Cowboys Set to Play Cincinnati in First Round of Big 12 Tournament

Just a few days after the Cowboys beat the Bearcats in Stillwater, the two teams will meet again with their seasons on the line.

Oklahoma State plays Cincinnati at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday to kick off the Big 12 Tournament at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. The Cowboys bested the Bearcats 78-67 on Saturday afternoon on Eddie Sutton Court. The Cowboys enter the conference tournament as the 12 seed. Cincy is the 13.

Full Bracket

The Cowboys have proven they are capable of beating Cincinnati, and they’ve also proven capable of beating their would-be second round opponent Iowa State. OSU knocked off a top-10 Cyclone squad 74-68 on Feb. 25 in GIA, a game OSU never trailed in.

At 15-16 this season, the Cowboys would likely need five wins in five days to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament field in their first year under coach Steve Lutz. That’s obviously a tall (Empire State building tall) task, but for what it’s worth, Lutz has never lost a conference tournament as a head coach — winning the Southland twice with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Conference-USA last season at Western Kentucky.

Elsewhere in the bracket, Houston earned the 1 seed — winning the Big 12 regular season for the second time in as many seasons in the league. Houston, Texas Tech, Arizona and BYU are the top four seeds of the bracket, all earning two byes. Iowa State, Kansas, Baylor and West Virginia were seeds 5-8, earning one bye each.

The Big 12 Championship game is at 5 p.m. Saturday on ESPN.