Which team is favored to win Big 12 tournament? KU’s Bill Self offers his opinion
Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball coach Bill Self on Monday was asked to assess the 16-team field for the this week’s Big 12 Tournament.
The annual tourney begins Tuesday and continues through Saturday at T-Mobile Center. Selection Sunday follows the next day.
“Kansas is my sleeper team,” Self said with a smile at a news conference held in advance of Tuesday’s four first-round games. “The favorite … I would say until somebody knocks them off, I would say it’s Houston, just because they’ve made it look pretty easy the last two years and it’s not quite as easy as they’ve made it look. So I’d have to say they’re the favorite.”
Houston is a two-time defending champ at the Big 12 Tournament.
For No. 6-seed Kansas, the single-elimination tourney begins Wednesday night. KU will meet the winner of Tuesday’s 8:30 p.m. game between Utah (16-15, 8-12) and UCF (16-15, 7-13) in a second-round clash at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.
If KU wins that game, the Jayhawks (20-11, 11-9 Big 12) would meet Arizona (20-11, 14-6) at 8:30 p.m. Thursday in a rematch of Saturday’s 83-76 win over the Wildcats at Allen Fieldhouse. Two wins and KU would meet either Texas Tech, Baylor, K-State or Arizona State in the semifinals at 8:30 p.m. Friday.
The tournament’s title game is scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday.
“It’s the best time (of the year),” Self said of Big 12 tournament week in Kansas City leading into the NCAAs. “This year and last year too, we’ve probably been more inconsistent going into the tournament than maybe we have in some past years.
“But yes I’m excited. I think we’ve still got enough gas in the tank to play our best moving forward. If we do that, then it can make for a very exciting time for us. So, so I’m excited about it. I think our players are as well.
“But the end is near,” he continued. “We’ve got two basically single-elimination weekends. Hopefully we’ll respect that and certainly play with the urgency that everybody plays with this time of year.”
Self conceded that Big 12 expansion has changed the feel of the tourney a bit.
“It doesn’t quite have the intimacy maybe that we felt in years past,” Self said, “because we were more familiar with everybody, just like we’re going to play the winner of two teams that … obviously we played UCF twice this year (winning both games) and Utah once (losing), but we’re going to play the winner of a game that that probably doesn’t carry the same interest from a fan base, because the rivalries are so new as what it has maybe in years past.”
Also this year and last “we play on Wednesday,” Self said. Arizona, Houston, Texas Tech and BYU are the teams that receive byes this year.
“It’s a four-game weekend if you play well as opposed to a three-game weekend on all the past years. That’s something a little different.”
Self was asked about his playing rotation. The possibility of four games in four days exists.
“I hope it’s more than the way I saw it on Saturday. It needs to be more, for sure, in a tournament that’s played consecutive days, but you know it’s not going to be much different,” Self said.
Flory Bidunga, David Coit and AJ Storr played 14, 9 and 7 minutes respectively against Arizona. Freshman guard Rakease Passmore is available for duty but senior guard Shakeel Moore is not.
Self said Moore (foot) hasn’t practiced in a couple weeks and has been ruled out. The coach said Moore would have to be cleared to practice at least two or three days before a game in order to be available in any tournament contest.
“You’ve got one guy subbing for two guards (Coit),” Self said. “And you’ve got one guy subbing a wing (Storr) and you’ve got basically one guy subbing the two bigs (Bidunga). So, so that’s that’s how I see it probably is same way as I’ve seen it for a while.”
