{"id":169440,"date":"2025-12-11T08:30:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T13:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=169440"},"modified":"2025-12-10T21:53:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:53:50","slug":"college-basketball-big-12-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/12\/11\/college-basketball-big-12-rankings\/","title":{"rendered":"College Basketball Big 12 Rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I were asked, on this day, to pick the conference of the National Championship winner in April, my pick would be the Big 12. And that is because this team boasts four teams that are legitimate threats to win it all, and I think that mathematically gives them the best chance to win it all over any other league.<\/p>\n

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After you get done here, check out our SEC Rankings<\/a> and Big Ten Rankings<\/a>!<\/p>\n

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NCAA Basketball: Big 12 Rankings<\/h2>\n

1. Iowa State<\/h3>\n

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It would be hard not to rank TJ Otzelberger\u2019s Cyclones first on this list after going 3-0 at the Players Era Festival (but somehow not getting to play for 1st or 3rd place, but that\u2019s a story for another time) and then walloping Purdue 81-58 on their home floor. The Cyclones boast two of the top players on the floor every time they suit up with Tamin Lipsey and Joshua Jefferson.<\/p>\n

2. Arizona<\/h3>\n
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Photo Credit: Candice Ward-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Wildcats currently sit at #1 in the AP poll, but I\u2019ve got them at #2 on this list. And that\u2019s no slight to what Arizona has done \u2013 I\u2019ve just been more impressed with Iowa State. The trajectory of the season for the Wildcats will come down to their freshman class of Koa Peat, Brayden Burries, and Ivan Kharchenkov. If these freshmen continue to improve, watch out\u2026<\/p>\n

3. Houston<\/h3>\n
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Photo Credit: David Leong-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you haven\u2019t watched this year\u2019s Houston team yet, let me go ahead and spoil it for you: they\u2019re exactly like every other Houston team under Kelvin Sampson, except they have a legitimate top-10 NBA draft pick playing point guard for them in Kingston Flemings. This dynamic makes them more likely to win a National title than they ever have been.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4. BYU<\/h3>\n
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Photo Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s a testament to the quality of this league that BYU sits at 4th in the Power Rankings. They only boast the probable #1 NBA Draft pick in AJ Dybantsa, one of the best shooters in the nation in Richie Saunders, and one of the best pass-first point guards in Robert O Wright. This team is legit.<\/p>\n

5. Texas Tech<\/h3>\n

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I think it\u2019s quite likely that JT Toppin ends up winning the National Player of the Year Award. I also think it\u2019s quite likely that this team makes it to the Final Four. They don\u2019t have any marquee wins yet, but they will have plenty of opportunities in Conference play.<\/p>\n

6. Kansas<\/h3>\n
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Photo Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The big news for Kansas is that Darryn Peterson is back! After getting injured and speculation that he may shut the season down, he returned and dropped 17 in an 80-60 win over Missouri. We now get to see what the full potential of this Jayhawks team actually is.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

7. Baylor<\/h3>\n

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Scott Drew\u2019s group can really score the ball \u2013 but can they play enough defense to contend for a National Championship? They allowed 96 in a loss to St. John’s, and lowly UTRGV, Tarleton State, and Sacramento State all topped 80 against them. This defense will have to be fixed for this team to reach its ceiling.<\/p>\n

8. TCU<\/h3>\n
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Photo Credit: Abe Arredondo-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a strange season-opening loss to New Orleans, the Horned Frogs have really rebounded, beating Florida and Wisconsin, and hanging around and losing close to Michigan. Brock Harding has finally found his best fit and makes a formidable duo with David Punch.<\/p>\n

9. Oklahoma State<\/h3>\n
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Photo Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Steve Lutz\u2019s group is still undefeated, but owns no wins over teams in the KenPom top-50. You could argue that I am cherry-picking, as Northwestern and Texas A&M are not far out from it. Anthony Roy has moved into the starting lineup and is now looking like the scorer we all saw at the start of the season at Green Bay last year.<\/p>\n

10. Colorado<\/h3>\n
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Photo Credit: William Purnell-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Buffaloes were unbeaten heading into a game against in-state rival Colorado State, which handed them their first loss. It\u2019s not a bad loss by any means. This team has one of the biggest starting frontcourts in all of college basketball, with Sebastian Rancik, Bangot Dak, and Elijah Malone all 6\u201910\u201d or taller.<\/p>\n

For more great college basketball analysis, check out DrRoto.com<\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I were asked, on this day, to pick the conference of the National Championship winner in April, my pick would be the Big 12. And that is because this team boasts four teams that are legitimate threats to win it all, and I think that mathematically gives them the best chance to win it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5637,"featured_media":169447,"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":[846,884,2980,2792,2876,1046,878,881,1038,2901,1508],"class_list":["post-169440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-college-basketball","tag-arizona-wildcats","tag-baylor-bears","tag-big-12-basketball","tag-byu-cougars","tag-colorado-buffaloes","tag-houston-cougars","tag-iowa-state-cyclones","tag-kansas-jayhawks","tag-oklahoma-state-cowboys","tag-tcu-horned-frogs","tag-texas-tech-red-raiders"],"modified_by":"Doug Henderson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169440","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\/5637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169440"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":169460,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169440\/revisions\/169460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}