Baylor Basketball Picked to Win Big 12 with Texas Tech Barely Making Top 5

The Baylor Bears are preseason favorites to win the Big 12 in basketball according to the Big 12 head coaches who voted in the 2020-21 Big 12 Men’s Basketball Preseason Poll, voted on by the league’s head coaches. It's the first time the Bears have ever landed at the top of the poll and they had seven of the 10 first-place votes.

Kansas ranks second heading into this weird season with the other three first-place votes. West Virginia and Texas are next in the rankings with Chris Beard's Red Raiders picked to finish 5th in the conference. The final five teams are Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, TCU, and Kansas State.

Oklahoma State is potentially going to be really good but it will be like Whose Line is it Anyway because the stats will be made up and the wins don't matter because the Cowboys have a postseason ban for this season.

As far as true contenders go for the Big 12 title I think the top five all have a generally even chance and the bottom five are playing a different game. Baylor is stacked, Kansas is Kansas, and West Virginia is about what they were last year except they are another year older with a few new pieces.  People will bash Shaka Smart and Texas for underperforming in his tenure but I think they really figured some things out last year and they have a veteran backcourt that can really hurt you if they are hot.

That leaves Texas Tech who completely reshaped their roster, again. If they can gel before Big 12 conference play starts and get hot early they can totally win the Big 12. The problem is there won't be too many games between the start of the season and conference play. Six at the most. Are six games enough to get as gelled as Baylor is?

The answer to that is no, but it's going to be a hell of an entertaining thing to watch happen.

Santos-Silva was named the Big 12 Preseason Newcomer of the Year on Wednesday and Edwards and McClung were All-Big 12 Honorable Mention selections. The season is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, November 25 though the game is unknown at this point.

Here are your 2020-21 Texas Tech Red Raiders:

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