The Big 12 will reduce men’s conference basketball schedule to 18 teams beginning next season

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - The Big 12 will reduce its men’s conference basketball schedule to 18 games next season, answering the concerns of numerous coaches who argued that the 20-game grind of this past season provided their teams with no time for rest.

The conference, which began its postseason tournament Tuesday, expanded to 16 teams this season with the addition of Utah, Arizona and Arizona State along with the return of Colorado from the Pac-12. With the departure of longtime members Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC, that nevertheless left the league with the largest number of members in its history.

"That is our anticipation to go to 18 games," said Brian Thornton, the Big 12 vice president who oversees men’s basketball. "One of the impetuses for that is the balance of conference versus nonconference games. It’s extremely important for the competitive nature of our conference to have the ability to have a bye built into our schedule."

The extra day off would be especially beneficial for schools in the East such as Cincinnati, West Virginia and UCF and those in the West, such as BYU, Utah and the Arizona schools. They often have to travel long distances for games.

"Playing 20 games post-Christmas makes that impossible to do," Thornton explained. "We’re going to try 18 games and we’re going to see how that goes. It’s extremely important to ensure we have quality nonconference games played before Christmas, and that is something we’re discussing with our schools as well."

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said the league was committed to producing schedules that put its athletes first.

"We’re very mindful of the wear and tear and that travel is one of our guiding principles when we think about scheduling,” he said. "We’re making sure we’re very sensitive to that, and that will continue."

In other scheduling news, Yormark underscored the Big 12’s commitment to Kansas City, which has been awarded its postseason conference tournament through 2031 - despite the addition of four schools on the league’s western edges.

Some fans from Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado have expressed their dismay at having to travel to the Midwest after having watched their teams play in the old Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas from 2013 through last season.

"Listen, they’ve been in Vegas for a long time. They liked Vegas. Vegas was great for them," said Yormark, who took the Big 12’s football media day to Las Vegas last year, and whose conference will send the top two men’s basketball teams that fail to make the NCAA Tournament to the new College Basketball Crown event being played there March 31-April 6.

Yormark added that those who traveled to Kansas City for the women’s Big 12 tourney last week came away impressed.

"Across the board, they loved it," he said. "It was a first-class experience they haven’t had anywhere else."

Yormark and Thornton also said the league was committed to its postseason tournament setup, where the top four teams earn double-byes into the quarterfinal rounds. The next set of four get a single bye and the lowest eight play first-round games.

"We always want to reward our teams that have great years throughout the course of the season," Thornton said. "That’s extremely important. Half of our teams will be in the NCAA Tournament, and for our teams that have played really well through the course of the year, we don’t want them playing four or five games ahead of the NCAA Tournament."