Photo above: Big 12 team Kansas St. played Vanderbilt at Sprint Center in Kansas City.  In its true road games, the Wildcats are 0-2 in the non-conference season.

By Greg Echlin

The Big 12 salesmanship has already started and Kansas coach Bill Self is at the forefront.  It doesn’t figure to let up until the NCAA men’s basketball selection committee announces its 2019 68-team tournament bracket.

“I think the league is actually better than what I thought it would be,” said Self after the Jayhawks finished the 2018 portion of its schedule with a win, 83-67, over Eastern Michigan.

In its weekly release, the Big 12 Conference has distributed the numbers on its glossy overall non-conference record, extolled its virtues on its winning percentage, where it ranks among conferences and bragged about its strength of schedule.

But there’s one area where Big 12 teams were average in a limited sample during the non-conference season: victories on opponents’ home courts.  Through Dec. 29, Big 12 teams were 7-7 in true road games, excluding games played at neutral sites.

Even the Jayhawks, picked to win their 15th consecutive Big 12 regular season title, came up empty in their only true road game—a loss at Arizona State for the Jayhawks lone loss entering Big 12 play.

The sample is limited because three Big 12 schools—Texas, Texas Tech and West Virginia—haven’t played any games on an opponent’s home floor.

When Longhorns coach Shaka Smart attended Big 12 Media Day in October, he talked about his emphasis on consolidating good habits “to gain consistency and doing the things that go into winning, whether it’s at home or on the road.” On the road? Did it slip his mind that the Horns’ only games away from the Erwin Center in Austin were at neutral sites?

When it comes to crunch time for the NCAA committee to consider at-large teams, the Horns might have a compelling case trying to convince the NCAA men’s basketball selection committee about losing home games to Radford, VCU and Providence while lacking a scheduled non-conference road game until Jan. 26 at Georgia in the SEC/Big 12 challenge.

When Texas Tech won the CBE Challenge in Kansas City in front of partisan Nebraska fans, coach Chris Beard said afterward his team approached it “like a road game.”  A bit of a stretch since Sprint Center closed its upper sections because of slow ticket sales at Sprint Center.  On a neutral court, not in a true road game, the Red Raiders lost their first game of the year against Duke.

Of the six wins by Big 12 teams on an opponent’s floor, Oklahoma owns half of them.  The Sooners opened their season with two victories on the road at UTRGV and UTSA.  Granted, it’s not like opening at Houston or College Station, but UTRGV and UTSA won’t complain about a Big 12 team coming to their venues.  Not enough mid-majors even have an opportunity to host a Big 12 team or any other team from a Power Five conference.

Illinois coach Brad Underwood knows that feeling dating back to his days as a head coach at Stephen F. Austin.

Underwood says non-conference scheduling was his “most stressful thing” at SFA.  Then in his lone season at Oklahoma State, Underwood found out that it didn’t change much when trying to lure teams to play at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater.  He called it “challenging.”  This season, under second-year head coach Mike Boynton, the Cowboys have played only five home games before the Big 12 slate.

But OSU was 1-2 in its road games at Charlotte, Minnesota and Tulsa.

Kansas State tumbled out of the national polls with losses in both of its road games at Marquette and Tulsa.  Baylor and Iowa State each split their two road games while TCU won its only true road game at nearby SMU.

Baylor got left out of the NCAA tournament last year with a 19-15 record, 8-10 in the Big 12 in a year the conference was considered strong.  Baylor coach Scott Drew, after losing against West Virginia in the Big 12 tournament, said he was worried if the Bears had what it took to make the NCAA tournament despite doing in his words what the NCAA selection committee has outlined. “Play good teams, play good schedules and not have bad losses,” said Drew.

But the Bears played only one true road game last year.  At Xavier.  The Bears lost, 76-63.  Losing at home against Wichita State, ranked eighth nationally at the time, while stacking up home victories against the likes of Sam Houston, Alcorn St. and Savannah St. didn’t convince the committee.

A Big 12 bubble team this season might be in for the same disappointment as the Baylor Bears last season.