NCAA Basketball: UConn, Purdue rise on top 25 power ranking after Feast Week

We’re three weeks into another exciting season of NCAA Basketball and the sport continues to deliver. Teams we expected little from have stunned our expectations. Teams highly ranked or anticipated conference champions have struggled or disappointed early on. Yet still, hundreds of teams sit somewhere in the middle, with a combination of disappointment and excitement to this point.

This past week has given us many of the most high-profile holiday tournaments, including the Maui Invitational, the Battle 4 Atlantis, and the two Phil Knight events in Portland. There have also been numerous non-tournament games. Each team has had plenty of chances to prove themselves these past few weeks, but after all, we’re still only three weeks into the season. How much do we really know about these squads?

The answer isn’t crystal clear, but we’ll be proceeding with what we know and what we’ve seen. Today, we are continuing our weekly series ranking the Top 25 teams, a task that’s especially difficult with such a number of high-profile games and tournaments. Some teams have certainly established themselves in recent weeks, and you’ll see them pretty high up on these kinds of lists, while others have done the opposite. Let’s get right into those rankings, starting at the bottom and working our way up.

25. Ohio State (5-1)

The Buckeyes have a solid team this year; we’ve seen that on display a few times already this year. What we don’t know is how this roster will continue to gel, especially when they start playing Big Ten games and some of the other challenging games on their schedule. After some impressive defensive play to open the season, Ohio State leaned more on this offense this past week in the Pacific.

Specifically, the Buckeyes were at the Maui Invitational, though it got off to a poor start. The Buckeyes got 22 points from Sean McNeil but lost 88-77 to #17 San Diego State in the opening round. They’d bounce back the following day with an 81-53 performance against Cincinnati. Zed Key led all scorers with 19 points while Bruce Thornton added 17 points from the backcourt. The Buckeyes finished their trip in style, claiming an 80-73 win over #21 Texas Tech, giving them their first ranked win of the year. Justice Sueing flourished with a 33-point performance.

The offense was fantastic in Maui, especially against a top-level Texas Tech defense in that Wednesday victory. The defense struggled with the Aztecs in their initial game, but this team looks like it could make some noise in a tough Big Ten. They’ll have a major chance to prove themselves this week with a road game at Duke, with games against Rutgers and North Carolina also looming in the coming weeks.