Big 12 Tournament 2020: Quarterfinals Schedule, Live Stream, Bracket Predictions

Sprint Center will be strangely empty, but the 2020 Big 12 tournament is slated to continue as planned Thursday.

The college basketball world is taking precautionary measures as the coronavirus spreads, limiting who will be admitted inside arenas for the foreseeable future. The Big 12 determined each participating school will have access to 125 tickets.

We'll still be watching the games, though.

Oklahoma State and TCU advanced to Thursday, when they will join the conference's top-six seeds in action. The winner of the Big 12 tournament will secure an automatic berth to March Madness.

Big 12 Quarterfinals Schedule

No. 5 Texas Tech vs. No. 4 Texas, 12:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
No. 8 Oklahoma State vs. No. 1 Kansas, 3 p.m.* (ESPN2)
No. 10 Kansas State vs. No. 2 Baylor, 7 p.m. (ESPN2)
No. 6 West Virginia vs. No. 3 Oklahoma, 9:30 p.m.* (ESPN2)

Live streams available on ESPN online.

Quarterfinals Predictions

Perhaps no matchup on the entire college basketball schedule is more important than the Big 12's first contest Thursday. Texas Tech and Texas are both desperate for a victory to improve their NCAA tournament resumes.

One team is trending the wrong direction, though.

Texas Tech has dropped four straight games, including a 68-58 decision to the Longhorns on the final day of February. While the Red Raiders had a couple competitive losses to Baylor and Kansas to close the season, their struggles to win the rebounding battle lately are a significant concern.

Kansas, on the other hand, is built to dominate all aspects of the clash with Oklahoma State. The Jayhawks enter the contest on a 16-game winning streak.

Sometimes, predictions aren't difficult.

Oklahoma State needed a last-second layup to outlast a short-handed Iowa State roster. During the regular-season matchups, Kansas won by 15 and 25 points. Expectations shouldn't be different for the third clash of the campaign.

Rod Aydelotte/Associated Press

The same sentiment applies to Baylor, which toppled Kansas State in both February tilts. K-State shot a combined 39.5 percent from three-point range yet lost both contests.

Put simply, Baylor has a considerable margin for error against the Big 12's lowest-seeded team. The Bears haven't played extremely well lately, but they have a clearly superior level of talent with room to improve in this specific matchup.

Quite frankly, we're much less confident in Thursday's final contest.

West Virginia and Oklahoma both endured inconsistent stretches to finish the regular season. West Virginia defeated Baylor yet lost to TCU, and Oklahoma picked up wins over Texas Tech and WVU following a loss to Oklahoma State.

Oklahoma grabbed both earlier wins, but West Virginia shot so poorly in February's contest. Call it a gut feeling, but the performances seems unlikely to repeat. The Mountaineers will close out a unique environment with an important victory.

Those results would set up No. 4 Texas against top-seeded Kansas and No. 6 West Virginia opposite No. 2 Baylor in the semifinals.

Follow Bleacher Report writer David Kenyon on Twitter @Kenyon19_BR.