#8 Oklahoma State vs. #9 Iowa State

Wednesday, March 11th 6:00 PM CT, ESPNU

8th seed Oklahoma State (17-14, 12-19) takes on a badly depleted 9th seed Iowa State (12-19, 5-13) in the first round of the Big 12 Men’s Basketball tournament. The Cyclones might have to rely on their fourth and fifth point guard options in this game. They also got beat handily in their last game by the 10th seed in the conference, Kansas State. Oklahoma State, on the other hand, just blew the doors off of Texas and is playing pretty well recently. If you want a dark horse to watch for in this tournament, it could very well be the Cowboys. If the Cowboys win here and then somehow beat Kansas, that could shoot the Cowboys up into the NCAA tournament in the most unlikely of fashions. This game is an easy pick to make, even with how well Iowa State fans usually travel to Kansas City (although I wonder if that will be the case this year).

76-58 Oklahoma State

#7 TCU vs. #10 Kansas State

Wednesday, March 11th 8:00 PM CT, ESPNU

7th seed TCU (16-15, 7-11) has to string together a Big 12 tournament championship to make it to the NCAA tournament. They are fresh off blowing a 19 point lead over the Sooners in their last game. 10th seed Kansas State (10-21, 3-15) just handled Iowa State to make it to double digit wins on the season. TCU should win this game as they’ve got superior talent in players like Desmond Bane. However, it remains to see if that recent loss took the fight out of TCU. Further, this should be closer to a home game for Kansas State (although, it’s hard to imagine a ton of Wildcats fans show out to see the bottom seed team). I like TCU in this one, which would mean Baylor and TCU would have a rematch (I’d rather play Kansas State but I just don’t see them winning this game).

68-60 TCU