Oklahoma averages 1.58 wins per Big 12 tournament since 1997. They have had 5 appearances in the tournament final, winning 3 of them. This means that Oklahoma has been in the final about once every two tournaments, but it hasn't happened since their string of 4 consecutive finals appearances ended in 2003.
Obviously Kelvin got in a little bit of trouble and it took awhile to get the program turned around again. So can the Sooners do it again? Voice your opinion in the poll question at the end of this article.
However, while we're at it I thought I'd give a little bracketology statistics on the Big 12 tournament.
I started in the semifinals (third round) and noted the number of appearances. I started there because by that point in the Big 12 tournament, everyone has played a game. Not surprisingly, 1 seeds have only missed the semifinals once, giving them a quarterfinals win percentage of 0.917. Surprisingly, 2 seeds have been very disappointing, advancing to the semifinals only about 58% of the time. Both 3 (75%) and 4 (67%) seeds have better records. About 1 out of every 4 tournaments a 6 or a 7 seed will advance to the semifinals. 8 seeds have only ever advanced once, while 10 seeds have advanced twice. 9, 11 or 12 seeds have never advanced to the semifinals.
You may be shocked to learn that of the two 10 seeds that advanced to the semifinals, one of them actually won and advanced to the finals. 5 seeds have a similar win percentage in the semifinals of 50%. 4 seeds have only won in the semifinals 25% of the time.
Also shocking, the 3 seeds have the highest win percentage in the semifinals at 78%. This beats out the respectable 72% by 1 seeds and the disappointing 57% by 2 seeds.
But in the finals, everything evens out. A "cinderella" has never won the Big 12 tournament. Every single year, a 1, 2 or 3 seed wins the tournament, despite 4, 5 and 10 seeds having made the finals a combined 5 times.
1 seeds have won it all five times, 3 seeds four times, and 2 seeds three times. However, since the 2 seeds have only made it to the finals four times, they have a remarkable 75% winning percentage in the final.
Two of the last three years have featured a 1 vs. 2 matchup in the tournament final, with the 2 seed winning both of those matchups.