Iowa State crashed the top five of the latest College Basketball Power Rankings this week for the first time and Florida moved to its highest ranking (No. 3) of the season after high profile flops from UCLA and Kentucky last week in the CBS Sports Classic.

The Cyclones jumped up to No. 5 and the Gators moved all the way up to No. 3 behind the entrenched big two of Auburn and Tennessee at the top. Iowa State’s rise of two spots came as a result of other team’s failures but also on the heels of (another) nonconference beatdown, this week beating Morgan State by 27 to polish off its non-league schedule. Florida’s rise of two spots comes under similar circumstances, with a 99-45 win this week over North Florida ushering it to a 12-0 record.

Auburn, meanwhile, held steady at No. 1 after just one outing vs. Purdue ended in a cushy 18-point win. Tennessee also held firm at No. 2 despite a scare from Middle Tennessee that also ended in an 18-point win. The latest results give the SEC dominance in the Power Rankings with six of the top 10 and each of the top three hailing from the SEC.

There’s much to unpack here, so let’s dive in with the rankings guidelines as we always do and make clear how we operate in this space. 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.