Big 12 Basketball power rankings: Kansas remains at the top in March

10. Kansas State Wildcats (9-20, 2-14)

Kansas State basketball has had the furthest drop off from last season’s success, as the Wildcats have gone from being regular-season co-champions and a four seed in the NCAA Tournament to be by far the worst team in the Big 12.

Cartier Diarra and Xavier Sneed have proved to be great supporting players, but building a winning team around them has been deemed impossible. The Wildcats are the easiest win in the conference, having won just twice all year.

It was never going to be easy without Dean Wade and Barry Brown, but nobody could have envisioned as big of a disaster as this season for Bruce Weber’s group.

The Wildcats will have three more games to regroup, before heading into an early offseason in which recruiting absolutely has to be of emphasis, given the lack of depth and young talent on this K-State team.

9. Iowa State Cyclones (12-17, 5-11)

Iowa State Basketball has not had as poor of a season as Kansas State, however, the Cyclones did not do much of a job of living up to the expectations set last season.

Losing Marial Shayok and Talen Horton-Tucker does not justify this drop-off. On the other hand, being without Tyrese Haliburton for the past month does.

The lottery prospect went down with a broken hand in early February, ending his season and perhaps his college basketball career prematurely. Since then, the Cyclones have beaten TCU and Texas, but have not been able to build off of either of those wins, falling to the bottom of the standings.

The Cyclones have the talent to potentially pull off an upset in the Big 12 Tournament, but past that, the season is likely over in Ames a little earlier than expected.