Texas Tech basketball: Big 12 Tournament desires to rotate locations

Tonight, Kansas and Iowa State will meet inside the Big 12 Tournament championship sport. It will be a packed residence inside the Sprint Center, where teams with large fanbases in the Midwest square off. And that surprises one if it’s miles honest for the Big 12 to preserve its championship event in Kanas City every 12 months. Every March, the Sprint Center is filled with fans from three main faculties: Iowa State, Kansas State, and Kansas. That is because fanatics from Ames should journey just 230 miles to get to K.C., even as fans from Kansas State should tour the simplest 121 miles, and Jayhawk enthusiasts have to find some bravery to make a 41-mile trek. (Imagine the benefit to the Red Raiders if they were to be performed in a town as close to Lubbock as Plainview.)

Moreover, hundreds of alums of these three former Big 12 North schools dwell inside the K.C. The vicinity was doing any sport regarding the Cyclones, Wildcats, or Jayhawks, a real street contest for the other seven schools inside the convention. Therefore, it is no marvel that in the ten years since the Big 12 Tournament has referred to as Kansas City, its permanent home, one of these three schools has been inside the identified game nine instances. And the one year that is the exception (2012) saw former Big 12 member Missouri win the title. Columbia, through the way, is merely 151 miles east of Kansas City.

In all, teams within 300 miles of Kansas City have seemed in the name game 14 instances. In 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2019, the title recreation featured two groups from the antique Big 12 North. Meanwhile, the four teams from Texas are 643.2 miles away from K.C. That means the most difficult center of fans from those colleges can attend the Big 12 Tournament. And now, not highly, Texas schools were in the identity recreation three times inside the closing ten years. There has by no means been a matchup of two Texas teams in the sport that decides who gets an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Certainly, lovers of the northern faculties will factor out that their groups have been more highly seeded on common, which is incredibly proper. Kansas was the top seed in each of the ultimate nine years before 2019, and KSU only reached the title game while seeded No. 2 inside the league.

But that begs the question, why have these northern colleges been disenchanted so less regularly than the Texas schools? Because they have the advantage of gambling in front of hundreds of fanatics in quantities to virtual home games. There is no query that if the occasion had been held in Dallas during the last ten years, Texas schools would have an awful lot higher and possibly could have gained the event a handful of times. Likewise, one should assume that the 2 Oklahoma schools that have no longer even seemed inside the name game within the closing decade might have been more significant elements in the Big 12 Tournament had the event been held in Oklahoma City. So why has the competition been moved to K.C. On a permanent foundation? The solution lies in petty jealousy and complaining about the northern faculties. When the conference determined to play its soccer championship sport at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on an annual foundation starting in 2009, the teams inside the former Big 12 North cried foul. They demanded that the basketball tournament be held entirely in a northern metropolis.

Thus, Kansas City becomes the most effective logical desire. But there may be a flaw in that reasoning. The football championship recreation handiest includes two groups every 12 months, while the basketball match functions for each crew inside the league. As a Texas Tech fan, I have never wanted to wait for the recreation of the Big 12 soccer name even though, for many years, I could have effortlessly made the trip to Arlington. That’s because Tech has no way seemed to be in the game. In reality, most straightforward, three modern-day conference members (OU, Texas, and TCU) have played inside the title recreation because it moved to Arlington. And where did the gain to the southern colleges while the Big 12 did now not have a soccer title game from 2011-2016? During those seasons, it would have made feel to transport the basketball event around to towns inclusive of Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, or even Houston had the Big 12 not signed an agreement with the Sprint Center in 2015 to maintain the event in K.C.

Thru 2020. Regrettably, in the final year, that agreement was prolonged until 2024. That appears ordinary because numerous other venues in Big 12 cities should host the occasion. The equal can’t be stated of the football title recreation. The best impartial website online venues out of the doors of Arlington that are huge enough for that recreation are Arrowhead Stadium in K.C., NRG Stadium in Houston, and the Alamo Dome in San Antonio. That approach that the best manner the soccer name recreation should take location in a northern region would be if it had been performed exterior in December while the climate in K.C. It is frequently much less than perfect. That’s why the game is satisfactory, complete to live at AT&T Stadium.