Big 12 Tournament 2022: Schedule, Bracket Predictions and Players to Watch
The best conference in men's college basketball will soon crown its champion.
Twice.
First, the regular-season title will wrap up this weekend. Then, nine teams—all but Oklahoma State, which is banned from postseason play—will travel to Kansas City for next week's conference tournament.
Considering the firepower of this conference, the tournament should be electric. Let's get to the breakdown, then, by laying out the schedule, updating the bracket based on the current standings and spotlighting three players to watch come tournament time.
Tournament Schedule
Wednesday, March 9
No. 8 seed vs. No. 9 seed, 7 p.m. ET
Thursday, March 10
No. 4 seed vs. No. 5 seed, 12:30 p.m. ET
No. 1 seed vs. No. 8/9 seed winner, 3 p.m. ET
No. 2 seed vs. No. 7 seed, 7 p.m. ET
No. 3 seed vs. No. 6 seed, 9:30 p.m. ET
Friday, March 11
Semifinal 1, 7 p.m. ET
Semifinal 2, 9:30 p.m. ET
Saturday, March 12
Championship, 6 p.m. ET
Projected Bracket
No. 1 Kansas
No. 8 Oklahoma/No. 9 West Virginia
No. 4 Texas
No. 5 TCU
No. 3 Texas Tech
No. 6 Iowa State
No. 2 Baylor
No. 7 Kansas State
Players to Watch
Ochai Agbaji, Kansas
For a Bill Self-coached Jayhawks team, this one isn't particularly talented. And yet, it's still the best in the conference (so far, at least) largely because it has the conference's best player on the roster in Agbaji.
He could be the consensus pick for Big 12 Player of the Year. His 20.4 points per game outpace every other player's scoring average by more than two points per game. Plus, the output is enhanced by fiery shooting rates from the field (50.1) and from long range (43.3).
He has the bounce to jump out of your viewing screen, and his motor perpetually runs at full-throttle. He's fun to watch now and could be fun to watch in the NBA for the next decade.
Izaiah Brockington, Iowa State
The Cyclones won two games all of last season and none in conference play. They won their first 12 games of this campaign and were ranked inside the top 10 around the holidays, and while they cooled off a bit in conference play, they could still finish .500 if they close out with wins over Oklahoma State and Baylor.
How did this turnaround happen? Brockington arrived in Ames. There's more to the story, of course—new coach T.J. Otzelberger has transformed the defense—but Brockington has brought the most obvious (and maybe most impactful) change.
A Penn State transfer who previously topped out at 12.6 points per game, he's now all the way up to 17.9 a night on 49.6/41.7/78.3 shooting. Oh, and he leads this club in rebounding (by a mile) as a 6'4" wing, plus he often defends the other team's top scoring threat.
Bryson Williams, Texas Tech
Williams, a transfer from UTEP, has helped keep the Red Raiders humming under first-year coach Mark Adams. Texas Tech relies on depth and defense (more on that in a second) more than anything, but Williams has emerged as the top option on an offense that features six different players averaging between 8.5 and 14.1 points.
Williams represents the top of that scoring scale, and his volume isn't even the most impressive part of his stat sheet. That distinction instead goes to his wildly efficient 54.7/43.7/78.8 shooting slash. The Red Raiders' depth might allow him to pick his spots, but he certainly chooses them wisely.
While Williams is worth a watch on his own, this is really a call to get Texas Tech on a screen in front of you. This defense, which KenPom.com puts second in the nation, is relentless at every level and really gets into opponents' air space. It's also good enough to not only steer the Red Raiders to a conference tournament title, it could propel them to a deep run at the Big Dance.