The Big 12 converges on the Sprint Center in Kansas City on Wednesday for four days of basketball to crown the Big 12 Tournament champion. The first round features two games and the rest of the conference enters into the quarterfinals on Thursday.
Big 12 basketball tournament 2014 schedule and bracket: Oklahoma State opens up tournament on Wednesday
Marcus Smart and the Oklahoma State Cowboys have plenty of opportunities to make a seeding-purposed statement in the Big 12 Tournament.
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The first game of the evening features the No. 8 Oklahoma State Cowboys against the No. 9 Texas Tech Red Raiders. The Cowboys sit in a position few thought they would be in at this point in the season. Oklahoma State peaked at No. 6 in the polls but began a freefall as conference play began. The Cowboys lost seven in a row at one point before rattling off a four-game win streak that featured an upset over Kansas. The Cowboys' record justifies the low seeding, but Oklahoma State still features an offense, ranked No. 25 by Ken Pomeroy, led by Marcus Smart. It would be silly to count the Cowboys out.
The second game of the evening is between the No. 7 Baylor Bears and the No. 10 TCU Horned Frogs. Baylor finished conference play 9-9, tied with West Virginia, but misses out on the first-round bye. Playing TCU this year, however, is pretty much a first-round bye. TCU is the first Big 12 team since Texas A&M in 2003-04 to go winless in conference play. TCU dealt with injuries all season, but it couldn't do anything to stop being the doormat of the Big 12.
Here is the schedule for the games on Wednesday:
No. 8 Oklahoma State vs. No. 9 Texas Tech, 7 p.m. ET, Big 12 Network/ESPN3
No. 7 Baylor vs. No. 10 TCU, 9:30 p.m. ET, Big 12 Network/ESPN3
Here is a link to the Big 12 Tournament bracket.
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