As part of its 2024–25 men’s basketball preseason coverage, Sports Illustrated is rolling out previews for the five high-major conferences, plus the top mid-majors nationally. Previously: ACC, Big East and Big Ten. Next up is the Big 12.

The Big 12 has perennially been the best conference in college basketball, and realignment has only added fuel to that fire. Last year’s addition of Houston gave the league another elite team, and one more top-tier program in Arizona joins the fray this season. The top of this conference is stacked, with five potential top-10 teams and a host of other talented squads that could be knocking on the door before long. Can Kansas, which has long dominated the conference, get back to the top after a disappointing 2023–24? It’s going to be a fascinating year in the Big 12. 

Player of the Year: Hunter Dickinson, Kansas

Breakout Player: Jizzle James, Cincinnati

Newcomer of the Year: VJ Edgecombe, Baylor

Dark Horse Team: Texas Tech

Houston has finished in the top five of KenPom’s final rankings in four straight years and advanced to at least the second weekend of the NCAA tournament in all four of those seasons. The Cougars are operating at an extraordinarily high level right now, and it feels like a matter of time before they break through and win a national championship. This year’s group doesn’t have Jamal Shead leading the way at point guard, but outside of his departure, it features impressive roster continuity. As long as Oklahoma transfer Milos Uzan can effectively run the point, this team seems like a very safe bet to be at or near the top of the sport yet again. 

Injuries played a role, but in the end, last season’s Jayhawks matched their worst KenPom finish of the Bill Self era after coming in as the consensus preseason No. 1 team in the country. Self seems intent on not allowing a second disappointing season in a row and has added plenty of talent, making this group one of the deepest in America. One illustration of that: Hunter Dickinson should be in the national player of the year mix at center, and his backup Flory Bidunga is, according to Self, the best prospect Kansas has had since Josh Jackson. Zeke Mayo (South Dakota State), AJ Storr (Wisconsin) and Rylan Griffen (Alabama) give this group far more offensive firepower on the wings than they had a year ago, which should open things up for Dickinson and returning point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. 

Iowa State’s defense has been elite throughout T.J. Otzelberger’s tenure, but the Cyclones took things to a new level a year ago, posting KenPom’s top-ranked defense en route to a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament and a trip to the second weekend. With star point guard Tamin Lipsey and a supporting cast that features big-time talents Milan Momcilovic and Keshon Gilbert back, this group has the nucleus in place for a potential Final Four or national title run. Improving from an efficiency standpoint offensively is the only thing that stands in their way. 

Few teams did a better job merging young NBA-level talent with experienced transfers than Baylor this offseason. Duke transfer Jeremy Roach and Miami transfer Norchad Omier have the potential to be all-conference players in the Big 12, with Roach transitioning back into a more traditional point guard role after playing off the ball a lot at Duke. But the team’s star talent comes from freshman VJ Edgecombe, an elite NBA prospect who turned heads with the Bahamian national team this summer. He’s an athletic two-way wing on a very impressive developmental trajectory. 

Arizona under Tommy Lloyd has earned a No. 1 or No. 2 seed in all three seasons on the job, and that’s not an unrealistic bar for this year’s group to reach either. The return of star guard Caleb Love is the headliner, but what really grabs my attention is how much positional size and physicality the Wildcats have. Transfers Trey Townsend (Oakland) and Tobe Awaka (Tennessee) are bruisers on the block, while Jaden Bradley and KJ Lewis were among the most impactful defensive guards in the country a year ago. This group should maul opponents on the glass and cause plenty of headaches in transition. 

A top-four finish in the Big 12 in Year 1 under Grant McCasland set the tone for an impressive tenure in Lubbock. The Red Raiders have plenty of momentum too despite losing leading scorer Pop Isaacs to Creighton, with a pair of impact portal adds in point guard Elijah Hawkins (Minnesota) and skilled big JT Toppin (New Mexico). With Toppin, Darrion Williams, Federiko Federiko and Devan Cambridge, the Red Raiders’ frontcourt has so much versatility. Combine that with a high-assist floor general in Hawkins running the show and tons of shooting on the wing, and you have a dark horse team with serious upside to watch out for. 

The Cincinnati program feels primed for a breakthrough after so many close calls a year ago. In all, 10 of the Bearcats’ 15 losses in 2023–24 were by five points or fewer, and with several key pieces back, it’s easy to see why there’s so much optimism internally about this group’s chances of climbing the Big 12 ladder. Jizzle James and Dan Skillings Jr. are major breakout candidates, and this defense should remain stout with Aziz Bandaogo protecting the rim. Plus, the Bearcats addressed their two biggest holes with another shooter in Connor Hickman (Bradley) and an athletic power forward in Dillon Mitchell (Texas). 

Armed with a massive NIL war chest, the Wildcats had a very splashy spring. Adding $2 million man Coleman Hawkins from Illinois was the highest-profile move, but the Wildcats also invested big in elite rim protector Ugonna Onyenso (Kentucky), skilled forward Achor Achor (Samford) and diminutive PG Dug McDaniel (Michigan). McDaniel and freshman David Castillo seem like great fits with coach Jerome Tang given his track record with small guards, and K-State should be elite defending the rim given its size and mobility up front. We’ll see if that combination is enough to elevate KSU into a serious Big 12 contender. 

It was a whirlwind of an offseason in Provo, one that saw the departure of Mark Pope for Kentucky, the hire of highly regarded NBA assistant Kevin Young to replace him, and mass influx of NIL dollars that made the Cougars one of the most feared teams on the recruiting trail right now. The big-name additions: Egor Demin, a future NBA first-rounder who left Real Madrid to head to BYU, and Kanon Catchings, another NBA prospect who decommitted late from Purdue. That said, relying on freshmen can be a challenge, so retaining the likes of Dallin Hall and Richie Saunders was absolutely huge for Young’s hopes of a big first season. 

The Horned Frogs are looking for a fourth straight NCAA tournament appearance under Jamie Dixon, but will rely on plenty of fresh faces to make it happen. In all, the Horned Frogs added five transfers who averaged at least 11 points per game at their previous schools a year ago, plus a former top-100 recruit in former Kansas State wing RJ Jones. Which will emerge? Noah Reynolds was electric a year ago for a Green Bay team that was among the nation’s biggest overachievers, and I’m bullish on the long-term upside of Old Dominion transfer Vasean Allette.

Darian DeVries built one of the most consistent mid-major programs in America at Drake and was overdue for a shot at the highest level. His son Tucker, the two-time Missouri Valley Player of the Year, follows from Drake, immediately providing a massive talent injection to a WVU roster that needed it. Tucker DeVries and Javon Small make for an excellent nucleus, though the Mountaineers could use some help in the frontcourt. Illinois transfer Amani Hansberry could have a breakout campaign, and the Mountaineers desperately need it given their dearth of proven big man options otherwise.

Bobby Hurley pulled off a massive talent injection into the Sun Devil program this spring, landing a pair of five-star recruits in Joson Sanon and Jayden Quaintance as well as a talented transfer portal class. Quaintance will play this entire season at just 17 years old, an immense challenge for a big man (albeit one with a potential NBA future). While the two five-stars will likely get most of the attention, circle portal adds BJ Freeman (Milwaukee) and Basheer Jihad (Ball State) as keys to this team contending for an NCAA tournament berth.

This is almost assuredly the most interesting 13th-place team in the country. UCF’s bizarre collection of pieces includes: 

If it works, the upside is very high. But this also looks like the type of team that could blow up at any moment and is largely built around high-usage players who’ve historically dominated the ball. Getting all those guys to buy into different roles could be a challenge. 

New Cowboys head coach Steve Lutz is three-for-three in taking teams to the NCAA tournament, earning automatic bids at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in 2022 and ’23 before leading Western Kentucky to the Big Dance in his first year there in ’24. The path will be much tougher in the Big 12, especially with this pieced-together roster that features essentially a collection of former high-major role players as well as a pair of mid-major bucket-getters in Arturo Dean (FIU) and Khalil Brantley (La Salle). Lutz should raise the floor, but the talent level here doesn’t look like a tournament-caliber group.

Late-season swoons have derailed promising seasons in consecutive years at Utah, and now pressure is building on Craig Smith to get the Utes back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2016. It won’t be easy though given the departures of star big Branden Carlson and point guard Deivon Smith. Baylor transfer Miro Little is a worthy dice roll in the backcourt, while East Carolina import Ezra Ausar should provide much-needed post scoring. Overall though, the cupboard looks rather bare next to most Big 12 rosters.

The Buffaloes’ first year in the Big 12 profiles as a rebuilding campaign after Tad Boyle’s team saw three players from last year’s squad get drafted over the summer and its top six scorers in total depart. After success many years ago with a non-Division I transfer in Derrick White, Boyle went back to that well this year with Trevor Baskin (D-II Colorado Mesa) and Elijah Malone (NAIA Grace College). With a very unproven backcourt, the path to relevancy runs through how that duo takes to the toughest league in college basketball.