Is it just me?

Or does the Big 12 give us some of the most hyped teams in all of college athletics?

I bring this up after having heard about the great Texas Longhorns basketball team all winter. There is one columnist from a metropolitan area in the Big 12 North who went so far as to say we could see the Kansas-Texas Big 12 title game back again in the national championship game. Because, the writer said, these were the two best teams in the country.

Alas, we will be Texas-free this weekend at the Sweet 16.

This comes on the heels of all of those overhyped Oklahoma football teams of earlier in the decade. You may remember the "greatest team of all time'' as we were told by USA Today. That 2003 team got blown out by Kansas State in the Big 12 title game. Then it somehow back doored its way into the national title game and got beat by LSU.

Then, a year later, the Sooners vowed revenge. Oh yeah, they got blasted out of the national title game by USC.

In fairness, Texas did win the 2005 season title game when most were picking USC.

But for some reason there seems to be this love affair with the Big 12, particuarly Texas and Oklahoma.

I guess it's good for those schools.

But for the rest of us, there's nothing as sweet as watching them put the equipment away for the year.