Event: Big 12 Basketball Tournament
Sport: NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball
Location: Kansas City, Mo.
Arena: Sprint Center
2019 Champion: Iowa State
The Big 12 has a short but proud history as one of the few major power conferences in NCAA Division I basketball. It was created in 1994 from the merging of the Big Eight Conference with the four Texas schools from the Southwest Conference. Following conference realignment in 2012, the Big 12 is now comprised of 10 teams: eight original members plus
West Virginia
and
Texas Christian
. The conference has produced a single national championship: the 2008
Kansas Jayhawks
, which featured Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur and Brandon Rush. The Big 12 Tournament (also known as the Phillips 66 Big 12 Men’s Basketball Championship) is held during the weekend after the final games of the regular season. Besides bragging rights and a place in history, the winner of the tournament also receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Anyone can earn a spot regardless of the team’s regular season record. If you want to catch your favorite team competing against its conference rivals, then you should purchase your Big 12 basketball tournament tickets at StubHub, a leading source for live events.
The Big 12 Tournament is comprised of all 10 teams from the conference. The teams are seeded based on their regular season conference records. Tiebreakers are determined by secondary stats like head-to-head performances.
To give all 10 teams an opportunity to compete, the Big 12 Tournament takes place over four rounds with an asymmetric structure. In the first round, the bottom four seeds match up against each other: eight vs. nine and seven vs. 10. The remaining six teams receive a bye. In the second round quarterfinals, the two winners move on to play the first seed and second seed, respectively. Meanwhile, the fourth and fifth seeds match up against each other, and the third and sixth seeds play as well. There are four games and four winners in this round. They move on to compete against each other in the semifinals and then the finals to determine the overall tournament champion. All games in the tournament are single elimination. There are no losers or consolation brackets.
The 2020 Big 12 Basketball Tournament schedule is set for March 11th to March 14th between the end of the regular season and the beginning of the NCAA Tournament. The second round quarterfinals take place across two sessions. The other rounds are comprised of only a single session.
The 2020 Big 12 Tournament will take place at the
Sprint Center
in Kansas City, Mo. Opened in 2007, the Sprint Center is a multi-purpose arena that seats around 18,500 people. The arena first hosted the Big 12 Tournament in 2008 and has continued to host it every year since 2010. It has signed a contract with the Big 12 to host the tournament until at least 2024. The Sprint Center features many unique amenities and attractions. It has a wide selection of restaurants, bars and lounges from sushi to BBQ to craft beer. The arena is also the official home of the College Basketball Experience and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, which explore the entire history of the sport.
In the 2019 tournament, No. 5 seed
Iowa State
beat No. 3
Kansas
78-66 to win the championship. On its way to the finals, Iowa State beat No. 1 seed
Kansas State
in the semifinals and No. 4 seed
Baylor
in the quarterfinals. Iowa State had previously won the tournament in 2017, 2015, 2014 and 2000. Kansas has won the most conference tournaments over its history although
Missouri
,
Oklahoma
and
Oklahoma State
have all won at least two each.