Beware the Ides of March. Also beware the first week of March in Kansas City. The Big 12 women’s tournament shows up with the same blunt bargain every league tournament offers: win three games if you’ve earned a double-bye, four or five if you haven’t, and you’re in the March Madness field with hardware and a fresh line on your resume. Lose once and you’re back to committee math, hoping your season holds up under fluorescent lighting. How to watch the Big 12 women’s basketball tournament Venue:
The Big 12 women’s tournament shows up with the same blunt bargain every league tournament offers: win three games if you’ve earned a double-bye, four or five if you haven’t, and you’re in the March Madness field with hardware and a fresh line on your resume. Lose once and you’re back to committee math, hoping your season holds up under fluorescent lighting.
How to watch the Big 12 women’s basketball tournament
Venue: T-Mobile Center — Kansas City, Mo.
Dates: March 4-8
TV: ESPN+, ESPNU, ESPN
Streaming: Fubo (Stream Free Now!)
Watching in person? Get tickets on StubHub.
All ESPN networks are also available on ESPN Unlimited.
TCU enters as the No. 1 seed and the defending tournament champ, which makes the assignment clear: survive long enough to prove last year wasn’t a one-off. Olivia Miles is the engine now, a guard who turns a half-second of inattention into a clean look, a bent defense or both. She was just minted both the conference’s player and newcomer of the year.
West Virginia is the No. 2 seed — led by Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year Jordan Harrison — with Baylor at No. 3 and Oklahoma State at No. 4. Those top four get the luxury item every tournament team wants, which is a bye into Friday’s quarterfinals. That’s another way of saying they get to watch the chaos before they have to touch it.
The middle is where this thing starts to feel like a bar fight nobody planned. Texas Tech (No. 5), Colorado (No. 6), Iowa State (No. 7) and Utah (No. 8) open Thursday. The Cyclones, with star center Audi Crooks and the return of Addy Brown to the lineup, are one team to watch throughout the tourney.
But this entire group is good enough to dismantle a top seed’s weekend before the bracket has time to develop a theory about itself. These are teams that didn’t come to Kansas City to make the semifinals interesting. They came to be in them.
Wednesday is pure survival and for some, making it off the NCAA Tournament bubble. BYU (No. 9) and Arizona State (No. 10) are the “best” of the first-round problems. Kansas (No. 11) and Kansas State (No. 12) are right behind them. Cincinnati (No. 13), UCF (No. 14), Arizona (No. 15) and Houston (No. 16) are just trying to collect on something before the bracket even warms up. Every one of them is playing to make someone else’s math harder.
One wrinkle worth knowing: If BYU reaches the championship game, the final moves to Monday. An extra day of rest, an extra day of preparation. In a tournament that already runs on compressed time and tired legs, that’s not a scheduling footnote. That’s a variable.
Tournament schedule
All times ET. Conference tournament seedings are also listed.
Wednesday, March 4 – First round
Broadcaster: ESPN+
Game 1: No. 12 Kansas State vs. No. 13 Cincinnati, noon
Game 2: No. 9 BYU vs. No. 16 Houston, 2:30 p.m.
Game 3: No. 10 Arizona State vs. No. 15 Arizona, 6:30 p.m.
Game 4: No. 11 Kansas vs. No. 14 UCF, 9 p.m.
Thursday, March 5 – Second round
Broadcaster: ESPN+
Game 5: No. 5 Texas Tech vs. Game 1 winner, noon
Game 6: No. 8 Utah vs. Game 2 winner, 2:30 p.m.
Game 7: No. 7 Iowa State vs. Game 3 winner, 6:30 p.m.
Game 8: No. 6 Colorado vs. Game 4 winner, 9 p.m.
Friday, March 6 – Quarterfinals
Broadcasters: ESPN+ and ESPNU
Game 9: No. 4 Oklahoma State vs. Game 5 winner, noon (ESPNU)
Game 10: No. 1 TCU vs. Game 6 winner, 2:30 p.m. (ESPNU)
Game 11: No. 2 West Virginia vs. Game 7 winner, 6:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 12: No. 3 Baylor vs. Game 8 winner, 9 p.m. (ESPN+)
Saturday, March 7 – Semifinals
Broadcaster: ESPN+
Game 13: Game 9 winner vs. Game 10 winner, 4 p.m.
Game 14: Game 11 winner vs. Game 12 winner, 6:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 8 – Championship
Broadcaster: ESPN
Game 15: Game 13 winner vs. Game 14 winner, 5 p.m.
Note: If BYU advances to the championship, the game will be played on Monday, March 9 at 4 p.m.
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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