NCAA Basketball top 25 power rankings: Wisconsin rises, Duke and Purdue fall

NCAA basketball is a beautiful thing. We are now a week into January and conference play is in full swing. The season is still massively affected by the national pandemic, with dozens of teams still fluctuating in and out of COVID pauses. Regardless of all outside factors, basketball is being played, and we’ve been treated to great shots, incredible performances, and memories each and every night, even as teams fight their way through all this uncertainty.

With conference play underway in every league, there’s still plenty of time left until March Madness begins. It’s hard to find a team in college basketball that hasn’t been affected by injuries, illness, or suspensions in one way or another, but we’re starting to figure some of these teams out.

Some teams floated through easy nonconference slates and are getting a dose of reality in these power conference leagues, while others are taking advantage of opportunities against stronger teams. Either way, we’re virtually halfway through the regular season and things are starting to become much clearer.

With what we’ve seen these first two months, we’re going to put together this week’s top 25 rankings. We continue the series that has been released every Sunday since the start of the season, with these rankings again solely belonging to me.

Each week of college basketball brings new twists and turns, and those results are certainly reflected in these rankings changes. Still, we have a great number of talented teams, even beyond the top 25, with talented teams like Indiana, Miami, and Loyola-Chicago just missing out this week. Let’s just get right into the rankings, starting at the bottom and working our way towards the top.