Big 12 MBB power rankings: Arizona, Houston on top as Iowa State tumbles and the Wildcats gain a hidden early edge

Welcome to the Hotline’s Big 12 men’s basketball power rankings, a weekly assessment of the conference using analytics and common sense, with a strand of pasta occasionally heaved at the wall when mayhem is rampant. The power rankings will be published each Tuesday through the end of the regular season. (Last week’s edition can be found here.)

Four teams are separated by one game and eight teams by just two games in the Big 12 standings, a perfectly reasonable logjam given the relatively early stage of the conference season.