College basketball power rankings: Incredible drama and struggling ACC leads to shake-up
Kansas sits atop Matt Norlander's latest rankings, with TCU and Arkansas making moves into the top 10
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8 min read
Wednesday night was a buffet of fascinating results, but I want to focus on the ACC to start this week's Hey Nineteen. The league is mired in mediocrity and I think it's about to hit a point where national coverage gets more consistent in its criticism of this conference.
Would you believe the ACC is ranked sixth at KenPom.com? The worst of the power conferences. Even more damning: The ACC is ranked eighth in the NET. Brutal. Whereas the Big Ten and Big 12 each won more than 85% of their nonconference games, and the SEC has five teams ranked, the ACC is dealing with Duke getting its worst loss against NC State since before Coach K was there; UNC still finding its way after early season flameout; Notre Dame and Florida State being humongous disappointments; Miami losing to Georgia Tech on Wednesday; and Louisville has two wins.
The conference's leaders: Clemson and Pitt are 4-0.
What?
Good stories for those programs, but this is shaping up to be one of the worst seasons in league history. It remains to be seen if UNC, Virginia or Duke -- all preseason top 15 teams -- can find a way to reestablish authority. If not, the image of the ACC this season is going to suffer, and rightfully so.
Hey Nineteen Power Rankings
Reminder: My rankings are not solely about whom I think is "best." This is a weekly encapsulation of the 19 hottest, most successful and/or most *interesting* teams, combining team quality with win quality but also having no shame for recency bias and rewarding significant winning streaks. Courteous feedback is encouraged: @MattNorlander.
| 1 |  |
| Record: 13-1 | Last week: 3. Well, well, well. The reigning national champs have made their way to the top of the Hey Nineteen. Kansas has won seven straight and goes to play West Virginia on Saturday. Jalen Wilson is still not getting enough credit for his junior-season jump: 20.6 ppg, 8.4 rpg, 2.9 apg and would easily be a First Team All-America selection as we approach the halfway point of 2022-23. | |
| 2 |  |
| Record: 13-1 | Last week: 4. The Wildcats will remain perched high and clean here in the power rankings, though they could get a little quiet in the next two weeks, due to the likelihood they win their next four games. Series against the Washington and Oregon schools come the next two weekends. The average projected margin of victory in those four games, per KenPom.com, is 13.3 points. | |
| 3 |  |
| Record: 13-2 | Last week: 5. The best game of Thursday night could be UCLA hosting USC. These two customarily play later in January before closing out the season against each other, but that won't be the case this season. USC has pulled off some upsets over the Bruins in recent seasons. The teams are 7-7 in their past 14 meetings. | |
| 4 |  |
| Record: 14-1 | Last week: 6 With every team having at least one loss, the question becomes: Which team is most likely to enter the NCAA Tournament with the fewest scratches in the L column? Houston is the overwhelming pick. A top-five team in a conference ranked ninth in the NET. Feels like Houston's floor is three losses on Selection Sunday. This team is ranked No. 1 at KenPom and in the Massey Composite. | |
| 5 |  |
| Record: 13-1 | Last week: 8. What Tennessee did to Mississippi State earlier this week was an aberration. The Vols Tennessee shot 69.2% (36-52) in today's 34-point win over Mississippi State, their highest single-game shooting mark since 1996. They're the first SEC team to shoot 75% from 2-point range and 55% from 3-point range in a game over the last decade. (H/T Jared Berson .) | |
| 6 |  |
| Record: 12-2 | Last week: 9. Encouraging signs that Alabama is getting better as it eases into league play. In its 22-point win over Mississippi on Tuesday, the Tide had a season-low seven turnovers. At halftime, Bama's 21-point advantage was its largest at the break this season. From 3-point range, Alabama shot 45% and held Ole Miss to 8.3%. This might be the SEC's best team for the second time in three years. Kentucky awaits on Saturday. | |
| 7 |  |
| Record: 11-2 | Last week 2. The Boilermakers found themselves on the wrong side of history this week. Rutgers' wins over Purdue in back-to-back seasons wound up being historic: Purdue became the first team to lose its undefeated record while being ranked No. 1 in consecutive seasons to the same team. Next up is Thursday night's test at Ohio State, which is physical and will show up prepared. | |
| 8 |  |
| Record: 13-1 | Last week: 12. How grand is life for TCU fans right now? Your basketball team is top-10 good and your football program is about to play for its first national title. TCU's outrageously impressive road win against Baylor Wednesday night marked the first time the Horned Frogs ever won a road game in which they and their opponent were ranked in the AP Top 25. It was such a great game, punctuated by Chuck O'Bannon's corner 3-pointer with less than four seconds remaining -- and then Xavier Cork blocking the would-be game winner. Mike Miles had 33. What a team, what a win after trailing most of the night. | |
| 9 |  |
| Record: 12-2 | Last week: 14. The Razorbacks were featured in my Court Report on Wednesday. Eric Musselman is trying to make do without having the two scorers he thought would get this team to an SEC championship. Trevon Brazile is out for the season, while Nick Smith Jr.'s future is undetermined due to the mercurial nature of his right knee injury. For this team to rally to beat Missouri on Wednesday night was an important victory for that locker room. | |
| 10 |  |
| Record: 14-2 | Last week: 1. The Huskies had to slip significantly because of two losses since last week's power rankings. However: both losses came on the road against likely 2023 NCAA Tournament teams. At Xavier, at Providence. What's more, those teams are a combined 25-6 and have yet to lose a Big East game. The Huskies will be fine. Expect an attitude-driven bounce-back this weekend at home against Creighton. | |
| 11 |  |
| Record: 13-1 | Last week: NR. One of the loudest wins of the conference season came Tuesday night when K-State strolled into the Moody Center and dropped a program-record 116 points. Kansas State basketball has been around since 1905. Never got to 116 until 2023. What's more, it was the second most points on the road in regulation against a top-10 in the past 73 years. (Oral Roberts had 122 at Oklahoma in 1988.) Jerome Tang on the short list for Coach of the Year. | |
| 12 |  |
| Record: 11-3 | Last week: 17. Drew Timme is now fourth all time on Gonzaga's scoring list, passing Elias Harris this past week. Timme sits at 1,861 points. He'll pass Zags legend Adam Morrison tonight in GU's road game against San Francisco; Timme needs seven points to move into third place in Bulldogs history. Timme's averaging 27.3 points in his past seven games and is creeping in on Zach Edey for NPOY. | |
| 13 |  |
| Record: 11-2 | Last week: NR. The Cyclones are a problem, and they didn't take kindly to getting kicked out of the power rankings a few weeks back. Oklahoma blew some chances on its home floor Wednesday night, but that's exactly what Iowa State will induce you into. A 63-60 win for the Cyclones, who needed that 2-0 start in Big 12 play. Two of the next three are road tests against TCU and Kansas. | |
| 14 |  |
| Record: 12-3 | Last week: NR. The last time Xavier lost was Nov. 27 against Gonzaga at the PK85. Sean Miller's team has won eight games in a row and will try to match Providence's 5-0 Big East record by beating Villanova on the road Saturday. The biggest reason Xavier is a factor nationally is its 3-point shooting. The Musketeers are making 40.4% of their attempts, third-best in the sport. | |
| 15 |  |
| Record: 13-2 | Last week: 10.The Hurricanes took a loss at Georgia Tech on Wednesday night that isn't a good look for the resume but also isn't some huge stunner. With the exception of only a few teams, everyone's going to get tripped up once or twice in league play this season on the road against a bottom-four team in their conference. Miami's number came up Wednesday, but this is still a top-20 team. | |
| 16 |  |
| Record: 15-1 | Last week: 19. The Cougars have consistently received more respect here than anywhere else. They had three games since last week's Hey Nineteen and passed all three tests, so a healthy scoot up in the ranking. I spoke to coach Pat Kelsey this week, and he said one of the key guys for them is Jalen Scott, their mack truck of a guard. "Looks like a Power Five guard, he's a bulldozer and a ridiculous defender," Kelsey said. This team has the nation's longest winning streak (14). | |
| 17 |  |
| Record: 12-2 | Last week: 15. Was surprised to see a 74-68 final at Arkansas, particularly considering that Arkansas shot better than 61% in the second half. These teams can get into the 90s if they really want to, but defense was the design on both ends in Fayetteville. Mizzou did force 17 Razorback turnovers on the road. I'm still on the Tigers. | |
| 18 |  |
| Record: 13-3 | Last week: NR. Friars fans know their team spent many a week in this space last season. Welcome back to the party, PC. The Friars' double-digit win Wednesday over UConn got the program to its first 5-0 Big East start in history. Providence is 20-4 in its last 24 games against Big East opponents. | |
| 19 |  |
| Record: 10-4 | Last week: 16. Man, the Bears led for more than 34 minutes on Wednesday against TCU. They should have won that game. It speaks to TCU's quality that they didn't, losing 88-87. The Bears dropped two straight (to ranked teams), but given how they responded to losing by 15 to Iowa State over the weekend, I'm going to keep BU as my last team in. It looked like a top-20 team on Wednesday night. A must-prove opportunity on Saturday when one-loss Kansas State comes to Waco. | |
