It was a nice change of pace to see some high-level non-conference matchups in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge, with the SEC taking the narrow win but several teams, including Oklahoma, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas Tech getting important wins.

Speaking of Oklahoma, the Sooners continued their hot streak with wins over Texas and Alabama this week which vaults them into my top-15.

There were just two new teams this week, Florida and Virginia Tech, with everyone else just making movements up and down within my rankings.

I have a new system for tracking teams and will use it to base a lot of my decisions. As the year goes on, I find that a lot of people get sucked into the most recent games and put a little too much weight on recent results sometimes. Because of this, and because I generally like objective data as much as possible, I’m going to use these metrics in my post as well as the basis for my thought process.

I use KenPom as my starting point and keep track of the top-50 overall teams and a few in others as I see fit. A key win in my rankings is defined as a top-50 win at home, a top-75 win on a neutral court, or a top-100 win on the road. I will try to record all losses for now, but will also denote bad losses in italics when necessary and those are just the opposite of the good wins. For instance, if a team loses to a team not in the top-50 at home, then it’s a “bad” loss. Same for a loss to a team outside of the top-100 anywhere.

1. Baylor (16-0)

Key Wins:

Losses:

2. Gonzaga (17-0)

Key Wins:

Losses:

3. Villanova (11-1)

Key Wins:

Losses:

4. Michigan (13-1)

Key Wins:

Losses:

5. Houston (15-1)

Key Wins:

Losses:

6. Texas (11-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

7. Ohio State (14-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

8. Illinois (11-5)

Key Wins:

Losses:

9. Iowa (12-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

10. Alabama (14-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

11. Creighton (13-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

12. Texas Tech (12-5)

Key Wins:

Losses:

13. Oklahoma (11-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

14. Tennessee (12-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

15. Wisconsin (13-5)

Key Wins:

Losses:

16. West Virginia (11-5)

Key Wins:

Losses:

17. Virginia Tech (13-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

18. Virginia (11-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

19. Oklahoma State (11-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

20. Purdue (12-6)

Key Wins:

Losses:

21. Missouri (11-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

22. Florida State (10-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

23. Kansas (11-6)

Key Wins:

Losses:

24. USC (13-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

25. Florida (10-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

Also Under Consideration (Alphabetical):

Arizona, Arkansas, BYU, Colorado, Connecticut, Duke, Indiana, Louisville, Loyola Chicago, LSU, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Penn State, Rutgers, Saint Louis, San Diego State, Seton Hall, St. Bonaventure, Stanford, Syracuse, UCLA, Utah State, Xavier