The Big 12 Men’s Basketball Tournament is set to tip off in Kansas City this week. With an expanded field of 16 schools for the first time in conference history, the stakes are high for multiple tournament and bubble teams.
With Selection Sunday looming, teams will battle it out in the T-Mobile Center for the conference crown and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. This year’s tournament will hopefully be more friendly to Kansas basketball fans than the previous year when the Jayhawks were bounced in the opening round against Cincinnati.
The OFFICIAL 2025 Phillips 66 Big 12 Men’s Basketball Championship bracket. pic.twitter.com/X61MfbE7VJ
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) March 9, 2025
2025 Big 12 Basketball Tournament Schedule & Viewing Guide
The five-day tournament begins with the first round on Tuesday, March 11, where seeds No. 12 through No. 16 will face off in four matchups streamed on ESPN+. The second round on Wednesday, March 12, introduces seeds No. 5 through No. 8, including Kansas.
Quarterfinal action kicks off on Thursday, March 13, with the tournament’s top four seeds — Houston, Texas Tech, Arizona, and BYU — making their tourney debuts. The semifinals take place Friday, March 14, leading up to the championship game on Saturday, March 15, at 5 p.m. CT.
All games will be played at the T-Mobile Center (formerly the Sprint Center), the hosting site since 2010. Fans can catch every matchup leading up to the final on ESPN+ before the championship game shifts to ESPN.
Kansas basketball’s path in the Big 12 Tournament
Kansas enters the tournament as the No. 6 seed and will begin play in the second round on Wednesday against the winner of No. 11 Utah vs. No. 14 UCF. Should the Jayhawks advance, they would face No. 3 Arizona in the quarterfinals, a rematch of their recent Senior Day victory.
If KU pushes through to the semifinals, they could meet Texas Tech or the winner of Baylor vs. Arizona State/K-State. A win there would propel them to the championship game on Saturday, where a Big 12 title and a boost in NCAA Tournament seeding would be on the line.