I’d like to start the Week 3 college basketball power rankings with a Shaq-like plea for forgiveness to the Auburn Tigers and Bruce Pearl: I owe you an apology. I was familiar with your game (I have proof!), but wavering in my confidence — by moving Auburn down to No. 2 last week and giving Gonzaga the shine was … a mistake.

I recognize the error of my ways. I see now that I was wrong.

As part of my penance and as a peace offering, I’ve moved Auburn back into its rightful spot at No. 1 in the power rankings. A 7-0 record and a Maui Invitational title with wins over Houston, Iowa State, North Carolina and Memphis over the last few weeks is one incredible resume to carry into December. 

No one is crowning any team on Nov. 28, 2024, but one thing is absolutely true one month into the college hoops season: Auburn is the best team in the sport and Johni Broome is the best player. Matt Norlander wrote as much Wednesday from Hawaii, and I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague after he saw them up close and personal all week. 

One other small but noteworthy tweak in this week’s power rankings you’ll notice: The Connecticut Huskies have vanished entirely. And deservedly so. The back-to-back champs fell flat on their face in Lahaina on Wednesday in an 85-67 loss to Dayton, the culmination of an 0-3 week in Maui. They were No. 2 in the AP poll Monday and No. 4 in last week’s power rankings, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise if they are unranked in the former come Monday after officially dropping in the latter today.

So let’s dive in here. The Week 3 Power Rankings — of which there are 16 teams — are listed below. As I intend to do each week to make it crystal clear, my own personal operating guidelines for how I rank the teams are also listed below. 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. 

Let’s get to it.