With six of its 10 teams ranked in this week's Associated Press poll, including three in the Top 10, the Big 12 has a strong argument that it is the best basketball conference in the country this season.
More difficult is the task of ranking the teams within the conference. Through games played Feb. 9, three teams are tied for first, and three others are just one game behind in the loss column with seven or eight conference games remaining for each team.
Our power rankings are based on six factors: overall record, conference record, AP ranking, RPI, the quality of the opposition and projected NCAA tournament seeding as determined by an average of the seeds in the projected tournament fields of Jerry Palm of CBSSports.