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Myron Medcalf
Before the focus fully shifts to the 2025-26 men’s college basketball season, we’re evaluating how this past season went.
With grades for the Big East, Big Ten and ACC already in, we’re moving on to the Big 12, with our report card for each of the 16 teams below.
Part of this process is straightforward: A good team that played like a good team will earn a strong grade, and a good team that played like a bad team will not. But it will be complicated for certain teams. Some had championship dreams. Others hoped to win just one game. Either way, we are judging each squad’s season based on preseason expectations while offering grace on a case-by-case basis for any unfortunate midseason events.
Check back next Wednesday as we grade the SEC in the final installment of this series.
Note: Teams listed in alphabetical order under each grading tier.
Jump to a team: Arizona State | Arizona | Baylor | BYU | Cincinnati | Colorado | Houston | Iowa State | Kansas | Kansas State | Oklahoma State | TCU | Texas Tech | UCF | Utah | West Virginia
A grades
Grade: A
The buzz around BYU grew when top recruit A.J. Dybantsa signed with the program, but first-year coach Kevin Young did not make fans wait until 2025-26 for a successful season.
Projected to finish 10th in the Big 12’s preseason poll, the Cougars orchestrated one of the most fruitful campaigns in program history. With Richie Saunders (16.5 points per game) and 6-foot-9 freshman Egor Demin, they ended the regular season on an eight-game winning streak. And powered by the country’s best offense in the last two months of the season, they reached the Sweet 16 for the first time since Jimmer Fredette starred for BYU more than a decade ago.
Grade: A
Kelvin Sampson, 69, once again proved he is among the greatest coaches in college basketball with a 35-5 campaign that included one of the greatest comebacks in NCAA tournament history with Houston’s Final Four win over Duke.
L.J. Cryer, Milos Uzan, J’Wan Roberts, Joseph Tugler and Emanuel Sharp anchored a team that lost only one game between Nov. 30 and the national championship tilt. And even in the title game, the Cougars had a late lead over Florida before the Gators launched a comeback and sealed the win on a chaotic final play. Houston was just seconds from Sampson’s first national title before things fell apart, but everything before that moment had been bliss.
Grade: A
Texas Tech had one of the best seasons in college basketball in 2024-25. Grant McCasland probably can’t stomach the footage of his team’s Elite Eight loss to eventual champion Florida, considering the Red Raiders had a 75-66 lead over the Gators with less than three minutes to play. But that’s the only “blemish” on the Red Raiders’ campaign. And it’s clear given how close that game was that Texas Tech was a legitimate contender to win the crown.
The Red Raiders finished second in the final Big 12 standings behind Houston after they were picked seventh in the preseason poll. JT Toppin also earned AP second-team All-American honors.
Grade: A
If Kelvin Sampson had not won Big 12 Coach of the Year, the honor likely would have gone to Darian DeVries. His son Tucker DeVries, the two-time Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year from his time at Drake, was available for the Mountaineers for only a handful of games due to an upper-body injury. In Tucker’s absence, Javon Small (AP All-American honorable mention) stepped up and led the Mountaineers to wins over Gonzaga, Arizona, Kansas and Iowa State.
The Mountaineers were widely regarded as the biggest snub on Selection Sunday, and they overcame the loss of Tucker, which did not derail a new coach in his first and only season with the program before taking over at Indiana.
B grades
Grade: B
Tommy Lloyd’s team lost three of its top four scorers from the previous season, but the return of Caleb Love — the Pac-12’s final Player of the Year — lifted expectations for Arizona’s first year in the Big 12. The season played out in chapters. After starting 4-5, the Wildcats won 13 of their next 14 games before another turbulent stretch of 3-4 in the final month of the regular season. But Love, an All-Big 12 first-team selection, carried them to the Sweet 16, where they lost in a 100-93 thriller to Duke.
Grade: B
T.J. Otzelberger sustained his track record of developing players as well as any coach in the country. Curtis Jones (17.4 PPG, 37.4% from 3) became one of the top reserves in the country, earning an AP All-American honorable mention. Keshon Gilbert was on a similar trajectory prior to a late-season injury. And once he was healthy, Milan Momcilovic (11.5 PPG, 39.6% from 3) became a key contributor. But the Cyclones finished fifth in the Big 12 and fell short of their postseason potential when they lost to Ole Miss — a game Gilbert missed because of a groin injury — in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
C grades
Grade: C
After a lengthy stint as an assistant, Steve Lutz earned his first high-major job when Oklahoma State hired him in April 2024, following the Cowboys’ 12-win campaign helmed by Mike Boynton. Although a 10th-place finish in the Big 12 and a run to the NIT quarterfinals might not seem like major achievements, the Cowboys were projected at 14th in the league entering the season. So, it was a notable improvement from the previous campaign for a program that also finished in the top 40 in defensive turnover percentage.
Grade: C
The Horned Frogs were picked to finish 10th in the Big 12’s preseason poll; they ended up tied for ninth. It was one of the worst campaigns at TCU for Jamie Dixon, who finished .500 or worse for just the third time during his nine seasons in Fort Worth. Frankie Collins, who suffered a season-ending foot injury after just nine games, could have helped down the stretch. But this was still a TCU team that finished lower than Duquesne and Idaho State in adjusted offensive efficiency.
Grade: C
Johnny Dawkins signed Mikey Williams, who never played at Memphis due to legal issues, because Dawkins said he believed the former five-star recruit would shine in Orlando. But Williams (5.1 PPG), like the rest of the team members, never found his stride.
At 10-2 overall on Dec. 31 following a win over Texas Tech in the first game of their conference slate, the Knights looked like they could shock the Big 12 and compete for a spot in the top half of the standings. But a defense ranked 15th out of 16 teams wasn’t sufficient to avoid a collapse during the rest of league play.
D grades
Grade: D
The late-season losses of Jayden Quaintance (right ACL) and BJ Freeman (dismissed for conduct detrimental to the team) were significant, but Bobby Hurley‘s 10th campaign was a disaster long before that. The Sun Devils were 3-12 in Big 12 play when Freeman was dismissed, only one game before Quaintance’s last outing of the season. Arizona State ultimately finished even lower (15th) than its 12th-place projection in the conference’s preseason poll.
Grade: D
Four years removed from its first national championship, Baylor seemed equipped with the players to reach those heights again. The addition of VJ Edgecombe, a five-star recruit, boosted expectations, while Norchad Omier (Miami) and Jeremy Roach (Duke) were considered elite transfers. But even with Robert Wright III maturing into one of the top freshmen in the country, the Bears never found the momentum many had anticipated they would entering the season. Scott Drew’s team ultimately finished seventh in the Big 12, earning a 9-seed in the NCAA tournament, where they lost to Duke by 23 points in the second round.
Grade: D
Wes Miller’s fourth year at Cincinnati had the right ingredients to be his best. Two of his top three scorers from the 2023-24 season returned. Jizzle James (12.7 PPG) grew into the Bearcats’ leading scorer, and Texas transfer Dillon Mitchell added to their frontcourt depth. But they won just seven Big 12 games for the second year in a row on only 30.2% shooting from the 3 arc in conference play, and they extended their NCAA tournament drought to six years.
Grade: D
Before the season tipped off, Bill Self said he believed he had the right players to compete for a national championship after his team unraveled late in the 2023-24 campaign before losing in the second round of the NCAA tournament. But the 2024-25 team ended up being even more disappointing.
Kansas spent millions on transfers AJ Storr, Zeke Mayo and Rylan Griffen. It also had a returning All-American with Hunter Dickinson as well as two players — KJ Adams Jr. and Dajuan Harris Jr. — who had won a national title with the Jayhawks in 2022. But they never looked like the team they were supposed to be. Excluding the pandemic season, their 21-13 campaign — which concluded with a first-round NCAA tournament loss to Arkansas — was the worst of Self’s 22-year tenure in Lawrence. That’s far below KU’s standard.
Grade: D
The NIL era has altered the way a team’s potential is analyzed. The more a team spends, well, the more their fans expect. That’s what happened with Kansas State this past season.
Coleman Hawkins, a transfer from Illinois, reportedly made $2 million after he picked the Wildcats over a list of other elite programs — and he wasn’t the only highly compensated transfer whom Jerome Tang added. But the team missed the mark. Tang and Michigan transfer Dug McDaniel weren’t on the same page, and Samford transfer Achor Achor left the team for personal reasons after playing just seven games.
It was the program’s first sub-.500 season since Bruce Weber’s final year in 2021-22.
Grade: D
Utah fired Craig Smith before the end of the regular season in what would be the fourth consecutive year without an NCAA tournament appearance under its former coach. The program is facing the same soul-searching moment other power conference programs have endured in the new climate: At 16-17 and 8-12 in Big 12 play (11th), Utah still had wins over BYU and Kansas but did little else to get its fan base excited about the future.
F grade
Grade: F
It was an ugly season for a Colorado team that had reached the NCAA tournament for the sixth time under Tad Boyle in 2023-24. The Buffaloes didn’t restock their talent pool after losing their top five scorers from that squad to either the pros or the transfer portal, and it showed, as they finished last in the Big 12. Julian Hammond III and the returning crew started conference play with an 0-13 mark and never recovered.
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