The Houston Cougars were voted No. 1 in the Big 12 Men\u2019s Basketball Preseason Media Poll, released this week. The poll was selected by media members who regularly cover the Big 12 and men\u2019s college basketball.<\/p>\n
Voters project Houston to capture a third consecutive Big 12 regular-season title after another dominant campaign last year, when the Cougars won both the regular-season and conference tournament crowns before advancing to the NCAA National Championship Game.<\/p>\n
Texas Tech, BYU, Arizona Follow Houston in Top Tier<\/p>\n
Texas Tech earned the No. 2 spot in the poll and features the Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year, JT Toppin, as voted on by the league\u2019s head coaches.<\/p>\n
BYU was selected third, while Arizona is projected to grab the final double-bye for the 2026 Phillips 66 Big 12 Men\u2019s Basketball Tournament, set for March 10\u201314 at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.<\/p>\n
Deep and Competitive Middle of the Pack<\/p>\n
Iowa State, Kansas, Baylor, and Kansas State were voted fifth through eighth, while Cincinnati, TCU, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Utah, UCF, Colorado, and Arizona State rounded out the poll.<\/p>\n
The upcoming season once again highlights the league\u2019s balance and national depth \u2014 a record-tying six Big 12 programs enter the year ranked in the Preseason AP Top 25.<\/p>\n
Key DatesSeason Opens: Monday, November 3Conference Play Begins: Friday, January 2Regular Season Ends: Saturday, March 7Big 12 Tournament: March 10\u201314, T-Mobile Center (Kansas City, MO)2025\u201326 Big 12 Men\u2019s Basketball Preseason Media PollHoustonTexas TechBYUArizonaIowa StateKansasBaylorKansas StateCincinnatiTCUWest VirginiaOklahoma StateUtahUCFColoradoArizona State<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Cougars were voted No. 1 in the Big 12 Men\u2019s Basketball Preseason Media Poll, released this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6550,8147,8505,17321,9914,943,56,2742,58,57,9540,14855,16598,19421,19423,544,19420,853,1769,19422,2188,9541],"class_list":["post-28324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-arizona","tag-arizona-state","tag-baylor","tag-byu","tag-cincinnati","tag-colorado","tag-houston","tag-houston-cougars","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-iowa-state","tag-jt-toppin","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-state","tag-ncaa-national-championship-game","tag-oklahoma-state","tag-t-mobile-center","tag-tcu","tag-texas-tech","tag-ucf","tag-utah","tag-west-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}