Who Should Be the Big 12 Favorite Down the Stretch?
Heartland College Sports: The Big 12 Sports Podcast
Pete Mundo
4.8 • 870 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Big 12 basketball race is tightening — but who should be the favorite as we head down the stretch?
Heartland College Sports' Pete Mundo is joined by lead Big 12 columnist Matthew Postins to break down the conference title race, debate who deserves favorite status right now, and discuss the growing controversy surrounding Kansas and Darryn Peterson.
We also preview this Saturday’s biggest Big 12 basketball games and what they mean for the league race, NCAA Tournament seeding, and momentum heading into March.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | There's not going to be a better finish in college basketball than in the Big 12. |
| 0:04.5 | Let's talk about it. |
| 0:05.5 | Matthew Postens is here on Heartland College Sports. |
| 0:08.3 | I'm Pete Mundo. |
| 0:09.2 | He's our lead of Big 12 basketball columnist. |
| 0:12.7 | And this race, the next couple of weeks, is going to be absolutely amazing, Matthew. |
| 0:17.2 | We have Arizona, Houston at the top. |
| 0:20.1 | They are playing each other on Saturday. We have Iowa State, |
| 0:23.5 | Kansas, one game back at 10 and three apiece. Tech is still lingering two games behind, but without |
| 0:29.9 | JT. Topping, that's going to be tough. So putting it to you right now, who do you have winning the |
| 0:35.2 | Big 12 down the stretch here? |
| 0:45.2 | If I'm looking at where those teams are right now, looking at the injury situations and things like that, I think Houston has a bit of an edge. |
| 0:47.7 | They're going to get Arizona at home on Saturday. |
| 0:52.8 | Pete's not going to play. Pete should be back at some point before the end of the season. |
| 0:53.9 | They're hoping next week. |
| 0:59.3 | You know, Kansas is going to play Arizona again out in Arizona next week. |
| 1:03.8 | You know, you look at the schedules and obviously they backloaded the schedule. |
| 1:08.1 | So Houston, Kansas, Iowa State, none of these teams have easy schedules down the stretch. |
| 1:14.4 | But with Houston being home against Arizona and just thinking about the way they're playing right now and what they have ahead of them, I give them a slight edge right now. |
| 1:19.0 | They just seem to be positioned in the right place where they have the right pathway to |
| 1:22.4 | maybe navigate this without another loss. |
| 1:25.2 | I'm with you. |
... |
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