With only a trip to Austin before the conference tournament, Baylor still has a lot of room to move for better or worse. But some of that has to do with the rest of the conference. This is a look at the best possibilities for the Bears in this last week leading into Selection Sunday- that itself is a discussion for another day.
Losing three of the last five games has really hurt the Bears’ stock overall but a win over No. 10 West Virginia has made things really interesting as Baylor currently holds the tiebreaker over the Mountaineers in third place behind Iowa State and Big 12 champ Kansas. But in the case of West Virginia winning over Iowa State on Friday, Baylor would stay put at third place.
*To clear up some confusion after putting Baylor in second place, West Virginia holds the No. 2 seed overall tiebreaker in a three-way tie in conference record. Baylor is stuck at third but has the total wins advantage.
That said, this is what the conference bracket would look like among the top five (OSU is guaranteed the No. 5 seed).
1. Kansas
2. West Virginia
3. Baylor
4. Iowa State
5. Oklahoma State
But the bottom half of the bracket is arguably more important in this scenario of a Baylor win followed by the Mountaineers over the Cyclones. Baylor’s first opponent could be either TCU, Texas Tech, or Kansas State- the latter two play each other. The Longhorns would occupy the basement with a loss to Baylor and Oklahoma would take the No. 9 seed.
Of the three teams Baylor could play, TCU is the ideal opponent for Baylor. But with the Horned Frogs sitting at eighth-place right now, it would take a TCU win over Oklahoma and Tech has to beat K-State (a season sweep) for the Horned Frogs to take that No. 6 spot.
So far, the tally is as follows and completes the seeding process:
- Baylor over Texas
- Texas Tech over K-State (puts Tech to No. 7 and pushes K-State at No. 8)
- TCU over Oklahoma (puts TCU at No. 6)
6. TCU
7. Texas Tech
8. Kansas State
9. Oklahoma
10. Texas
Now more speculation comes into play looking at what this means for the Bears’ path to the title game in Kansas City.
With West Virginia occupying the No. 2 spot, the Mountaineers would square off with the winner between the No. 7 and 10 team. As Tech (the proposed 7-seed) has already knocked off the Mountaineers, it's not too far-fetched to call for an upset there.
Though Baylor took down West Virginia on Monday night (aided by the momentum on Senior Night), it’s hardly a team the Bears want to encounter again on a neutral court in the semifinals. Getting handed Tech instead of West Virginia would be a great blessing should Manu Lecomte return to action and stay out of foul trouble unlike Baylor's last bout with the Red Raiders.
But there's also the scenario of Iowa State winning, putting the Mountaineers as the No. 4 seed, and ISU would take second place following a Friday night win. That's likely the more ideal scenario for Baylor compared to Press Virginia.
Like West Virginia, the Cyclones split the regular seasons series with the Bears, leaving room to question who’s the bigger threat to take the conference. Considering Baylor nearly mounted a win over ISU on the road sans Lecomte and West Virginia had forced 29 Baylor turnovers once, it’s advantage West Virginia for the bigger threat.
So the underlying message remains: Stay clear of West Virginia. Baylor has shown it can overcome perimeter shooters with vastly superior rebounding (33-13 against ISU) better than it can handle swarming defenses like WVU.
That said, Baylor could still lose against Texas and hold the No. 3 seed should West Virginia lose Saturday night. Rooting for ISU becomes the main goal if there’s a preference between the possibility of taking on either the Cyclones or the Mountaineers or the Jayhawks for that matter.
If West Virginia wins and Baylor loses, Baylor’s slotted with the No. 4 seed, setting Baylor up to play a thriving Oklahoma State team and face Kansas in the following round (barring a quarterfinals upset).
So pick your poison:
- Baylor wins and keeps third place with West Virginia winning with hopes Texas Tech upsets the Mountaineers
- Bears win and hold third place with Iowa State winning, putting ISU as the biggest threat
- Baylor loses and gets a shot at taking down Kansas heading into the title game with OSU as the first obstacle at the top of the bracket
Each possibility has its advantages in terms of matchmaking, even when Baylor loses to Texas but that hurts the Bears’ résumé at-large. Which is the best outcome really depends on who you think is the biggest threat, Kansas, Iowa State, or West Virginia. When the biggest résumé builder is winning the conference tournament, this last Saturday holds more importance than at first glance.
