The seeding for the tournament will be based upon regular-season competition. Each institution will play 16 Conference games. The top four seeds receive first-round byes. The winner of the post-season basketball tournament shall be declared the Big 12 automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament. A team ineligible under NCAA or Big 12 rules for post-season competition shall not compete in the tournament. The four eligible teams with the best record (percentage wise) in their 16 Conference games shall receive the byes in the first round of the Big 12 post-season tournament.

4.1 Tournament Seeding Process. The Big 12 Conference has adopted the following policies and procedures for placement of seeds in the post-season tournament.

4.1.1 First-Round Byes. The four teams with the best records (percentage wise) in the 16 Conference games shall earn first-round byes.

4.1.2 Remaining Seeds. After the four teams have been awarded first-round byes and ranked as the No. 1 through No. 4 seeds (based upon winning percentage), all remaining teams will be ranked in order No. 5 through No. 12 for seeding in the tournament.

4.2 Tiebreakers. The first criteria in the breaking of ties in the standings shall be head-to-head competition of tied teams. The following procedure will be used to establish the tournament seeds if ties exist. (For tie-breaking procedures teams will be grouped in two divisions based upon established guidelines. Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Nebraska are in one division and Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech are in the other division.)

(a) If two teams are tied and they are from different divisions, the winner of the game between the two tied teams shall be the higher seed.

(b) If two teams are tied and they are from the same division, the team with an advantage in head-to-head competition shall be the higher seed.

(c) If two teams remain tied, there will be a comparison of overall record against division teams only (10 divisional games).

(d) If two teams remain tied, there will be a *comparison of record against the highest ranked team(s) (based upon Conference winning percentage) in the division and proceeding through in order of divisional record.

(e) If two teams remain tied, there will be a *comparison of record against the highest ranked team(s) (based upon Conference winning percentage) in the opposite division and proceeding through in order of divisional record.

(f) If two teams remain tied, the higher seed will be chosen by draw.

(g) If three or more teams are tied, ties among divisional opponents will be broken first by using steps (b) through (f) and the head-to-head results will be used to break ties between non-divisional teams. When three or more teams from the same division are tied step (b) will consist of a mini-round robin among the tied teams. At any point during the process of breaking ties among three or more teams that the number of tied teams are reduced to two, head-to-head competition would be used as the primary tie-breaker, followed-by steps (c) through (f).

(*Note: When comparing against the 'highest' ranked team(s)' in either division, the comparison will be based upon how tied teams did against all teams in a given placement, rather than a team that wins a tiebreaker at another position. For example, if two teams are tied for fifth and two teams are tied for first, the head-to-head comparison would be how the fifth place teams did against the first place teams combined, and vice-versa.)

4.2.1 Draw. In the event tie-breaking procedures are unsuccessful and a draw is necessary in determining any portion of seeding, the following procedure will be used:
(a) The drawing will be conducted in public or with media attendance;
(b) Institutions involved in the drawing have the right to have a local representative in attendance at the drawing; and,
(c) A single slip of paper with names representing each of the tied institutions will be placed into a container and will be drawn in order of seeding from highest to lowest.

(Note: In the Big 12 seeding process, the highest seed is #1 and the lowest seed is #12.)