University of Oklahoma Athletics
Big 12 Teams Fighting for Tournament Slots
March 01, 2005 | Men's Basketball
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- At No. 20, and with 22 wins after beating Texas 74-58 Monday night, Kelvin Sampson's team is all but guaranteed a spot in the NCAA tournament.
Oklahoma's coach will be surprised if the Sooners are joined by fewer than five other teams from the Big 12.
"I keep hearing, 'Eight teams from the Big East, and the same amount from the ACC," Sampson said Monday, during the Big 12 coaches' weekly conference call. "But I think our league is as tough as anybody."
The Big 12, third in the latest RPI rankings behind the Atlantic Coast and Pac-10 conferences, already has three locks: the Sooners, No. 7 Kansas and No. 8 Oklahoma State.
Texas Tech (17-8) is also a contender for a bid, although coach Bob Knight refused to even discuss the possibility.
"I don't get into prognosticating," Knight said. "There are a lot of teams that deserve to be in. That's not anything I have ever had an interest in talking about."
Texas, 19-9 after Monday night's home loss to Oklahoma, badly needed a win to help its chances for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. The Longhorns end the regular season on the road against No. 8 Oklahoma State and are just 5-6 over the last five weeks.
Lurking on the bubble -- for now -- is Texas A&M (18-7), which seems assured of at least an NIT bid in first-year coach Billy Gillispie's remarkable turnaround season.
"We do think we're going to be a postseason team. We do talk about that," Gillispie said. "We just don't talk about, 'We need to win two of our last three,' or anything like that. If you do that, you get caught up in it and don't go about your business."
Iowa State (15-10) is still being discussed as an outside possibility for the NCAAs, while Kansas State (15-10), Nebraska (13-12), Missouri (14-14) and Colorado (13-13) all could get NIT invitations if things fall just right.
"This is a big week for us, and the postseason conference tournament is equally important," Kansas State coach Jim Wooldridge said. "At that point, we add it up and see where we are."
Since the Big 12 played its first basketball season in 1996-97, only one team with 20 victories by the end of the conference season has failed to earn an NCAA bid. That was in 1999, when Kansas State was relegated to the NIT -- the Wildcats' most recent postseason appearance -- despite a 20-12 record.
Drop the win total to 19, and the chances are still pretty good -- 40-for-44 since the formation of the Big 12.
Still, Texas coach Rick Barnes said, no team can afford to consider either number magic.
"Every year, you've got to look at what's going on around college basketball," Barnes said. "Everyone can speculate all they want about who's getting in and who's not, but you can't really look at that until you get through the conference tournament."
Of the teams hovering closest to .500, Nebraska appears to have the most momentum going into the regular-season home stretch. The Cornhuskers have won two straight, a 74-67 home upset of Oklahoma State and a 76-69 road victory over Iowa State.
"We want to finish the season strong no matter where it takes us," coach Barry Collier said. "We've been an improving team, even though we don't always have the W's to show it."
