Auburn and Iowa State extended their winning streaks this week to nine and 12 games, respectively, further entrenching themselves at the top of the men’s college basketball power rankings as both handled top-15 opponents at home with ease — Auburn against No. 15 Mississippi State and Iowa State against No. 9 Kansas — to remain perfect in conference play.
However, the top five of this week’s power rankings once again underwent some major reconstruction after last week’s No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 teams — Mississippi State, Texas A&M and Alabama — combined for five losses and a 1-5 record.
That opening made way for Duke to move up to No. 3, its highest ranking in more than a month, after it again had a perfect week with wins over Notre Dame and Miami at home by comfortable margins. The Blue Devils (15-2) have won 11 straight games dating back to late November and are 7-0 in ACC play with the No. 2 defense in adjusted efficiency at KenPom and the No. 3 offense in efficiency metrics.
Houston and Marquette rounded out the new-look top-five with the Cougars improving to 13-3 this week and up to a perfect 5-0 in Big 12 play, and the Golden Eagles winning Tuesday at DePaul to get to 6-0 in Big East play. They are the only team in the conference yet to lose in league action thus far and are 15-2 overall, marking the program’s best start since 2008-09 when it went 20-2 to open the season with Jerel McNeal, Wesley Matthews, Lazar Hayward and Jimmy Butler leading the way.
There’s much to unpack in the latest power rankings, so let’s dive in with the rankings guidelines as we always do and make clear how we operate in this space. I promise to abide by these as closely as I can throughout the season.
Power Rankings definition: Ranking teams with an emphasis on recent performance based on their level of competition. These are heavily unscientific in nature and can be distilled down to a “vibes” ranking — with things like margin of victory, injuries, performance vs. top competition, momentum and other sometimes subjective factors weighing into the equation. The power rankings can be thought of in a weekly setting as a reaction — or sometimes even an overreaction — to the small sample of the week that was.
Let’s get to it.
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