{"id":167033,"date":"2025-11-17T14:20:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=167033"},"modified":"2025-11-17T14:20:59","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T19:20:59","slug":"november-power-conference-power-rankings-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/11\/17\/november-power-conference-power-rankings-2025-26\/","title":{"rendered":"November Power Conference Power Rankings 2025-26"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, the conferences had clear divisions. The SEC earned a record 14 bids and had the eventual national champions<\/a>, Florida. Auburn also made a Final Four appearance in a dominating year for the SEC. While the Big Ten again failed to produce a national champion, the Big Ten and Big 12 were clearly the next best conferences. The Big East and ACC barely had representation in the tournament, and, besides Duke<\/a>, neither conference had a team advance to the Sweet Sixteen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, we already see more parody in the 2025-26 season, so which conference tops the rank of the November edition of the power rankings? Will one conference pull away? Will we see an even pack through most of the season? Who stands out early? Let’s dive in.<\/p>\n

November Power Conference Power Rankings 2025-26<\/h2>\n

5. Big East<\/h3>\n

The Big East may contend for a few NCAA Tournament bids, but they are top-heavy. UConn and St. John’s are legitimate title contenders, although the Red Storm have a lot more to prove after a home loss to Alabama. Georgetown has looked promising early<\/a>, but they haven’t pulled off a big enough win to be taken seriously yet. Creighton normally contends, but a 27-point loss to Gonzaga won’t look good on the resume in March. Villanova could make a return, but the loss to BYU stands as its only formidable opponent to date.<\/p>\n

The bottom of the conference has looked bad. The only reason they are below the ACC is because of these key results. Xavier’s blowout losses to Santa Clara and Iowa tarnish their respect. Providence fell short against Virginia Tech and Colorado, DePaul lost to Northwestern and Buffalo, and Marquette lost to both Maryland and Indiana. Butler also lost to SMU. They haven’t picked up a key win outside of UConn, and Georgetown is the only other team to beat a power conference opponent. The numbers do not look good early for the Big East.<\/p>\n

4. ACC<\/h3>\n

Until they prove otherwise, the ACC will remain towards the bottom. However, they’ve done enough to avoid being behind the Big East in the November conference power rankings for 2025-26. While Florida State and Wake Forest nearly pulled off huge upsets, the conference continues to barely miss big wins. If they wish to gain respect, they’ll need to win some of these games. Clemson lost to Georgetown, Pitt to West Virginia, California to Kansas State, Notre Dame to Ohio State, and Georgia Tech to Georgia. In general, those games have continued to go against the ACC.<\/p>\n

The conference looks promising at the top. Duke handled Texas, North Carolina beat Kansas, and Louisville beat Kentucky. But that hasn’t been the problem. Most would agree that those three teams will likely end up in the NCAA Tournament. But where will other bids go? NC State is off to a hot start and should contend for a tournament bid<\/a>. Virginia has looked strong in their first four games under Ryan Odom. \u00a0Will other teams step up, or will they continue to let the whole conference down and cost one of those teams a bid? Only time will tell, but until results change, the perspective on the ACC won’t.<\/p>\n

3. SEC<\/h3>\n

They have been dethroned because of the results. The top three conferences continue to remain ahead of the ACC and Big East. However, they are all similar in stature. The SEC will likely rebound throughout the non-conference, but they have struggled to win the big games in front of them so far. Florida, Texas, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Auburn have all lost to top 25 teams. Those aren’t bad losses, but only Alabama has beaten a ranked opponent. They have plenty of opportunities to win those big games, but so far, the other conferences’ top teams are winning the battle.<\/p>\n

However, the middle of the SEC continues to be as strong as any conference. Unranked SEC teams continue to beat unranked opponents at an incredible rate. Only Oklahoma and Texas A&M have losses to unranked opponents. With dozens of big games left on the schedule, the SEC will have plenty of opportunities to prove their worth from top to bottom. However, with so many teams already taking one loss, it’s hard to imagine they don’t drop several other games and fall back into the single digits for NCAA Tournament bids. Time will tell, but their early struggles in big games push them to three in this season’s November conference power rankings.<\/p>\n

2. Big 12<\/h3>\n

Nobody can deny that Houston and Arizona are off to incredible starts. However, the conference hasn’t lived up to the same potential that they’ve shown. BYU and Texas Tech both lost difficult games to UConn and Illinois, respectively, and Kansas fell short against North Carolina. Otherwise, only UCF and TCU have lost to unranked opponents. They’ve shown good depth, and even TCU’s terrible loss to New Orleans was forgotten after they played hard against Michigan for 40 minutes. Like most of the other conferences, they will continue to show off their depth as the non-conference goes on.<\/p>\n

Arizona and Houston have two of the best resumes in college basketball through two weeks. They have beaten top contenders from the SEC and Big Ten. If Texas Tech, Iowa State, Kansas, and BYU can win important games in the next month, they could earn themselves a higher spot. However, they have to put together a strong performance overall. If Houston and Arizona continue to be the only teams winning big games, they won’t pass the Big Ten.<\/p>\n

1. Big Ten<\/h3>\n

The top spot in the November edition of the 2025-26 conference power rankings goes to the Big Ten for a variety of reasons. They’ve arguably had the easiest schedule of any conference so far, but their records show it. They’ve only played four games against ranked opponents, but they won three of them. Purdue picked up a road win against Alabama, Illinois knocked off Texas Tech, and Michigan State beat Arkansas. Indiana and Iowa have looked good under their new coaches and should challenge for NCAA Tournament bids.<\/p>\n

Overall, the conference has performed well and only has four losses on the season. UCLA lost to Arizona. Maryland lost to a solid Georgetown team, while Minnesota and Washington lost to NCAA Tournament-caliber teams. They have no bad losses, which goes a long way in an 18-team league. They have been the most consistent conference in college basketball in getting teams into the NCAA Tournament. Don’t expect that to change this year with a solid middle. While the BIG 12 and SEC are capable of passing the Big Ten in the coming months, a wonderful November has the Big Ten on top.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Bill Streicher-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, the conferences had clear divisions. The SEC earned a record 14 bids and had the eventual national champions, Florida. Auburn also made a Final Four appearance in a dominating year for the SEC. While the Big Ten again failed to produce a national champion, the Big Ten and Big 12 were clearly the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5370,"featured_media":165641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,773],"tags":[3120,2980,4447,2785,1436],"class_list":["post-167033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-college-basketball","tag-acc-basketball","tag-big-12-basketball","tag-big-east-basketball","tag-big-ten-basketball","tag-sec-basketball"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167033"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167067,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167033\/revisions\/167067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}