With a fantastic 2015 regular season all but in the books, the Big 12 has two teams still fighting for tourney bids. Both teams ended Saturday at 8-10 in conference play. For Texas, that means staying in the thick of the bubble race in advance of the Big 12 tournament. For Oklahoma State, it introduced added suspense -- enough to hold off on a lock, at least for today.

Oklahoma State, 18-12 overall, 8-10 in Big 12; RPI, 45; SOS, 17:Now that the Cowboys have finished their regular season with Saturday's totally expected, and totally forgivable, 81-72 loss at West Virginia, they present a weird scenario for the committee. On the one hand, Oklahoma State beat Kansas and swept both Baylor and Texas. On the other hand, the Cowboys finished 8-10 in conference play. On the, um, third hand, while conference record can be a handy historic reference, it isn't supposed to factor in to a committee's understanding of a team. (And if it does, well, the 2014-15 Big 12 was awfully good.) We're going to keep Oklahoma State on the should-be-in line for now. With their wins and that schedule, it's hard for us to imagine how they'd miss the tournament. But we'll wait until the early Big 12 tourney returns come in to be sure.

Texas, 19-12 overall, 8-10 in Big 12; RPI, 42; SOS, 11: Say this much for Texas: The Longhorns didn't quit. With the losses piling up, their at-large chances slipping toward the bubble, and the fans' displeasure with coach Rick Barnes growing by the day, Texas could have devolved into a full-on collapse. Instead, the Longhorns - 6-10 in the Big 12, where they sat after last week's close loss at Kansas - kept fighting. Their reward was two home wins in the final week of the regular season. Monday's overtime win over Baylor had by far the most impact, as it added another top-50 victory to a resume that somehow got 16 games deep in the 2015 Big 12 season with just one such victory. But Saturday's win over Kansas State was crucial, too. A loss to the weird Wildcats would have been damaging in its own right, but Texas' conference record would have been 7-11, where the historical precedents are rare. Instead, it finished at 8-10, and the league record shouldn't become an issue one way or the other. For all the talk of top-50 wins, this team is also just 7-12 against the RPI top 100. Will the top-10 strength of schedule mitigate that issue? Will its lack of bad losses hold sway? Will the committee notice those occasionally unlucky close losses to good teams in league play? For now, Texas is in the mix. It could be worse.