I don't know how to interpret Cincy and Houston directing their interests to the Big 12's law firm and Uconn sending it directly to Bowlsby, but it is a bit bizarre.
Cincy and Houston didn't direct their interests to the Big 12 law firm. All of them (Houston, Cincy and UConn) expressed their interest to Bowlsby directly. UConn and Cincy followed the correct process and waited to be contacted by Bowlsby. Houston (Khator) jumped the gun and emailed Bowlsby.
At the teleconference Boren explained the process. He said:
"So at the end of all of that discussion, the direction from the Board was to the commissioner to contact those schools, recontact those schools who have expressed interest to us, who have come to us, and to find out exactly the nature of the interest..."
Cincy and UConn waited to be contacted by Bowlsby (per Boren's statement above) and then responded to him of their interest. Cincy asked for further correspondence to be sent to Cincy's law firm.
Khator didn't wait for the letter from Bowlsby. She emailed him, telling him of Houston's interest, and then he wrote her back in reply to her email (he mentions her email) with the instructions of what law firm to send the info to. Since she had emailed him and already told him of Houston's interest, his letter to her explained the next step which was to send material to the Big 12's law firm.
In other words, Houston skipped the first step, which was to wait for the letter from Bowlsby asking them if they were still interested. She didn't wait, she emailed him.
That's my understanding of it. It has nothing to do with schools getting preferential treatment.