For years now, the Big 12 has considered itself the best basketball conference in the country. While the league has won two of the last four national titles, it has also developed into the deepest conference in the country.
What's more, in the last two seasons, the conference has swapped out teams like Texas and Oklahoma to add Houston, Arizona, and BYU to only make this league even tougher. Thus, most around the nation look to the Big 12 as the deepest and most rugged league the sport has to offer.
In fact, when the preseason Associated Press poll was released, five of the top 10 teams (Kansas, Houston, Iowa State, Baylor, and Arizona) were Big 12 members. What's more, Cincinnati checked in at No. 20 while Texas Tech, Kansas State, BYU, and Arizona State all received votes.
Therefore, it looked like the Big 12 was set to dominate the sport like never before. That hasn't been the case though through the first month of the regular season.
In the latest A.P. poll, the Big 12 is not prominently featured. Kansas remains at No. 1, the spot it has occupied all season, and Iowa State holds firm at No. 5.
However, Houston is the only other Big 12 team in the top 15 this week. What's more, the Cougars are going to fall from their No. 6 spot when next week's poll rolls around because, on Tuesday night, they fell to No. 9 Alabama 85-80 in Las Vegas. That is already the second loss of the season for the Cougars who also lost to Auburn 74-69 in Houston earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Arizona might be the league's biggest disappointment thus far. Thought to be Final Four contenders when the season began, the Wildcats are just 2-2 on the season and they are barely in the latest poll at No. 24.
The Wildcats have two wins over cupcakes Canisius and Old Dominion. However, their two losses have come against the only quality teams they've played thus far. They lost at Wisconsin 103-88 in a game that saw the Badgers awarded 47 free-throw attempts and they fell at home to then No. 12 Duke 69-55 when the Blue Devils' All-American true freshman forward Cooper Flagg went off for 24 points and grabbed six rebounds in a dominant performance.
Baylor has struggled out of the gates as well going just 4-2 to open the season. The Bears were humiliated in their opener against Gonzaga 101-63 in Spokane, Washington, and in their most recent game, they lost to Tennessee 77-62 in The Bahamas. Currently, the Bears check in at just No. 17 in the latest poll as they have tumbled out of the top 15 in the rankings.
In all, there are only three Big 12 teams with undefeated records in November, Kansas, BYU, and Cincinnati. While Kansas is a legitimate title contender after having knocked off No. 11 Duke in Las Vegas 75-72 on Tuesday night, neither BYU nor Cincinnati has played a team from a power conference yet so to assume that those teams are going to carry the torch for the Big 12 is unwise at this point.
Of course, the Red Raiders could have given the Big 12 a boost by winning the Legends Classic last week but they stumbled against Saint Joseph's out of the Atlantic 10 Conference in the opening game. Now, the only chance Tech will have to make any significant noise in the non-conference portion of the schedule is to beat No. 20 Texas A&M in Fort Worth on December 8th.
While the Big 12 isn't dominating the nation as many of us believed it would, there is no team in the conference with a losing record thus far. Therefore, it is still arguable that this is the deepest and most competitive conference in the country.
When league play begins late next month, the carnage will still be heavy as no team will survive this league unscathed and that could allow teams from other conferences to rise above the Big 12 elites in the rankings. What's more, the depth of the league could prevent any team in the conference from being one of the top eight national seeds in the Big Dance. However, the true measure of the conference's worth will once again be measured in March, a time when the Big 12 struggled last season getting no teams to the Elite 8.
Still, it is worth monitoring how the conference has performed early in the season, especially when squaring off with top teams from other conferences. So far, the league has not lived up to expectations leaving us to wonder if the preseason hype surrounding the conference was legitimate.