Welcome to a weekly feature on the Hotline. We’ll break down Big 12 basketball using key metrics (NET rankings, KenPom ratings, etc.), our observations and a dose of old-fashioned sarcasm (when needed) — all in the name of providing fans with the state-of-play in one of the nation’s toughest conferences.
(Results listed for games in the past week.) Houston took an unlikely path to victory in Allen Fieldhouse last weekend when the Cougars rallied from six points down in the final seconds of overtime, then beat Kansas in the second extra period. But the outcome itself was not unusual.
Road teams are thriving in the Big 12 compared to prior years. With the midpoint of the round-robin schedule arriving this weekend, road teams are 29-40 in conference play (42%). That winning percentage is on pace to become the second-best in Big 12 history, according to data provided to the Hotline from the conference office.
The only instance of road teams winning more than 42% of their conference games came in the 2020-21 season, when COVID limited attendance and effectively turned every matchup into a neutral-court affair. Remove global pandemics from the equation, and 2024-25 is tracking to become the most successful season for road teams since the Big 12 came into existence in 1996. If the trend continues, this season would join 2020-21 as the only occasions (out of 29) in which road teams managed to win 40 percent of the games.
Half the time, their win rate is below 35%. We're hesitan.
