Big 12 Basketball: Way-too-early power rankings for 2023-24 season

After a wild NCAA Tournament that saw UConn cut down the nets and claim its fifth national championship, the 2022-23 season has finally come to an end. For those of you that aren’t ready to let go yet, though, we’ll be going conference by conference to unveil our “Way too Early” rankings for the 2023-24 season.

Way too early is always an apt name for these rankings, but never more so than this year. The transfer portal has completely changed college basketball, and for those that don’t pay attention much during the offseason, you may be in for a bit of a shock if the next time you tune in is the Maui Invitational or Preseason NIT. Like a TV show that recasts its main characters, college basketball will be unrecognizable next season.

For as different as college basketball promises to be, there may be no conference more transformed than the Big 12. Far and away the best conference in the country this past season, the league had an underwhelming March, with no teams in the Final Four, and only Texas and Kansas State reaching the Elite Eight. Kansas, Texas, Baylor, and Iowa State all got upset by lower-seeded teams, and West Virginia joined the Cyclones as Big 12 Basketball teams to not escape the first round.

The 2023-24 season will be the conference swan song for Texas and Oklahoma as they prepare to leave for the SEC.  Four new schools are being added, however, so for one year at least, the Big 12’s membership will swell to 14. How will the conference hierarchy look with the additions of Houston, Cincinnati, UCF, and BYU? Let’s dive in.