Who Is the Big 12's Biggest Disappointment in the 2015 NCAA Tournament?

With seven schools in the 2015 NCAA tournament, the Big 12 tied with the Big Ten for the best representation of any conference. Its 70 percent participation rate blew away the competition in that regard.

But leagues aren't judged solely by the number of teams they send dancing, but also on how many are still strutting after the first weekend. And that's where the Big 12 went from being considered a power to a poser.

Only three of seven schools won their initial NCAA tourney game, and just two—Oklahoma and West Virginia—moved into the Sweet 16. It's the second consecutive year the league had seven teams in the field and only had two survive the opening weekend, with neither of last season's Sweet 16 qualifiers making it any further.

Considered by experts such as CBS Sports' Jerry Palm and USA Today's Jeff Sagarin as the strongest conference in Division I during the regular season, the Big 12's postseason performance to this point has been a major dud because of the five teams that bowed out early. To further that theme, we've ranked the departed by how disappointing their exit was.

5. Oklahoma State

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NCAA tournament seed: No. 9 (West Region)

Result: Lost 79-73 vs. No. 8 Oregon

Final record: 18-14

In any other conference, finishing below .500 and losing 13 games would have made Oklahoma State an NIT participant instead of an at-large NCAA team that was comfortably in the field. The Cowboys seemed to have been seeded based on how they looked more than a month ago, when they were 17-7 after a Feb. 9 win at Baylor.

After that it was seven losses in eight games, the only victory coming at home against TCU, as Oklahoma State fizzled out down the stretch. And despite a decent NCAA tourney seed, the Cowboys had a horrible matchup in an Oregon team that was playing well down the stretch and had too much speed to handle.

A solid defensive team for much of the year, OK State allowed Oregon to shoot 54.7 percent and be just the third team this season to score more than 75 on the Cowboys.

4. Texas

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NCAA tournament seed: No. 11 (Midwest Region)

Result: Lost 56-48 vs. No. 6 Butler

Final record: 20-14

Of all of the Big 12 teams that made early exits, Texas' might have been the least surprising, yet still the most frustrating. That's because the team that began the season ranked in the Top 10 and was considered a legitimate challenger to Kansas' regular-season title reign rarely lived up to those expectations.

So it was fitting that they once again stumbled after the Longhorns made a hard push down the stretch to get into the NCAA tournament and then get a favorable matchup for their second-round game.

"The ending surprised no one," wrote Mike Finger of the San Antonio Express-News, referring to the eight-point loss to Butler despite having a major size advantage and a defense that locked down the Bulldogs' best players. But as was the case for most of the season, Texas' own offense failed to contribute much.

The game might have been the final one for 17-year coach Rick Barnes, whose seat was gaining heat throughout the year. Yet even with that situation looming over the team, there wasn't any sense of urgency among the Longhorns in the NCAA tourney.

3. Kansas

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NCAA tournament seed: No. 2 (Midwest Region)

Results: Won 75-56 vs. No. 15 New Mexico State; lost 78-65 vs. No. 7 Wichita State

Final record: 27-9

Kansas seemed to use smoke and mirrors to claim an 11th straight Big 12 regular-season title by surviving the gauntlet that was the conference's double round-robin schedule. But even as the Jayhawks did that, there was a cloud of uncertainty over them that made what they'd accomplished seem tenuous at best.

The shaky performance in the conference tournament furthered this feeling, especially when Kansas blew a 17-point lead to Iowa State in the title game. Then when it was awarded a surprising No. 2 seed in the NCAA field, the prognosis for a deep run didn't look good.

And it didn't have anything to do with being paired opposite unbeaten Kentucky in the Midwest Region.

Only 56 percent of people who filled out brackets on The New York Times website picked the Jayhawks to make it to the Sweet 16, the lowest rate of any No. 2 seed and behind lower-seeded teams such as Maryland, North Carolina and Notre Dame as well as Big 12 schools Baylor, Iowa State and Oklahoma.

Much of this lack of faith was due to the presence of the team that would knock out Kansas, seventh-seeded Wichita State, but was also likely due to the uneven performances the Jayhawks had throughout the season.

2. Baylor

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NCAA tournament seed: No. 3 (West Region)

Result: Lost 57-56 vs. No. 14 Georgia State

Final record: 24-10

Rarely the prettiest of teams, Baylor always knew it could fall back on its defense and rebounding to win games when things got ugly. This was the case for the 37 or so minutes of the Bears' NCAA tournament game against Georgia State, and then, in seemingly the blink of an eye, it all came crashing down.

Sure, R.J. Hunter went off and turned the final three minutes into his personal highlight reel, but Baylor was just as responsible for coughing up a 12-point lead with 2:54 left, if not more so.

"All year long we've executed down the stretch," Baylor coach Scott Drew said afterward, per John Werner of the Waco Tribune. "We've been a tough team and I feel bad the way the last five minutes went."

Baylor had a 40-22 rebounding edge but turned the ball over 21 times, including four times in those last three minutes. In a year when close finishes often went the Bears' way, in the most critical moment, that prowess disappeared.

1. Iowa State

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NCAA tournament seed: No. 3 (South Region)

Result: Lost 60-59 vs. No. 14 UAB

Final record: 25-9

With a second straight Big 12 tournament title in its possession, Iowa State came into the NCAA tourney hotter than anyone else in the conference. Their seed reflected this, and the Cyclones were so well-regarded after the 68-team field came out they were a very trendy choice to make their first Final Four since 1944.

According to Yahoo Sports, 15.5 percent of participants in its picks contest had Iowa State winning the South Region, the highest rate of any team not seeded first or second. That made its shocking loss to UAB the ultimate bracket buster of the 2015 tournament to this point, and made ISU the biggest of the Big 12's many disappointments.

Maybe it shouldn't have come as such a big surprise, considering ISU had laid similar eggs during the regular season when it lost to South Carolina in December and at Big 12 doormat Texas Tech in late January. But while 14th-seeded UAB was playing better than it had all season in getting into the field, the Blazers won the Conference USA title by having that tournament on their home court.

But the Cyclones team that took the court in Louisville in no way resembled the one that had looked so good for much of the year. And Travis Hines of the Ames Tribune wrote that the early exit will actually have a greater effect on how next year's team is evaluated rather than how this club was judged.

"The Cyclones will be essentially tasked for accomplishing enough for two seasons next year," Hines wrote.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.