I don’t know if the Big 12 will be college basketball’s best conference this season (because that label could still belong to the SEC or even go to the Big Ten). As always, we’ll see. But this much I do know: There is no league I’m more interested in following this season than the Big 12 because it features multiple true national-title contenders and the players who could go first and second in the 2026 NBA Draft.
The elite NBA prospects? That’s Darryn Peterson (Kansas) and AJ Dybantsa (BYU) — the two prospects most have slotted No. 1 and No. 2 in NBA mock drafts. The title contenders? That’s Houston, Texas Tech and BYU — at least. As you likely know, there are two coaches in the Big 12 who have already won national championships — namely Kansas’ Bill Self and Baylor’s Scott Drew. And it should be noted that when Matt Norlander and I polled more than 100 college coaches this offseason and asked who the sport’s next first-time national champion will be, the leading vote-getter was Houston’s Kelvin Sampson, whose Cougars are expected to win a third straight Big 12 regular-season title this season (and then some) after transitioning from the American with no issues at all.
And keep an eye on KU.
College basketball rankings: Each AP Top 25 team’s strengths, weaknesses and depth chart entering 2025-26
Isaac Trotter
Remember KU?
The Jayhawks owned the Big 12 for the better part of two decades, at one point winning at least a share of 14 consecutive league titles, which is something I genuinely believe will never happen at the power-conference level again. Amazing run. But Kansas has finished outside of the top four in the Big 12 in each of the past two seasons — and hasn’t made the Sweet 16 since 2022. So it’ll be interesting to see if Self can get things back this season to where they used to just always be pretty much no matter what.
CBS Sports Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year
JT Toppin | F | Jr. | Texas Tech
Toppin is the reigning Big 12 Player of the Year after averaging 18.2 points and 9.4 rebounds for a Texas Tech team that won 28 games and advanced to the Elite Eight of the 2025 NCAA Tournament. So he’s an obvious pick for the same award this preseason. But the 6-9 forward is hardly a lock to secure the trophy again come March, mostly because of the presence of two freshmen stars who are entering the conference — specifically Darryn Peterson (Kansas) and AJ Dybantsa (BYU). Again, those two are projected by most to be the top two picks in the 2026 NBA Draft. So for Toppin to secure back-to-back Big 12 POY awards, he’ll have to hold off two incredible talents, the types who could become faces of NBA franchises someday.
CBS Sports Big 12 Preseason Freshman of the Year
Darryn Peterson | Kansas | G
No conference’s Freshman of the Year race should be more interesting than the Big 12’s, where Peterson and Dybantsa are both preseason All-Americans. Those two split votes here with Peterson coming out on top. But understand that there are also other five-star freshmen entering the league — namely Houston’s Chris Cenac Jr., Arizona’s Brayden Burries, Arizona’s Koa Peat and Baylor’s Tounde Yessoufou. Simply put, no conference enrolled more elite freshmen this offseason than the Big 12, which is among the reasons NBA front-office members will spend lots of nights in hotels near Big 12 campuses.
Four more players to watch
AJ Dybantsa | F | BYU: Full disclosure, Dybantsa was the pick for POY and FOY on my Big 12 preseason ballot. I’m a believer, having first seen him a few summers ago at Peach Jam, where he led the event in scoring after his freshman year of high school. Just a special, special talent. He should be the best player on what could be the best team in BYU history.
PJ Haggerty | G | Kansas State: Haggerty was the AAC Player of the Year and a consensus second team All-American last season while helping Memphis win the American’s regular-season title and conference tournament. The 6-4 guard averaged 21.7 points, 3.7 assists and 1.8 steals — and had literally one of the best individual seasons in Memphis history. After the season, Haggerty entered the transfer portal and landed at Kansas State, his fourth school in four years, where he’s the main reason the Wildcats are projected by most to return to the NCAA Tournament this season after missing it the past two years.
Milos Uzan | G | Houston: Uzan earned second team All-Big 12 honors last season while averaging 11.4 points and 4.3 assists for a Houston team that won the league and advanced to the championship game of the 2025 NCAA Tournament. The 6-4 guard shot 42.8% from 3-point range on 3.6 attempts per contest. His decision to return for a fourth season of college basketball gives the Cougars two returning double-digit scorers with the other being backcourtmate Emanuel Sharp.
Tamin Lipsey | G | Iowa State: Lipsey secured first team All-Big 12 honors in 2024 and then followed that up with a third-team slot last season while averaging 10.6 points, 3.1 assists and 2.6 rebounds for an Iowa State team that won 25 times and received a No. 3 seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. The 6-1 guard has started 103 games for the Cyclones over the past three seasons — but exactly when his 104th career start will come remains unclear because of a Grade 2 MCL sprain suffered in his right knee last month. Barring any setbacks, it’s reasonable to assume Lipsey could be ready for Iowa State’s season-opener two weeks from today. But, even if he is, whether he’ll be sharp or not after missing so much of the preseason is an obvious thing to consider.
Big 12 predicted order of finish
1. Houston
Breakdown: The Cougars are 34-4 in Big 12 games the past two seasons, 39-5 if you include Big 12 Tournament games. That is remarkable stuff from Kelvin Sampson, whom more than 100 college coaches polled this offseason told us they believe will be the next coach to win his first national championship.
Needless to say, with Milos Uzan, Emanuel Sharp and reigning Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year Joseph Tugler back on campus, and five-star freshman Chris Cenac Jr. added to the roster, that first national championship for the 70-year-old Sampson could come this season.
2. Texas Tech
Breakdown: Grant McCasland’s team has out-performed its preseason KenPom ranking in all nine seasons that he’s been a head coach. That’s an impressive fact attached to his name and among the reasons the Red Raiders are ranked 10th in the preseason AP poll.
Another reason is the return of JT Toppin, the reigning Big 12 Player of the Year. A nice NIL package kept the All-American from entering the 2025 NBA Draft. He is widely considered to be the second best returning player in college basketball behind only Purdue’s Braden Smith.
3. BYU
Breakdown: BYU doesn’t have the most expensive roster in college basketball (I don’t think) — but it’s up there pretty high thanks in part to the additions of five-star freshman AJ Dybantsa and Baylor transfer Rob Wright, the former of whom could be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, the latter of whom averaged 11.5 points and 4.2 assists for Scott Drew’s Bears last season.
The Cougars have made three Elite Eights in school history — but zero since 1981. And there have been no trips to the Final Four — ever. But all of that could change this season. The roster assembled is good enough to do it.
4. Arizona
Breakdown: Tommy Lloyd has averaged 28 wins in his first four seasons as a head coach and was among the top eight vote-getters when we polled college coaches about which coach is most likely to become a first-time national champion next. He’s been a terrific hire after two decades as an assistant at Gonzaga.
Lloyd’s best returning player is Jaden Bradley, a 6-3 guard who averaged 12.1 points, 3.7 assists and 3.4 rebounds last season for an Arizona team that made the Sweet 16 of the 2025 NCAA Tournament. Combine him with a top-two recruiting class highlighted by five-star freshmen Brayden Burries and Koa Peat, and Lloyd has a realistic chance to make a fourth Sweet 16 in his first five years as a head coach.
5. Kansas
Breakdown: After winning at least a share of 16 Big 12 regular-season championships in his first 20 years at Kansas, all while never finishing worse than third in the league standings, Bill Self has finished fifth (2024) and sixth (2025) in the conference the past two seasons. Clearly, the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach, and two-time national champion, needs a bounce-back season — and Self will have to out-perform the expectations placed upon his team here to truly produce one.
On campus to help him do it is five-star freshman Darryn Peterson, a likely one-and-done talent who some have projected to be the top pick in next year’s NBA Draft.
6. Iowa State
Breakdown: TJ Otzelberger has never missed the NCAA Tournament since taking over at Iowa State in 2021 — and that streak should be extended in March thanks to the return of three of the Cyclones’ top five scorers — namely Joshua Jefferson, Milan Momcilovic and Tamin Lipsey, the last of whom is dealing with a knee injury that’s going to cost him much of the preseason.
Replacing the 30.8 points per contest Curtis Jones and Keshon Gilbert averaged last season won’t be simple. But there’s enough in place for Iowa State to make a run at what would be a third trip to the Sweet 16 in a five-year span.
7. Baylor
Breakdown: In what largely amounts to a sign of the times, Baylor is returning zero players who scored even one point for the Bears last season. Everybody is new. It’s not ideal.
But Scott Drew’s program should still extend their streak of consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament to seven thanks in part to the addition of five-star freshman Tounde Yessoufou, a 6-5 guard who projects as a one-and-done first-round NBA Draft pick. If he is selected in the top 30 in June, that’ll be six straight drafts featuring a Baylor alum going in the first round. Before Drew took over in 2003, the program had produced only three first-round NBA Draft picks in history.
8. Cincinnati
Breakdown: Some believe this could be Wes Miller’s best team at Cincinnati — and it might need to be to ensure he returns for a sixth season after missing the NCAA Tournament in each of the previous four.
Jizzle James, last season’s leading scorer, was dismissed from the program in August, leaving Day Day Thomas as the leading returning scorer. He averaged 10.2 points last season and will be joined in UC’s backcourt by Kerr Kriisa (Kentucky) and Jalen Celestine (Baylor), two transfers who helped the Bearcats enroll a top-20 portal class, according to 247Sports.
9. Kansas State
Breakdown: Fourth-year coach Jerome Tang enrolled a top-five portal class, according to 247Sports, and the best in the Big 12, this offseason in an attempt to return to the NCAA Tournament after missing it in each of the previous two seasons.
The star of the group is P.J. Haggerty, a consensus second team All-American at Memphis last season who averaged 21.7 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists while helping the Tigers win the AAC. He was the AAC Player of the Year and will be sharing the court this season with another POY, specifically Nate Johnson, who won MAC Player of the Year honors last season while averaging 14.0 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.4 assists for an Akron team that went 17-1 in conference games and made the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
10. TCU
Breakdown: The Horned Frogs missed the NCAA Tournament last season, after making it in each of the three previous years, largely because of a struggling offense that ranked outside of the top 200 at KenPom.com and easily rated as the worst in Jamie Dixon’s 22 years as a head coach.
Like most coaches, Dixon went into the portal to try to resolve the issues and added a pair of transfers who have already started at the power-conference level — specifically Jayden Pierre and Brock Harding. Pierre, a 6-0 guard, averaged 12.3 points last season at Providence. Harding, also a 6-0 guard, averaged 8.8 points at Iowa while shooting 39.8% from 3.
11. Oklahoma State
Breakdown: Oklahoma State added seven transfers this offseason, the most notable of whom is Anthony Roy, a 6-5 guard who was averaging a national-best 25.7 points at Green Bay before a knee injury sidelined him in December and prematurely ended his season.
Two other incoming double-digit scorers are Isaiah Coleman, who averaged 15.6 points at Seton Hall last season, and Christian Coleman, who averaged 11.6 points at UAB last season. So the Cowboys have a roster featuring experienced producers at the Division I level. If second-year coach Steve Lutz and his staff have few issues incorporating the new pieces, they could out-perform last season’s 7-13 record in the Big 12.
12. West Virginia
Breakdown: Ross Hodge will be West Virginia’s fourth head coach in four years following Bob Huggins (2022-23), Josh Eilert (2023-24) and Darian DeVries (2024-25), the last of whom left last March for Indiana. Hodge, who comes to West Virginia after two seasons at North Texas, remade the Mountaineers’ roster largely with mid-major standouts — among them Treysen Eaglestaff, a 6-6 forward who averaged 18.9 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.4 assists last season at North Dakota.
Honor Huff is another high-scoring incoming transfer. The 5-10 guard averaged 15.2 points at Chattanooga last season while making 41.6% of the 8.3 3-pointers he attempted per game.
13. Arizona State
Breakdown: Bobby Hurley enters his 11th year at Arizona State with what feels like some real job-pressure after the Sun Devils went 4-16 last season in the Big 12 — and he has an entirely new team filled with mid-major transfers, high school prospects and international players.
Can Moe Odum be as good in the Big 12 this season as he was in the WCC last season for Pepperdine, where he averaged 13.1 points and 7.5 assists? Can Marcus Adams Jr. be as good in the Big 12 this season as he was last season in the Big West for CSUN, where he averaged 16.1 points and 4.9 rebounds? The answers to those questions could play a role in Hurley’s future with the ASU program that he’s guided to three of the past six NCAA Tournaments.
14. Utah
Breakdown: Alex Jensen spent the past 12 seasons as an NBA assistant — first with the Utah Jazz, then with the Dallas Mavericks. He’s now back in college basketball for the first time since he was an assistant at Saint Louis from 2007 to 2011, coaching at his alma mater, trying to return Utah’s program to the level at which it operated when he played in Salt Lake City under Rick Majerus. Will Jensen get there eventually? Perhaps.
But his first season could be a tad rough — in part because Babacar Faye, a 6-9 transfer who just averaged 15.2 points and 7.8 rebounds at Western Kentucky, suffered a leg injury in practice last month that is going to keep him sidelined for the entire season.
15. UCF
Breakdown: Johnny Dawkins is a little like Hurley in the sense that he’s a Duke alum who has been at the same school for a long time with limited postseason success — and he’s now dealing with a bump up in conference affiliation that has made things more difficult than ever. If Dawkins doesn’t get UCF to the NCAA Tournament this season, he’ll be stuck on one appearance in 10 years with the Knights, and just two total NCAA Tournament appearances in 18 years as coach of the Knights.
In other words, Dawkins really needs Milwaukee transfers Themus Folks and Jamichael Stillwell to be good quickly. They combined to average 27.6 points, 13.7 rebounds and 7.3 assists last season for a Panthers team that finished second in the Horizon League. How well they adjust, or not, to the high-major level could lead to Dawkins getting an extension or a buyout. He only has two more years left on his contract.
16. Colorado
Breakdown: The Buffaloes are the only Big 12 team ranked outside of the top 75 at KenPom.com and/or the top 85 at BartTorvik.com, which makes them a sensible pick, at least on paper, to finish 16th in this 16-member conference.
Unlike some league members, Colorado actually does return some meaningful players — specifically the third-leading scorer (Bangot Dak), fourth-leading scorer (Elijah Malone) and seventh-leading scorer (Sebastian Rancik) from last season’s team. But last season’s team finished 3-17 in Colorado’s first year in the Big 12, so it’s reasonable to wonder how much of a positive that actually is.
