Big 12 Tournament Preview
Gameday Thread: No. 5 Baylor vs. No 12 Texas Tech | Friday, 11:00 a.m. CT
With No. 17 Baylor Women’s Basketball finishing the regular season fifth in the standings, they will enter the Phillips 66 Big 12 Tournament as the No. 5 seed with a first-round bye. They will play the winner of No. 12 Texas Tech and No. 13 Houston (Thursday at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN+) on Friday at 11:00 a.m. The game will be aired on ESPN+.
Path to ‘ship
Baylor will have to win three games over four days to reach the championship game. The Bears will have to beat either Texas Tech or Houston; then they will face off with Iowa State, who earned a two-round bye as the No. 4 seed. Assuming they win their first two games, Baylor will have Sunday off before they play in the semifinals, where they will likely take on the No. 1 seed, Oklahoma. If the Sooners get upset, then BU will play against either No. 9 TCU or No. 8 Oklahoma State; both teams received a first-round bye.
On the other side of the bracket, the No. 2 Longhorns are the favorites to reach the championship, but they’ll likely have to tackle a scrappy Kansas State squad that claimed the #3 seed. KSU and Texas split their series in the regular season, with both teams winning on their home courts by less than 10. Other teams in the bottom bracket include No. 10 BYU, No. 7 Kansas, No. 11 West Virginia, No. 11 Cincinnati and No. 14 UCF. However the bottom of the bracket shakes out, the Bears will have some stiff competition to claim the title.
Cole’s Prediction
The Bears will easily dismantle Texas Tech in the second round and then scrape out a tight win against Iowa State in the quarterfinals. Baylor will then square off with the Sooners. The last time the two teams met, OU took down the Bears 84-73. However, I don’t foresee this being the case again. In their first meeting, Aijha Blackwell was only on the court for 17 minutes, putting up four points and four rebounds. Compare that to their senior night against Oklahoma State, where she played for 29 minutes and put up 20 points and 18 rebounds. While yes, they likely won’t have the same fire that we saw on a senior night and OSU and OU are very different teams, I do think we’ll see a similar form with Blackwell playing a critical role and putting up points and boards like she did at Mizzou. Couple that with the confidence we saw from Sarah Andrews, and I feel very confident in the Bear’s ability to win this game. Final score 85-81 with the Bears winning the game.
As for the championship game…I believe in jinxes too much to preview a championship game before a tournament starts but I hope I have a very busy Monday night writing a preview for y’all.
