Joe Lunardi’s Latest Bracketology Shares Big 12 Updates

On Saturday, one day ahead of Selection Sunday, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi released his updated picks for the 2025 NCAA Tournament field.

Eight teams from the Big 12 Conference were listed as tournament participants, including (1) Houston, (3) Texas Tech, (4) Arizona, (4) Iowa State, (5) BYU, (7) Kansas, (9) Baylor, and (10) West Virginia.

While Houston, Texas Tech, Arizona, and Iowa State have been playing basketball worthy of top-four seeds in their respective seasons, two of the biggest throughout the year have been with BYU and Kansas. For the Jayhawks, things have been trending down under Bill Self in 2024-25, following up on the previous season’s disappointment with a similar story. BYU, however, has been one of the hottest teams in America lately, closing out the regular season on an eight-game winning streak.

While the Big 12 has without question earned the right to dub itself the nation’s premier college basketball conference, in Lunardi’s update, the SEC placed more teams in the tournament than the Big 12, with 13 total teams. The Big Ten matched the Big 12 with eight teams of their own.

In the scenario listed above, the matchups based on seeding would look like this.

(1) Houston vs. (16) SIU Edwardsville

(3) Texas Tech vs. (14) Utah Valley

(4) Arizona vs. (13) Lipscomb

(4) Iowa State vs. (13) Akron

(5) BYU vs. (12) Colorado State

(7) Kansas vs. (10) Utah State

(9) Baylor vs. (8) Marquette

(10) West Virginia vs. (7) Missouri

CBS’ presentation of the 2025 NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday show kicks off at 5:00 p.m. central on Sunday, March 16th.