The college basketball season turned 10 days old on Thursda -- a sample size just large enough to give us some meaningful insight into teams, but admittedly far too small to draw any sweeping conclusions from that may validate (or invalidate) any preseason expectations.
That's why today we're dropping our first Power Rankings to accommodate the awkward in-between of where we are in the young season.
This is not like Gary Parrish's daily Top 25 (And 1) in which he ranks teams taking into account a combination of preseason expectations and regular-season performance. Nor is it like the AP or Coaches polls. It is a Power Rankings.
Of course, people may have different expectations for how Power Rankings are handled and handed out, though, so let me open these rankings -- which will be handed out weekly -- with my own operating guidelines. I promise to abide by these as closely as I can throughout the season.
Power Rankings definition: Ranking teams with an emphasis on recent performance based on their level of competition. These are heavily unscientific in nature and can be distilled down to a "vibes" ranking -- with things like margin of victory, injuries, performance vs. top competition, momentum and other sometimes subjective factors weighing into the equation. The power rankings can be thought of in a weekly setting as a reaction -- or sometimes even an overreaction -- to the small sample of the week that was.
Because the season is still in its infancy, the first Power Rankings of the season done below includes only winners. I make the rules here. So Houston, North Carolina, Baylor ... sorry boutcha. That doesn't mean I don't think those teams are good, and maybe even worthy of being ranked in the top 16, but it does mean that other teams made the first top 16 of our first Power Rankings.
Let's get to it.
| 1 |  |
| Yes, the midair plane fight last week for Auburn ahead of its game vs. Houston was a hit to its vibes. But no team has a win as good as the Tigers do thus far this season after taking down then-ranked No. 4 Houston, 74-69, with a shorthanded roster. They're 3-0 on the season. | |
| 2 |  |
| It took all of three games for Mark Pope to capture a signature victory at Kentucky . UK outlasted No. 6 Duke on Tuesday in the Champions Classic, nailing 10 3s in the win and downing Duke despite a huge game from Blue Devils freshman phenom Cooper Flagg . | |
| 3 |  |
| UConn's résumé isn't stacked with big wins -- yet -- but it has three blowout wins in three outings with a scoring margin of nearly 40 points. The vibes remain elite for the back-to-back champs, who get immense respect in this space until they prove they don't deserve it. | |
| 4 |  |
| With wins over North Carolina and Michigan State under the belt, preseason No. 1 Kansas still somehow feels like it hasn't quite played like the preseason No. 1 team thus far. That's a good resume so far with a 3-0 record, but nearly blowing a big lead at home vs. UNC and narrowly squeezing out a neutral site win vs. Michigan State is cause for at least some extremely minor nitpicking. | |
| 5 |  |
| Gonzaga dismantled Baylor in its opener by a final margin of 101-63 . Yes: 101-63. Not a typo! Even the most optimistic of Gonzaga fans probably didn't see that blowout coming. Mark Few's got a team loaded with weapons that can score with any team in the sport. | |
| 6 |  |
| Jake Diebler's late-season flourish as the interim coach last season was not a fluke. He has the Buckeyes off to a 2-0 start, highlighted by a season-opening 80-72 win over a then-ranked No. 19 Texas . Big test coming Friday against UT's rival, No. 23 Texas A&M , in Aggieland. | |
| 7 |  |
| Texas Tech leads college basketball with a 66.3% effective field goal percentage on the season and has won by an average of 33.7 points in its three wins. Grant McCasland might be the best coach in Texas, and it seems he might've smashed on transfers JT Toppin and Chance McMillian . | |
| 8 |  |
| The most fearsome defense in college basketball resides in Ames, Iowa . Cyclones have allowed a total of 100 points in two outings, forced 40 combined turnovers and held their opponents to 20.9% from 3-point range. Seems good! | |
| 9 |  |
| Ryan Kalkbrenner leads college basketball in Player Efficiency and Win Shares, and he has led Creighton to a 3-0 start on the season. The best player in basketball might be a Bluejay, and it's already past time someone put a | |
| 10 |  |
| Tennessee taking it to Louisville -- at Louisville -- and winning by 22 over the weekend was the wow of the weekend for me that should force us to recalibrate expectations for the Vols. Chaz Lanier has given Rick Barnes yet another mid-major transfer around which to build the plane. | |
| 11 |  |
| Continuity at Cincinnati has thus far paid off for coach Wes Miller, whose Bearcats are 2-0 and playing sound on both sides of the floor. Jizzle James and Simas Lukosius have been nails in the backcourt to start the year. | |
| 12 |  |
| Rick Pitino's Red Storm are 3-0 on the season leading into this weekend's tilt vs. New Mexico and his son, Richard Pitino. They're running the tempo on offense faster than every team but one among teams in the Power Six structure. | |
| 13 |  |
| Freshmen Will Riley and Tomislav Ivisic have been nothing short of exceptional for Brad Underwood's team in the early going. Along with Kasparas Jakucionis , this team might have the best young core in the Big Ten. | |
| 14 |  |
| We'll know much more about Arizona after its upcoming test Friday at Wisconsin -- but what we know about it so far suggests it deserves standing here. It has scored 195 points in two outings in which it won by an average of 43.5 points, making the Wildcats the leader in scoring margin on the season. | |
| 15 |  |
| Kevin Willard's Terrapins are officially on the radar as a potential sleeper team. Freshman Derik Queen and transfers Rodney Rice and Ja'Kobi Gillespie look like a team primed to make noise in the Big Ten with a defense that, at least so far, looks like it could be a turnover-forcing machine. | |
| 16 |  |
| Ranked No. 2 in the AP poll but barely sneaking into the Power Rankings. Alabama 's 3-0, so we'll give 'em some respect -- but single-digit wins over Arkansas State and McNeese at home cost them some style points, at the very least. | |
