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1) Kansas- The Jayhawks are undefeated and might have the best player in the country. But their shooting woes seem like a real concern.
2) Texas Tech- Chris Beard is a monster, and Tech is probably better than last season.
3) Oklahoma- The Sooners have some impressive wins—they just blew out Wichita State—and seem to be improving.
4) Iowa State- This team is much better than I thought. This is a projected rank: the Cyclones figure to be much better with a full roster.
5) Kansas State- The Wildcats returned every significant contributor from an Elite Eight team. But they’ve been abysmal from the field and have a bad loss to Tulsa.
6) TCU- The Horned Frogs are much closer to teams 3-5 on this list than the next set of teams. Jamie Dixon has been spectacular.
7) Texas- Shaka Smart needs to turn it around quickly in Austin. He’s been there too long—and Rick Barnes is winning too much at Tennessee—for another mediocre season to suffice.
8) West Virginia- This team has been borderline awful. They need to get healthy, and until they do, they’re not moving up this list.
9) Baylor- There’s a much better case for ranking the Bears 10th than ranking them 8th. This has easily been the worst Baylor team since 2011. Hopefully things change.
10) Oklahoma State- They don’t have any terrible losses, but this squad isn’t good. They figure to battle Baylor for the last spot in the league.