College Hoops

College basketball Power Rankings – Big 12 teams crowd the top 16, upsets shake things up

College basketball Power Rankings - Big 12 teams crowd the top 16, upsets shake things up

How the selection committee figures out the Big 12 pecking order is going to be one of the key NCAA tournament-centric storylines to follow over the next two months. It’s been the best men’s college basketball league in the country, with all 10 teams looking like they had a chance to play in March when conference play began. Oklahoma State, West Virginia and Texas Tech have faltered since then, but the Cowboys and Mountaineers are still ranked in the top 40 in most metrics.

For our purposes, sifting through the second tier of teams behind Kansas will be a weekly task. Texas, Iowa State, Kansas State Wildcats, TCU and Baylor are likely all going to find themselves in the Power Rankings at one point or another, and it will lead to a situation where the teams are beating up on each other every single week. For example: Texas has a win over TCU, TCU has a win over Kansas State, Kansas State has a win over Texas and Iowa State has a win over TCU.

Texas created some separation this past week, coming back to beat TCU and Texas Tech. A nonconference win over Gonzaga is also a nice trump card for the Longhorns moving forward.

Iowa State has the edge on TCU and Kansas State after the Wildcats’ blowout loss to the Horned Frogs on Saturday. The Cyclones suffered a two-point loss at Kansas, but they have top-15 metrics as well as four Quadrant 1 wins. TCU is still held back by its Quadrant 4 loss to Northwestern State, although that defeat came when the team wasn’t at full strength. Kansas State has the worst predictive metrics of the trio, but the Wildcats also have four Quadrant 1 wins.

With matchups like Kansas at Kansas State and Iowa State at Texas this week, though, we’ll be revisiting this conversation again in seven days. Welcome to life in the Big 12.

On to this week’s awards and rankings.

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Bama breezes past LSU, remains undefeated in SEC play

No. 4 Alabama freshman Brandon Miller drains seven from behind the arc to post a team-high 31 points in a 106-66 rout of the Tigers.

It was a fairly light week for Team of the Week contenders. Xavier, Texas and Illinois had a solid couple of wins, while NC State posted a great victory over Miami. But I’m not sure there’s a better team in college basketball right now than Alabama.

While some teams around the country have struggled since the start of conference play, that hasn’t been the case for Nate Oats’ club. The Crimson Tide have won their five SEC games by an average of 22.8 points. Winning by 15 at Arkansas –…

Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at www.espn.com – NCB…