Times are changing in the Big 12.

Oklahoma State’s margin of dominance dwindled, and the Big 12 Championships are no longer an OSU vs everybody fest.

Welcome to Big 12 wrestling in 2023. A mighty No. 9 Missouri squad seeks a title repeat with its national champion and other All-Americans. No. 5 Iowa State powered through injuries and everyone else boasts some major achievement.

The Cowboys don’t cling to a favorite label at the Big 12 Championships in Tulsa on Saturday and Sunday. Missouri would win, based on placement points for the topeight seeds. A healthy 24-point margin over projected runnerup OSU.

That’s all probability. A word that, in March, can be replaced with chaos. It’s tournament time and everyone attempts to perform the same phrase repeated through the season. Peak in March. A time where everyone wrestles for the leaderboard.

“It’s the part that most people judge you by and rightfully so,” OSU coach John Smith said.

OSU’s streak of nine straight Big 12 championships ended in 2022. Missouri dominated the MAC in that time. Missouri, who left for the SEC, joined the MAC as a wrestling affiliate in 2013. For years, OSU needed to beat out only three teams in the conference tournament.

OSU defeated Missouri, 17-16, in February. A time that showed the importance of team wrestling.

“I know for me, and I know for a lot of other guys especially like Daton (Fix), he had to go out and score 10 points in order for us to win the dual,” OSU’s 184-pounder Travis Wittlake said. “There is a time like that where he can’t be selfish. He can’t go out and just win for himself. He has got to go out and perform us.”

In 2015, the Western Wrestling Conference folded, and its members joined the Big 12. Now Northern Colorado boasts the nation’s top ranked 141-pounder, Andrew Alirez.

“Could that have happened if they weren’t in the Big 12?” Smith said. “They got a great coach. I don’t know but it hasn’t hurt. It definitely hadn’t hurt us by bringing them in.”

Other teams elevated, too. In 2022, Air Force heavyweight Wyatt Hendrickson won his program’s first Big 12 title. Teams are developing.

Sixty-five Big 12 wrestlers will automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships — second most of any conference. Smith said he remembers the years where some weights qualified only two or three. Now the conference takes eight in some weights. Nine Cowboys would automatically qualify if they wrestled to their seeds.

“The more competitive you are, the tougher the schedule is during the season and it’s always preparing you for NCAA Championship,” Smith said.