Big 12 Basketball Heats Up: Full Preview for 2026 Conference Play
Heartland College Sports: The Big 12 Sports Podcast
Pete Mundo
4.8 • 870 Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Heartland College Sports' Pete Mundo and Matthew Postins break down the Big 12 basketball scene as conference play gets underway this week across the country. Who is the team(s) to beat? How stacked is this freshman class? Which team(s) might surprise?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, it's now all about the hardwood at Heartland College Sports. I'm Pete Mundo. He is Matthew Postens, and we appreciate you being here as a part of the show. If you are new and you're a Big 12 basketball fan or just a college hoop fan, please make sure you are subscribed right now out of the channel. Hit that like button as well on YouTube. And we always appreciate folks on the podcast leaving that |
| 0:21.2 | five-star rating and review. Well, this conference, I would say, Matthew, undoubtedly proved itself |
| 0:27.7 | in the non-conference as the best basketball conference in America. My question for you, |
| 0:33.3 | first off, is how big is the gap right now between the big 12 and everybody else um i wouldn't |
| 0:41.4 | say it's like the grand canyon but i i think when you look at the record that this conference |
| 0:46.3 | had against the other power leagues in non-conference i think they were like 602 63 percent winning |
| 0:52.7 | percentage i think the next conference was it like 52 or 53. So there's a, |
| 0:57.6 | there was a significant gap between the big 12 and everybody else right now. And it's interesting |
| 1:01.8 | because, you know, last year really the SEC had a better year overall. You know, when you think |
| 1:07.2 | about comparing them to the other power leagues, this year it's kind of flipped a little bit with the Big 12 back, |
| 1:12.1 | where it's used to being at number one. |
| 1:14.3 | I think a lot of that has to do with the talent of players like AJ DeVonsta, |
| 1:18.6 | Darren Peterson, Kingston, Clemmings at Houston. |
| 1:21.6 | Several teams have great freshmen or great transfers that have kind of lifted |
| 1:25.1 | all the boats in the conference, so to speak. |
| 1:29.1 | When conference play started this past weekend, there was only one team in the Big 12 that was |
| 1:34.9 | outside the top 100 in NCAA net, and that was Utah. |
| 1:38.9 | And they were actually down so far. |
| 1:40.9 | They were kind of dragging down their Ken Palm rating a little bit as a conference. |
| 1:44.5 | So Utah notwithstanding, this is going to be a typical big 12 year where you're going to |
| 1:51.1 | see teams beating up on one another, with the exception of the five teams that I kind of feel |
| 1:55.9 | like have separated themselves at this point, which to me are Arizona, Iowa State, Houston, Texas Tech, and |
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