Jan 7, 2023; Waco, Texas, USA; Kansas State Wildcats head coach Jerome Tang reacts to a play against the Baylor Bears during the first half at Ferrell Center. Mandatory Credit: Chris Jones-USA TODAY Sports
If you’re looking for a number to prove just how closely contested the Big 12 is this season, look no further than KenPom’s close game percentage, where the Big 12 ranks No. 1 nationally with 9-of-15 games (60 percent) ending either in overtime or with final margins of four points or less.
If you’re looking for a number to prove just how unpredictable the Big 12 is this season, look no further than the league’s home win percentage, which ranks No. 32, or dead last nationally among all Division I conferences.
Last Tuesday on an episode of Corner 3 with Brent Blum, I said I thought it would never be harder to go on the road and win in the Big 12 than it will be this season.
The league’s road teams promptly went 9-1. The one was before we’d even recorded the podcast when Oklahoma State beat West Virginia in Stillwater on Monday.
That’s right… Big 12 road teams have won nine straight games.
I’m going out on a limb to guess that’s never happened in the Big 12. I’m going out on a limb to guess that hasn’t happened many times, if ever, in any other Power 5 conference.
That is an absolutely insane statistic. That’s the nature of Big 12 men’s basketball in 2023.
Here are this week’s power rankings…
(Note: I’m including videos from Matthew Loves Ball on YouTube in this week’s rankings. I find this to be one of the most useful resources on the internet this time of year with fully edited condensed games for nearly every major conference game.)
1 – Kansas (3-0)
One of a few teams with a case to be the No. 1 team in America, the defending national champions keep finding ways to win. They had to gut out a close one last Tuesday on the road in Lubbock then turned around and thoroughly beat up a solid West Virginia team in Morgantown.
The Jayhawks aren’t an overly deep team, but their top five are as good as any other in college basketball.
This week: Home vs. Oklahoma (Tuesday), home vs. Iowa State (Saturday)
2 – Kansas State (3-0)
Jerome Tang’s national coach of the year candidacy grows by the week. The Wildcats picked up one of the best performances of the week by putting up 116 points in a road win over Texas then escaped Waco with an overtime win over Baylor on Saturday.
Forward Keyontae Johnson has been great for this team this season, but it is senior point guard Markquis Nowell, the only holdover from last year’s roster, who might be the team’s best player.
Nowell poured in 36 points in the win over Texas then added 32 points against the Bears. He did it while averaging 11.5 assists per game and going 24-of-25 from the free-throw line.
Suddenly, Nowell, the league’s leader in scoring in conference games, has one of the strongest cases for league player of the year.
This week: Home vs. Oklahoma State (Tuesday), at TCU (Saturday)
3 – Iowa State (3-0)
In the team’s three Big 12 games, the Cyclones are posting an average adjusted offensive rating of 115.2, according to BartTorvik. Stretched across the entire season, that number would rank inside the top 15 nationally.
The Cyclones have been playing great offensive basketball over the last two weeks, and have done it in different ways by relying on big-time individual performances like against Oklahoma or with the by-committee approach that served the team well in its win over TCU.
Couple that with a defense that ranks among the nation’s 10 best, and you’ve got the formula for a team capable of going on the road twice in one week and beating two good teams in their own arenas.
Keep this pace, and Iowa State’s team will be capable of playing with and beating any other team in college basketball. They’ll be capable of contending for the league title until the season’s final weeks, too.
This week: Home vs. Texas Tech (Tuesday), at Kansas (Saturday)
4 – Texas (2-1)
The Longhorns rebounded from their embarrassing loss to Kansas State in a big way by going on the road to beat Oklahoma State, 56-46, in Stillwater on Saturday. I’m going to go out on a limb to guess there won’t be many teams that have a 70-point differential in how many points they allow in two games in the same week this season.
Marcus Carr continues to have a first-team All-Big 12 type of season and is sixth in the league averaging 17.3 points against Big 12 competition so far.
It will be interesting to track this team over the next several weeks now that the cloud of Chris Beard is no longer hanging over the program.
This week: Home vs. TCU (Wednesday), Home vs. Texas Tech (Saturday)
5 – TCU (2-1)
The Horned Frogs picked up one of the best wins of the week by going on the road to stun Baylor in an 88-87 thriller that saw Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year Mike Miles score 33 points. They lost one of the best games of the weekend when Gabe Kalscheur’s stepback 3-pointer with less than three seconds left stopped TCU’s furious final moments rally on Saturday.
Jamie Dixon’s team has the talent needed to compete with anybody in the league. They’re going to remain in contention toward the top of the league as long as Miles, Damion Baugh and co. are playing at a high level.
This week: At Texas (Wednesday), home vs. Kansas State (Saturday)
6 – Oklahoma (1-2)
Porter Moser’s team rebounded nicely from a pair of close home losses by going on the road to beat Texas Tech in overtime in Lubbock on Saturday. The craziest part of the win is that Oklahoma’s best players, Grant Sherfield, Tanner and Jacob Groves, didn’t even play very well.
If those guys get back to playing at their non-conference levels, this team will be dangerous every time it steps on the floor. They could be in for some rough nights if Jalen Hill and Milos Uzan are forced to carry them like they had to on Saturday against the Red Raiders.
This week: At Kansas (Tuesday), home vs. West Virginia (Saturday)
7 – Oklahoma State (1-2)
The Cowboys are in this position based solely on the fact they have a win in the league play and the three teams below them do not.
It would have been awfully easy to keep Oklahoma State in the bottom three after they scored only 46 points in a loss to Texas on Saturday, but they should be rewarded for their 67-60 win over West Virginia on Monday that stands as the only home win by any team in the league during the week.
This team is one of the league’s best defensive units, especially when they have shot-blocking extraordinaire Moussa Cisse, who missed Saturday’s game, on their front line. They’ve now got the league’s worst offense, though, ranking No. 98 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, according to KenPom.
This team’s conference-only offensive numbers are absolutely abysmal, led by their horrid 44.2 percent shooting inside the 3-point line.
This week: At Kansas State (Tuesday), at Baylor (Saturday)
8 – Baylor (0-3)
Don’t look now, but Scott Drew’s team appears to be in some significant trouble. The Bears lost a pair of close ones last week, by one point to TCU on Wednesday then by two points in overtime to Kansas State on Saturday, but the pair of high-scoring affairs have put Baylor’s metrics in freefall.
The Bears now have the league’s worst defense, ranking No. 84 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, making them the only team in the league outside the top 50 nationally in that statistic.
In three Big 12 games, they have the league’s worst defensive efficiency rating, the league’s worst defensive effective field goal percentage, the league’s worst defensive turnover percentage, the league’s worst 2-point defense with opposing teams hitting 56.6 percent of shots from inside the arc and they have the second worst 3-point defense with opposing teams shooting 38.7 percent from deep.
There are a lot of ways to win in the Big 12 in 2023, but failing to defend at a top-100 level isn’t one of them.
This week: At West Virginia (Wednesday), home vs. Oklahoma State (Saturday)
9 – West Virginia (0-3)
The league’s metric darlings have come crashing back to Earth a little bit. The computers loved Bob Huggins’ team as much as anybody after the non-conference portion of the schedule, and yet the Mountaineers find themselves 0-3 in the league with an overtime loss to Kansas State in Manhattan, a competitive loss to Oklahoma State in Stillwater and a big loss to Kansas in Morgantown on Saturday.
The Mountaineers have the league’s worst offense in conference action by a wide margin, ranking last in the league in offensive efficiency rating, effective field goal percentage and 3-point percentage.
On the bright side, West Virginia gets to the free throw line at a rate higher than anybody else in the league. The only problem is they’re shooting a league-worst 58.5 percent once they get to the charity stripe.
This week: Home vs. Baylor (Wednesday), at Oklahoma (Saturday)
10 – Texas Tech (0-3)
The team most in need of a quality conference win remains winless in conference play. The Red Raiders are now 0-5 against quality competition this season and are still 10-0 against everyone else.
Mark Adams’ team came close twice last week at home, losing by three to Kansas and then by five to Oklahoma in overtime, but they still enter week two in search of a win and they’re staring a pair of road contests square in the face.
Kevin Obanor is still one of the league’s most versatile talents. Pop Isaacs and Jaylon Tyson can shoot it with the league’s best. Those three just haven’t been enough to push this team into the win column.
The Red Raiders are probably already on the outside looking in when it comes to the NCAA Tournament. They need some wins, and soon, in order to stem the bleeding.
This week: At Iowa State (Tuesday), at Texas (Saturday)
