Early on this season, there were signs that we might be in for something a bit different.

Kansas, the preseason No. 1 team, was showing some cracks; reigning two-time national champion UConn went to Maui for Thanksgiving and returned with zero wins. North Carolina lost to every major nonconference opponent. Cooper Flagg was as good as advertised — perhaps better.

The season has only become clearer as leagues turned inward and began conference play. And there are trends there, too, particularly among the multibid major conferences. Some are struggling. Others are overperforming — though whether they’ll see success has yet to be seen.

We had ranked the power conferences heading into the season. It’s now time to see how the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten and SEC rank against each other now that there’s just over a month left before Selection Sunday.

5. ACC

Projected bids: 3
Average seed: 6.3

It turns out the ACC did not hit rock bottom in 2023-24. The league’s five NCAA bids — plus two notable snubs in Pitt and Wake Forest — a year ago would look pretty good in the context of what’s shaping up in 2024-25.

A conference synonymous with historic greatness has just three NCAA locks among its expanded 18-team membership. Duke is a serious national championship contender. Clemson just knocked off Duke and North Carolina back-to-back for the first time in school history. And Louisville has been resurrected under new coach Pat Kelsey; if it hadn’t, the ACC might not even make our top five rankings.

We can also credit Wake Forest and Pitt for paying attention at scheduling school and making sure that part of the equation was covered. Wake is currently just inside the at-large cut line, and Pitt is desperate to regain its early-season mojo down the stretch.

But where is the depth? Vaunted North Carolina is giving us its second disaster in three years. NC State has turned its sizzling Final Four run last year into eight straight losses and a 2-10 conference record. Recent powers Miami and Virginia have fallen so far, so fast that their legendary coaches took off for the first tee (followed even more recently by Florida State).

Newcomers SMU, Stanford and even Cal have been more than respectable, but that’s as much a comment on the room they entered as what they brought to the party. In short, the ACC is going to need another overachieving March to make up for three months of hide-your-eyes-quality basketball.

4. Big East

Projected bids: 4
Average seed: 5.4

It’s easy to forget the Big East was similarly snubbed in 2024. NIT champion Seton Hall and St. John’s were more than good enough to make the NCAA tournament, but a preponderance of bid stealers had other ideas.

The league is good enough this season that two-time defending national champion UConn is in fourth place. And while no one is ruling out a Huskies three-peat, Marquette, Creighton and St. John’s are all better and healthier. The Johnnies are the story because of Rick Pitino, but it says here Creighton — coming off back-to-back Elite Eight and Sweet 16 seasons — may be the team to watch.

The reality is, all four of the Big East’s locks can be second weekend teams. And maybe Xavier or Villanova sneaks back into the picture, however unlikely. This is a conference doing more with less.

3. Big Ten

Projected bids: 10
Average seed: 5.5

We’ve written often that the Big Ten in recent years has been more about quantity than quality. Now consisting of 18 schools, the conference boasts an even more impressive number of very good teams. What remains to be seen is whether any of them are elite.

The 10 likely NCAA tournament teams from this conference are as capable of Sweet 16 appearances as they are early exits. In the NET era, the Big Ten has the most total bids and also the lowest percentage of second weekenders in the country. And the drumbeat of going without a national champion for a quarter century won’t be silenced until the streak is broken.

Purdue could certainly make a return visit to the Final Four, but the Boilermakers aren’t on any shortlists to win it all. Another half-dozen teams are dangerous enough to break through: Michigan State, Wisconsin and Maryland are various levels of a sleeper in our book. But it’s also hard to imagine any of them playing in April.

It’s easy to be wrong forecasting the tournament this far in advance, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that only 11% of Big Ten teams have made it even to the regionals since the pandemic. Simple randomness would suggest that has to change.

In the meantime, call us skeptics. We’ll believe it when it happens.

2. Big 12

Projected bids: 8
Average seed: 5.2

The second round of Big 12 expansion — this one welcoming a foursome of former Pac-12 schools — has hurt neither the brand nor performance of what remains an outstanding basketball conference. Any league in which Kansas, the preseason No. 1 team in the land, is the fifth team into a projected bracket is an awfully good league.

It’s also telling that arguably the two best teams — Houston in 2024 and Arizona in 2025 — came in via those expansions. What they’ve added to the Kansas-Baylor–Iowa State nucleus has more than compensated for the loss of foundational programs Oklahoma and Texas.

Houston, in particular, is on a five-year heater, with the metrics to match. The current Cougars are No. 1 in Bart Torvik’s rankings, No. 2 in the BPI and No. 3 for both KenPom and NET. Three of their four losses have come in overtime. Arizona, meanwhile, started the season 4-5 but since adjusting to the new neighborhood has gone a tidy 13-1.

Either or both could reach a Final Four — as could Iowa State, Texas Tech or the aforementioned Jayhawks. The Big 12 will likely fall a bid or two behind the Big Ten in overall NCAA teams, but those teams will stick around longer. That’s why it gets the nod as our No. 2 conference.

1. SEC

Projected bids: 13
Average seed: 5.2

In the least suspenseful exercise since Eagles-Chiefs on Super Bowl Sunday, the SEC is the runaway choice for this season’s top college basketball conference.

Let us count the ways:

• As of Wednesday morning, the 16-team SEC is shattering every convention with a record 13 projected NCAA tournament bids. And Arkansas may yet make it 14, leaving only LSU and South Carolina on the outside looking in.

• The league currently projects three No. 1 seeds, two No. 2 seeds and at least four more teams that will play their NCAA tourney openers in white jerseys. That’s a remarkable nine teams seeded in the top half of the national bracket.

• The six SEC teams on the top four lines of the bracket — Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Texas A&M and Kentucky — entered the week with a combined record of 45-23 in Quadrant 1 games. This is an even crazier stat when you consider 16 of the losses came in games against one another.

• The average nonconference schedule strength ranking of the SEC’s single-digit seeds is 85.8, so it’s not like the league feasted on weaklings prior to conference play (as its 14-2 record in the ACC-SEC challenge would also attest).

All that’s left is for an SEC team to win the national championship for the first time since Kentucky in 2012. You want to take the field? Go ahead. I’m taking the SEC.