There’s a chance that the 2025-26 Big 12 men’s basketball season will go down as the weirdest in the history of the conference.
Time will tell if that distinction holds up into the future, but, at least as of today, it certainly seems like that’s the case.
Here are but a few examples of why this run through college basketball’s best conference was the strangest one yet.
• We’ll start with a little Kansas evidence because that’s what you’re all here for, right? KU freshman Darryn Peterson, who, believe it or not, averaged 28.4 minutes per game in 16 of KU’s 18 Big 12 contests, remains the projected No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft and, yet, he landed on the all-Big 12 second team when the honors were released earlier this week.
KU coach Bill Self said this week that he thought Peterson being a second-team pick was “fair,” in large part because DP did not finish every game and was up-and-down with his consistency.
But, for my money, there’s no doubt that this dude was one of the best players in the Big 12 and easily could’ve earned a spot on the first team, especially since they now name 10 players to the first team. It used to be five.
This is certainly not a huge controversy or anything like that, and I understand why it played out the way it did. There were too many nights when people throughout the league just did not know how much — or even whether — Peterson was going to play or what he was going to bring to the floor. Voters, especially coaches who vote, typically don’t love rewarding that kind of stuff, regardless of whether or not the injury issues were legit.
I’d argue that, even on the nights he did not finish, DP showed more than enough to earn a spot on the first team. Some nights, even in just a half, it was crystal clear that he was the best player in the building and the only thing that stopped him from getting 30, 40 or perhaps even 50 points were the lingering injury and cramping issues that plagued him for most of the season.
All’s well that ends well, and DP was at least honored and will have a chance in the next few weeks to be remembered for something far greater than his all-Big 12 status.
But think about it for a minute; the potential, if not likely, No. 1 pick in the NBA draft wasn’t even dubbed one of the 10 best players in the Big 12 this season. That’s some conference.
• Here’s a second KU link to the claim of this being the strangest Big 12 basketball season yet.
Senior forward Tre White, who transferred to Kansas before the start of the season, finished the regular season with stellar numbers, averaging 14.3 points, 6.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game while shooting 43.5% from 3-point range and starting all 31 games for the 14th-ranked Jayhawks, who finished third in the Big 12 standings.
And yet White didn’t even earn an honorable mention nod from one of the 15 Big 12 coaches eligible to vote for him as one of the top 20 players in the league — 10 on first team, 5 on second and 5 on third.
That’s fine. These things are all subjective and opinions certainly do vary. So, while Self and his KU teammates expressed disappointment in White being left off the team, it’s not as if they’re calling for a Congressional investigation into the matter.
Here’s where it gets wild, though. White’s numbers were actually better in a lot of ways than Arizona guard Jaden Bradley, who was named the Big 12 Player of the Year.
Bradley, a 6-3, 205-pound guard, who, by the way, is from the same hometown as KU guard Melvin Council Jr., is a hell of a player. He averaged 13.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game while shooting 38.2% from 3-point range and helping lead the Wildcats to a Big 12 title and expected No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
This isn’t a plea for White to have been named Big 12 POY. Far from it. I’m a big fan of the best team in the league getting the player of the year, barring the obvious case where a player on another team is clearly the best.
Rather, the White-Bradley comp is a reminder that, when a guy who’s deemed the best in the league doesn’t have numbers that are clearly better than a guy who didn’t even make the list, you’re talking about some wild goings on from start to finish in a deep, deep conference.
White did deserve mention. He absolutely carried Kansas at different stretches of the season and turned in his best season yet while playing in the toughest conference in college basketball. But, like Peterson, he’s probably already over the Big 12 awards and looking forward to making some noise of another kind in the weeks ahead.
• A couple more quick ones before we go. Take Iowa State, for example. They finished ranked No. 7 in the final AP poll of the season — seventh!!! — and that was only good enough for fifth place in the final Big 12 regular season standings.
Tiebreakers had a little to do with that, and the Cyclones did finish the regular season at 25-6 overall, with all 6 of their losses coming in Big 12 play.
But how wild is that? The 7th-ranked team in the entire country, which actually reached as high as No. 2 at one point, finished behind four other teams in the Big 12 standings. Wowsers.
• And then there’s BYU freshman AJ Dybantsa, an absolute monster, who is in the mix to be the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft and certainly will not go lower than 2 or 3.
He made a ton of money this season and was an all-Big 12 first teamer and national All-American, and his team finished 10th in the Big 12. Tenth. In years past, having a guy as good as Dybantsa would be enough almost by itself for a team to be in contention for a Big 12 title.
And yet the Cougars, with Dybantsa absolutely bringing it every night, only finished 10th and had to play on Day 1 of the conference tournament.
BYU took care of K-State in Round 1 — Dybantsa had 40 in that one — and West Virginia on Wednesday in Round 2. And now they get a crack at 2nd-seeded Houston, a team that’s very much in the mix to join Arizona as a No. 1 seed in the Big Dance.
Dybantsa, by the way, finished the regular season with averages of 25.2 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game on 52% shooting from the floor.
• That brings me to my final point, and KU fans are more than happy to see that their team avoided this fate.
Fourth-seeded Texas Tech and No. 5 seed Iowa State, however, not so much?
If either of those teams wins the Big 12 tournament this week, they likely will have gone through a stretch of games that is far tougher than anything they could possibly see in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
Let’s just take Tech. In order to win the Big 12 tourney, they’ll have to knock off 7th-ranked Iowa State and then most likely No. 2 Arizona, while probably taking down 5th-ranked Houston or No. 14 Kansas in the title game.
That’s absolutely insane.
This conference is a juggernaut. If you played here, you’re ready for anything. And I don’t think it’s crazy to think that the Big 12, as long as the bracket allows for it, could have four Final Four teams this season.
That’s never happened. The closest we’ve seen to it came way back in 1985, when Georgetown, Villanova and St. John’s all made it from the Big East.
Getting four Big 12 teams to Indianapolis this season would be incredible and would be the cherry on top of an incredible season of Big 12 basketball, one that won’t be forgotten for a long, long time.
Or at least until next year.
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