Big 12 Men's College Basketball in 2020-21: More Gems Than a Jewelry Store

The Big Ten is the best top-to-bottom conference in men's college basketball this season. It has four teams in the AP Top 10. It might send as many as 11 teams to the NCAA tournament. In KenPom.com conference ratings, not only is the Big Ten's plus-20.16 rating more than 20 percent higher than the next-closest league, but it also is the highest rating since the ACC's 20.32 mark in 2003-04.

However, that just means this year's Big 12 is perhaps the best second-best conference ever.

While the Big Ten makes up 40 percent of the AP Top 10, the Big 12 boasts one-third of the teams ranked in the Top 18: No. 2 Baylor, No. 7 Oklahoma, No. 10 West Virginia, No. 14 Texas, No. 17 Kansas and No. 18 Texas Tech. It also has Oklahoma State at "No. 26" as the unranked team receiving the most votes. And after the Cowboys knocked off Texas Tech on Monday night, it's likely they'll be ranked in a few days.

2-17 Iowa State and 7-18 Kansas State are the millstones weighing this league down in second place in the aforementioned KenPom ratings. 11-10 TCU isn't helping either. But the Big 12's top seven has been excellent, producing spectacular head-to-head showdowns far more often than not.

Undefeated Baylor is, of course, the cream of the crop. Gonzaga has arguably emerged as the singular favorite to win the national championship, but the Bears are 1B in that conversation. Their three-pronged assault of three-pointers, offensive rebounds and steals is unlike anything we've seen in recent history.

(Don't sweat Baylor's Tuesday night close call against Iowa State. It was the Bears' first game in three weeks. NPOY candidate Jared Butler got out to an impossibly awful start of three turnovers, two fouls and no points, rebounds, assists or steals in the first 17 minutes. And they had to play without their best big man, Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua.)

Beyond Baylor, to rank the league's second tier on any given day, you might as well throw six names in a hat and see what order you get.

By no means am I suggesting that the Big 12 will produce seven of the eight teams that reach the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, but it definitely has seven teams capable of going that far.

At 6-7 in league play, Texas Tech has the most losses of the bunch and is likely headed for the No. 7 seed in the Big 12 tournament. Yet, the Red Raiders are the perfect example of how ridiculously entertaining this conference has been.

They have played 10 games against the Big 12's other top teams. Two of those were overtime losses to Oklahoma State. The Red Raiders also suffered one-point losses to Kansas and West Virginia and won by two at both Oklahoma and Texas.

The only game of the bunch decided by more than eight points was an 82-71 loss to West Virginia. Even that was a two-point game with 80 seconds remaining and only got out of hand because of technical free throws following head coach Chris Beard's temper tantrum. In fact, Baylor led at some point in the final nine minutes of six of its seven conference losses. In several cases, the Red Raiders blew a double-digit lead.

Brad Tollefson/Associated Press

Par for the course in this wild and crazy league.

West Virginia has played in five Big 12 games in which the losing team led by at least nine points at some juncture in the second half.

In the Mountaineers' win at Oklahoma State, they trailed by 19 with less than 12 minutes to go. They were also down 19 early in the second half at Texas before storming back for a win. They erased a 12-point deficit in the final seven minutes of a win over Texas Tech, bounced back from a nine-point deficit to beat Iowa State and blew a nine-point lead midway through the second half of a loss to Texas.

And those are just the successful comeback stories involving West Virginia. There was also the game at Oklahoma in which WVU erased an 18-point halftime deficit in the span of 10 minutes before falling short, the home game against Oklahoma in which the 'Eers trailed by nine in the final six minutes before a heartbreaking double-overtime loss and the game at Iowa State in which West Virginia led by 15 in the final 10 minutes and let the Cyclones draw all the way back to within one point.

As if that's not enough, there was also Texas' double-overtime loss to Oklahoma State, its overtime win over Kansas and an 80-79 barnburner against Oklahoma in which the Longhorns almost won despite playing without two starters (Jericho Sims and Courtney Ramey) and having three guys foul out.

Never a dull night in the Big 12.

In addition to the frequent theatre, there's a ton of star power in this conference.

Oklahoma State's Cade Cunningham is probably going to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NBA draft. Texas' Greg Brown and Kai Jones are both potential lottery picks who are almost certain to go in the first round. Baylor's Jared Butler and Davion Mitchell are both likely first-round picks too. Throw in Texas Tech's Terrence Shannon Jr. and West Virginia's Miles McBride as fringe first-round prospects, and there could be as many as seven first-round picks from the Big 12.

At least in that regard, the Big 12 is light-years ahead of the Big Ten, which only has Michigan's Franz Wagner as a likely first-round pick. (Someone should probably let those draft scouts know about Illinois' Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn, though.)

Beyond the draft potential, West Virginia's Derek Culver is averaging a double-double (15.1 PPG, 10.3 RPG), Oklahoma's Austin Reaves stuffs the stat sheet on a nightly basis (17.2 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 4.9 APG) and Texas Tech's Mac McClung is unofficially the most fearless scorer in the country.

Brody Schmidt/Associated Press

If you're late to the Big 12 lovefest, I do have excellent news for you: Things are about to get nuts.

The Big 12 had been intentionally leaving the first week of March open on everyone's calendar in order to accommodate making up as many postponed games as possible. And on Tuesday afternoon, the league put out a press release about end-of-season schedule changes that might as well have been covered in fireworks and heart emojis.

Beginning this Saturday, Baylor will close out its regular season as follows: at Kansas, at West Virginia, vs. Oklahoma State, vs. Texas Tech. A lot of people were upset that the West Virginia at Baylor game scheduled for Feb. 25 was nixed, but that's quite the eight-day gauntlet for the best team in the conference.

Elsewhere, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will square off on both Saturday and Monday. The Sooners will then host Texas on Thursday, and the Cowboys will travel to West Virginia on March 6. There's also a big Texas at Texas Tech showdown this Saturday.

Notably absent from the updated schedule was Kansas, which was somehow able to already play 17 league games. The Jayhawks will host Baylor on Saturday before getting about 12 days off prior to its first game in the Big 12 tournament—a much-needed pre-postseason rest after running through a gauntlet for three months.

And, yes, as far as we know, there will still be a Big 12 tournament from March 10-13, one final hurrah of certain-to-be must-watch affairs.

Assuming it wins at least one of its final four games and locks up the No. 1 seed, Baylor will get a favorable start in its quarterfinal against either TCU or Kansas State. Beyond that, though, every matchup in the final three days of that tournament is going to be a gem.

Based on current projections, it's looking like the other quarterfinals will be No. 2 West Virginia vs. No. 7 Texas Tech (provided Texas Tech doesn't lose to Iowa State in the first round), No. 3 Texas vs. No. 6 Oklahoma State and No. 4 Oklahoma vs. No. 5 Kansas. Regardless of how the standings shake out, though, do yourself a favor and watch as much Big 12 basketball as you can over the next 17 days.

This league always delivers.

Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball and college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.