
Add in the fact that the margin between the Adjusted Efficiency Margin of the Big 12's "average" team and the next closest is 3.77, which is the second-highest gap in this time period, only behind the Big 12's 3.79 gap in 2017.
Glancing over at the women's side, we don't have the same level of analytics. However, the Big 12 has 5 teams either ranked in the poll or just outside of it, depending on which poll you look at. Additionally, Kansas is 5-4 with a big win over Texas down in Austin, and Texas Tech's 2 wins have been upsets over ranked Texas and Kansas State. Oklahoma and Iowa State are sharing the conference lead at 8-2, and there is a big cluster of teams in the race for 3rd.
The main takeaway is that on both sides of the conference, the Big 12 is a mess of competitive teams that all have the ability to pull a big upset on any given night. Even though tomorrow's game between Bill Self's Jayhawks and Scott Drew's Bears will likely go a long way to determining who ultimately wins the Big 12 regular season, Kansas fans should be prepared for the possibility that any team in the conference may have their say about the ultimate victor.
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