NCAA Basketball: Gonzaga, UCLA on top of latest top-25 power rankings

It hasn’t even been an entire week and NCAA Basketball has been as good as advertised. Starting with the Champions Classic, we’ve seen top-10 teams get tested, but some individual players have stepped up in a big way to start things out.

We’ve also seen a number of “upsets” of lower-tier mid-major programs knocking off teams from the top seven or eight conferences. The impact we’ve seen from 5th-year seniors has already been impressive, while many teams are still working things out with their respective newcomer transfers on the roster.

Although we’ve only had five days of games to work with, there already have been changes regarding the top-25 in NCAA Basketball. The top has seen some rearranging, while new teams have entered the fray at the end of the rankings. Just like last season, Busting Brackets will be doing a top-25 group power rankings each Sunday afternoon. Only 28 teams received a vote this week, with BYU, St. John’s, and Indiana just missing the cut.

Check out this week’s participants, along with the results.

Lauren Rosenberg – @lrosenberg101

Benjamin Zacher – @beezacher

Chris Thedinga – @CThedinga

Joey Loose – @jloose128

Tristan Freeman – @hoopsnut351

25. Auburn Tigers (2-0)

The Tigers didn’t have much trouble against either Morehead State or Louisana Monroe in the final score, although the Warhawks did somehow lead at the half. Five-star freshman Jabari Smith had 23 points and 10 rebounds in the last game and has established himself early as the go-to option. The transfer guards (KD Johnson, Wendell Green) had solid performances of their own in the backcourt to provide balance.

Auburn has just one game this week and it’s on the road at South Florida, who just failed to score 60 points in an upset loss to Georgia Southern. Even though it’s at their place, it’s hard to envision them having enough offense to keep up for 40 minutes versus the Tigers.