Way-too-early 2024-25 Big 12 basketball power rankings: Are Red Raiders rising?

The Big 12 has become the most daunting basketball conference in the country over the last few years. This past season saw five teams, including Texas Tech, end the season in the USA Today Coaches Poll.

What's crazy, though, is that the league is expected to be even tougher next season. After all, the conference will be adding four more teams including national power Arizona as well as Colorado, two teams that made the NCAA Tournament in 2024.

Another factor that will reportedly make the Big 12 even more challenging moving forward is an expected increase in the number of conference games each school will play. It is being reported that next season, each team will move from 18 to 20 conference games meaning that Big 12 teams will have two fewer games against mid or low-major opponents and two more against conference foes.

Therefore, fans should expect another brutal path through the nation's most rugged league in 2024-25. That's also going to be true because it seems like the Big 12 continues to pull in some of the top talent in the nation via the transfer portal with even some of the lower-tier teams getting better this offseason.

So as the dust starts to settle with this offseason's player movement, let's look at where the conference programs stack up at this time. Here's an early power ranking of the Big 12 basketball teams as we head into the summer.

Oklahoma State tied for the worst Big 12 record last season leading to the firing of the likeable Mike Boynton. In his place steps Steve Lutz, formerly the head coach at Western Kentucky.

However, the former Creighton and Purdue assistant has his work cut out for him. The Cowboys lost arguably their most talented player, freshman center Brandon Garrison (a former McDonald's All-American) to the portal as well as leading scorer Javon Small.

The portal additions OSU has made so far, including Texas Tech forward Robert Jennings, don't offset those massive losses. So unless the Cowboys make a big splash before the season starts, they will be expected to once again struggle in the Big 12.