2024-2025 Big 12 Tournament First Round: 3 Takeaways

Day one of five of the Big 12 tournament kicked off Tuesday, with the 9-16 seeds looking to keep their seasons alive.

Three of the lower seeds advanced, as Cincinnati, Colorado, Kansas State, and UCF all punched their tickets to the next round.

The main attraction was the court design, which was met with negativity, to put it lightly. However, like it or not, you’ll get to see four more days of action on this very court. It’s hard to pack four games worth of takeaways in one article, but we did it, so enjoy one takeaway from each game of the Big 12 tournament first round.

Final Scores

Cincinnati 87 Oklahoma State 68

Colorado 69 TCU 67

Kansas State 71 Arizona State 66

UCF 87 Utah 72

Takeaway #1: Oklahoma State’s carelessness gives Cincinnati the easy win

Oklahoma State is not exactly careful with the ball in general, finishing 314th in the country in turnovers per game, but today, they took it to a new level. They finished with 24 turnovers in the game, which is a pretty shocking number. Four players had three or more turnovers, and Cincinnati turned that into 26 points.

Bonus takeaway: Josh Reed scored a career-high 19 points today on 8-12 shooting. No better time to reach it than in a game to keep the season alive. A big issue for this team has been who can be a scorer if Jizzle James is struggling, which he did today, shooting just 2-10 from the field. Reed, as well as Dillon Mitchell and Day Day Thomas, all stepped up, scoring 18+ each. They’ll get Iowa State next, who they lost to 70-81 on the road earlier this season.

Takeaway #2: TCU’s slow starts are too much to overcome

They say it’s not about how you start, it’s about how you finish, but this was not the case for this TCU basketball team. They started the game 0-13 from the field and fell into a 8-2 hole, and didn’t make their first field goal until the 12:06 mark in the first half. The shooting struggles continued, and after scoring 15 points in 16 minutes, they trailed by nine.

They came back and actually took the lead going into half, but didn’t give themselves a cushion against the 16 seed Colorado Buffaloes. The second half contained a similar story, with TCU not making their first field goal until 15:09 left. This time though, Colorado was hitting shots, and they took a 12-point lead. TCU tried to claw back late but could never make up the deficit, and that was the ultimate difference maker.

TCU also grabbed 22 offensive rebounds and could only muster 18 second-chance points. You have to give a lot of credit to Colorado. After an 0-13 conference play start, they have won four of their last eight and are in the second round of the Big 12 tournament. They shot 9-22 from three and had 16 assists on 21 made baskets. They’ll look to keep their season alive tomorrow against West Virginia.

Takeaway #3: Arizona State keeps it close. Lookahead game for Kansas State, or bigger issues?

As we mentioned in the Big 12 tournament preview, Arizona State comes into this game a corpse. They pretty much only have seven healthy players, and one of those players is a freshman who they broke glass in case of emergency. In the three games in March, they lost by 26, 13, and 28 points. While Kansas State wasn’t playing dominant basketball, they were still playing well enough where they should have continued that trend.

Instead, Arizona State kept it close throughout, keeping it within single digits for most of the second half. It never really felt like a team where Arizona State was going to take over and win it, but Kansas State also couldn’t pull away and win easily. A big reason why was Shaun Phillips, who had seven offense rebounds, including a few tip-ins. With David N’Guessan in foul trouble, Phillips had the upper hand there.

So, what’s the verdict? Tomorrow will tell a better story, but they’ll have a lot of film to dissect before that game. This team is far from the one who picked up several ranked wins still, but there’s definitely belief that they weren’t playing their best knowing they could beat this ASU team at 80%.

Coleman Hawkins was terrific, scoring 26 points and grabbing eight rebounds. It’s great to see him back and healthy, and if he plays like this, Kansas State can beat anyone (as we saw this season).

Takeaway #4: Utah can’t get the rim off the lid on three-pointers

Utah isn’t exactly a three-point specialty team, shooting 33.2% on the season, 212th best in the country, but today was a whole other story. They didn’t make their first three until a minute left in the first half and shot 1-12. They somehow still led at half, but when they came into the second half and started 1-8, UCF took advantage and didn’t look back.

On the game, they were hot 4-22 (18%), and it was much worse until they hit a couple late. Credit to UCF for bouncing on this advantage and pulling ahead instead of keeping it close. Keyshawn Hall, the team’s leading scorer, didn’t make a single shot in the first half, but quickly figured it out, scoring 14 points in the second half on 4-5 shooting.

The question arises as to whether Utah could have come into the second half differently if they still had coach Smith, but we’ll never know. Josh Eilert falls to 0-2 in Big 12 tournament play. He’ll look to break that streak at whatever Big 12 team he becomes the interim head coach of next year.