Big 12 Tournament 2022: Semifinals Schedule, Live Stream, Bracket Predictions
The calendar called for Madness, and that's exactly what the quarterfinal round of the Big 12 Tournament delivered.
The defending national champion Baylor Bears were ousted by the seventh-seeded Oklahoma Sooners, while the fourth-seeded Texas Longhorns coughed up a 20-point lead and lost to the fifth-seeded TCU Horned Frogs.
Kansas and Texas Tech made quick work of West Virginia and Iowa State, respectively, but those results went as expected.
Now, just four teams remain in the hunt for the men's Big 12 Tournament title, and the field will be halved again on Friday. It's time to set the table, then, by laying out the semifinal-round schedule and predicting how those contests will play out.
Semifinals Schedule
No. 5 TCU vs. No. 1 Kansas
Time: Friday, March 11 at 7 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN2
Live Stream: ESPN app
No. 7 Oklahoma vs. No. 3 Texas Tech
Time: Friday, March 11 at 9:30 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN or ESPN2
Live Stream: ESPN app
Kansas vs. TCU: Prediction
This will be the third meeting this month between these two teams, as they tussled twice in the regular season's final week to make up a previous postponement.
Each team protected its home court with the Horned Frogs drawing first blood behind 19 points and six assists from sophomore guard Mike Miles, plus a suffocating defensive effort that held the Jayhawks to 37.3 percent shooting.
Kansas evened things up two nights later, when senior swingman Ochai Agbaji paced all players with 22 points.
The Jayhawks are well-positioned to have the last laugh. They have more talent, effectively home-court advantage (the T-Mobile Center is a quick trip from Lawrence) and motivation to get this game, both to solidify its status as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and to capitalize on a suddenly Baylor-less field.
TCU will be plenty motivated, too, as it could improve its seeding with another win over a ranked opponent, which would be its fourth in its last six games.
However, if you pooled these rosters together for a pickup game, you'd grab at least two Jayhawks (Agbaji and Christian Braun) before even looking in the Frogs' direction.
Prediction: Kansas 73, TCU 66
Oklahoma vs. Texas Tech: Prediction
The Sooners are making a late push in the tournament, and Thursday's win over Baylor was their biggest step yet.
Coach Porter Moser knows what it takes to win in March, and his players never stopped following his lead, even while entering intermission down six points to the nation's third-ranked team.
Oklahoma, which had five double-digit scorers and outscored Baylor 33-9 from three-point range, rallied back and held on for a 72-67 win.
"We're playing great basketball at the right time of the year, and that's exciting," junior forward Jacob Groves told reporters. "Got two more to win."
That's the right sentiment to have, but our crystal ball just can't see it. Not with Texas Tech and the country's most efficient defense, per KenPom.com, standing in the way.
The Red Raiders are relentless on the game's less glamorous end, as they showed early and often in their 72-41 drubbing of the Cyclones on Thursday. While the offensive end is sometimes a grind for this squad, this was the second time in three games that the Red Raiders topped 70 points while shooting better than 49 percent from the field.
Prediction: Texas Tech 68, Oklahoma 58