Big 12 MBB power rankings: Arizona back on top, Iowa State jumps as firing season begins (Kansas State will have company)

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. (Here is last week’s edition.)

Jerome Tang became the Big 12’s first unemployed basketball coach of 2026 when Kansas State announced Sunday evening that it had fired him for cause.

He won’t be the last out the door.