Big 12 Women’s Basketball Power Rankings for Week 7
The Big 12 women’s basketball season is now seven weeks old and things are about to get real because conference play starts on Saturday.
Every Big 12 team — all 14 of them — will be in action on Saturday as we finally get to see some real separation across the league. It’s possible that as the season goes on you’ll see more tiers below.
But, for now, this week’s power rankings will look a lot like last week’s power rankings, and that’s because just about every Big 12 team took care of business in their games leading up to Christmas Day.
Below we present our seventh Big 12 women’s basketball power rankings for the 2023-24 season and our last before Big 12 play begins.
Tier One
1. Texas (12-0) – Last Week — 1
2. Baylor (11-0) – Last Week — 2
3. Kansas State (12-1) – Last Week — 3
So here we are. Texas will play Baylor on Saturday and Kansas State will face Cincinnati to open Big 12 play.
By the end of the day, one of either the Bears or Longhorns will have their first loss. Kind of unavoidable at this point. Meanwhile, Kansas State hits the road to face a Cincinnati team that has looked good at times but hasn’t played the schedule the Wildcats have.
With a combined record of 35-1 in non-conference, there is little question these three teams are the best the league has to offer. By March, we’ll know which one, or ones, reign at the top of the regular-season standings. This being the Big 12, everyone gets at least one shot at them — and each gets at least one shot at each other.
Tier Two
4. TCU (13-0) – Last Week — 4
5. West Virginia (11-0) – Last Week — 5
6. UCF (9-1) – Last Week — 7
7. BYU (10-3) – Last Week — 9
8. Texas Tech (11-2) – Last Week — 6
9. Houston (9-2) – Last Week — 10
This tier got a little smaller this week (more on that in a second) and there was some shuffling as four different teams lost at least one game.
But TCU and West Virginia remained undefeated and at the top of this tier. The common thread is that each has a new head coach — Mark Campbell at TCU and Mark Kellogg at WVU. They’ve done it a bit differently. Campbell has leaned heavily into transfers while Kellogg has mixed transfers with holdovers like JJ Quinerly and Jayla Hemingway. Both methods are working.
However, they’ve played a combined three high-major teams and the rubber is about to meet the road. TCU will host BYU and West Virginia will face Kansas.
As for the rest, Texas Tech dropped after losing both games in Hawaii, and that allowed UCF and BYU to move up a spot, even though both also lost last week.
This is where we’ll see a lot of volatility the next few weeks.
Tier Three
10. Oklahoma State (7-4) – Last Week — 11
11. Cincinnati (8-3) – Last Week — 12
12. Oklahoma (6-5) – Last Week — 8
13. Kansas (7-4) – Last Week — 13
14. Iowa State (7-4) – Last Week — 14
Oklahoma drops to the third tier and for good reason. While losing at the Jumpman Invitation to North Carolina was acceptable, falling to Southern at home is not. So the Sooners drop below Oklahoma State, who went 1-1 in St. George, Utah, which included a loss to Oregon, and Cincinnati, which went undefeated for the week and has won six straight.
Kansas got a nice win last week, beating Nebraska. Iowa State got Emily Ryan back and the Cyclones have won three straight. Ryan’s return should help the Cyclones down the line, but for now they remain at the bottom.
iframe src=”https://app.e2ma.net/app2/audience/signup/1986400/1964875/” width=”510″ height=”500″ frameborder=”0″>You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
