NCAA Basketball: BYU, Seton Hall rise, Michigan falls in latest top-25 power rankings
By Joey Loose
The NCAA Basketball season is now two weeks old and it’s already supplied us with excitement, upsets, and intrigue from top to bottom. We’ve already seen star players standings out, teams emerging from nowhere, and some incredible late performances in clutch moments. We’re still in November, and with the early season holiday tournaments coming up, the next week is going to be a very intriguing one, with tournament champions crowned and more teams on upset alert.
In these two weeks, there has been some chaos amongst the best teams in the nation, meaning there have also been changes among the top 25 rankings. It can be hard to judge some of these teams after only a few games, but we’ll be continuing our group power rankings here at Busting Brackets, posted each Sunday afternoon after the previous week of games. Through the chaos, 31 teams received a vote, with Indiana, Marquette, and Xavier just missing out on the top 25 list.
Here are this week’s participants along with the rankings from the group.
Lauren Rosenberg – @lrosenberg101
Benjamin Zacher – @beezacher
Chris Thedinga – @CThedinga
Joey Loose – @jloose128
Tristan Freeman – @hoopsnut351
25. USC (3-0)
After a surprise run to the Elite Eight last season, there’s certainly more attention on USC this season, even if stud freshman Evan Mobley moved on. Memphis transfer Boogie Ellis has helped pick up the slack, while Chevez Goodwin was the leading scorer in the last two Trojans’ wins. This week, that third win included a cross-country trip to Florida Gulf Coast, where the Trojans knocked off Andy Enfield’s former program by 17 points.
To this point, the Trojans haven’t had a real chance to prove themselves, but it’s hard to find a 3-0 program with two true road wins at this point in the season, especially a pair of games thousands of miles away. USC is expected to finish in the top half of the Pac-12, but could certainly emerge as one of the favorites if they can keep stacking wins against a very soft non-conference schedule.