Big 12 basketball: Houston, Iowa State top our first power rankings of the 2025-26 season

The first season of the new Big 12 went as well as the conference could have hoped, until the last 30 seconds of the final game.

Houston’s bungled final possession in the NCAA championship game Monday night left the Cougars two points short and prevented the Big 12 from claiming its third national title in five years.

Otherwise, the conference performed well from early November, with five teams in the top 10 of the AP preseason poll, through the end of March, with two teams in the Elite Eight.