BIG 12 BLUES

College basketball’s conference tournaments set the table for the big NCAA dance that follows. They give some fringe teams another shot or two at impressing the selection committee and they give some longshots an opportunity to steal a berth.

For the most part, however, they’re entertainment. The highly-touted members of power conferences are not going to be absent from the NCAA tournament just because of a loss, even in an early round, of their conference competition.

Within that context, then, we await Thursday’s quarterfinal round meeting between TCU and Kansas in the Big 12 tournament.
TCU came into the Big 12 tourney on a three-game losing streak, but the Horned Frogs downed Kansas State 67-65 on Wednesday night to open tournament play. It was the first victory ever for TCU in the Big 12 tournament.

The reward for the 18-14 Frogs? Kansas. In Kansas City, Mo. Kansas, 24-7 and ranked No. 9 in the AP poll.

“Premiere team in this league, one of the premiere teams in the country,” TCU coach Trent Johnson said. “No basketball program has a more storied tradition than they do and we’ve got to find a way to compete at a high level in a short period of time.”

These kinds of stories are playing out across the country. Underdogs scrapping against the odds, trying to earn the right to play one more game, and then one more game. Favorites trying to stay sharp and not peak too soon.

Come Sunday – Selection Sunday – we’ll know who got the job done.

And then the job starts all over again.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .