The Big 12 Conference is big-time in most categories, and next year it will abolish one of its most bush-league habits: the postseason basketball tournament with a Thursday-Sunday run. Wednesday-Saturday in 2009 will be far fairer to the athletes and coaches. It will give them a much better chance to prepare for NCAA action the next week.

Interest in the tourney is so high that the money-grubbers won’t lose a cent. In fact, if the earlier conclusion of the meet helps NCAA entries go deeper into the competition, even more loot will result.

However, the Big 12 is not alone among the prestige leagues that now follow a Thursday-Sunday slate. The Atlantic Coast, Big Ten and Southeastern conferences slap that same yoke across the shoulders of their beasts of financial burden.

Far more often than not, teams that win league tournaments with a Sunday finale never make it to the NCAA finals. You bust a gut to win three, perhaps are assigned a Thursday game the next week and can get there tired and ill-prepared.

Right now the probable No. 1 seeds for the NCAA meet shape up as North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis and Tennessee, with Kansas and Texas drooling over one of those to flop. UCLA of the Pac-10 and Memphis of Conference USA are in Wednesday-Saturday tourneys; even if they play three games they’ll be a full day better off than the others.

UNC of the ACC, Kansas and Texas of the Big 12 and Tennessee of the SEC face Thursday-Sunday grinds. Coaches admit they prefer Wednesday-Saturday if there is to be a tournament at all. There continues to be sentiment to abolish postseason meets, but as long as there is all that MONEY, forget that idle dream.

Other good leagues that begin tourneys on Wednesday are the Atlantic 10, the Big East, the Big West and the Mid American. Could better-rested Final Four and national-title contenders emerge from there?

The Big 12 is stronger and more treacherous than it’s been for a while. Suppose Kansas and Texas win their first two games in this week’s Kansas City Sprint Center and then engage in a brutal, demanding, exhausting showdown for the title. Why not coast a little, you ask? No way will these proud teams and their coaches mail it in. But where does that leave them as far as peaking when they really need to, for a glorious 6-0 finish?

Why in the world the Big 12 and the others like the ACC didn’t go to a Wednesday-Saturday format long ago is hard to understand. Bad management, I’d say. If The Suits running the cash registers would just listen now and then!

The major villain for the postseason foolishness is the ACC. It was the pioneer in this category in the 1950s because of the loot. North Carolina went 32-0 to win the 1957 NCAA title from Kansas, and I admire the Tar Heels immensely for how they got there. Only the ACC tourney champ made the 22-team tournament in ’57, so Carolina beat Clemson, Wake Forest and South Carolina to do that. Because the ACC then lacked the clout of the Big Seven, it had to defeat Yale in a play-in game before it could lop off Canisius, Syracuse and Michigan State and break Kansas’ heart, 54-53.

As the more prestigious Big Seven’s entry, KU had to win only three games to reach the title match. Undefeated Carolina was forced to run off a 7-0 string and deserved the win.

Come 2009, an improved Big 12 format. Better late than never.