1. Big East: They are huge and their depth shows in the most recent AP rankings, with nine teams ranked (Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Villanova, Connecticut, Notre Dame, Louisville, West Virginia, Georgetown and Cincinnati). Throw in Steve Lavin's St. John's team in the ORV category.

2. Big Ten: While Michigan State was expected to be a top-five team all season long and have disappointed, Jared Sullinger and Ohio State have been impressively excellent. Purdue, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois have been predictably uneven.

3. Big 12: The conference is top-heavy, as expected, with Kansas locked into a top-five ranking this season. Texas has weathered its early season stumbles, plus Texas A&M has been an encouraging surprise. Missouri has been stronger than expected and is currently ranked, though the slide of K-State and Baylor has been supremely disappointing.

Alec Burks, the Big 12 Freshman of the Year in 2010, and his Colorado Buffaloes have been a nice story and are a bubble team.

4. Mountain West: While we expected San Diego State and BYU to be top-25 teams, they have been far better than even expected. They will meet in Utah on January 26th and in San Diego on February 26th, which will be two of the biggest MWC games in history. If things play out as expected, we should deservingly get that third game in the conference tournament.

UNLV has had a few stumbles, but should be the conference's third tournament team.

5. ACC: The ACC still has a ton of talent on paper, but it has been Duke and a bunch of also rans over the past season and a half.

North Carolina has grossly underachieved and are in the ORV category based on reputation at this point. It is difficult to believe they were a top-10 team when the season began.

Florida Sate is also in the mix as the only team who has defeated Duke this season.

6. SEC: Tennessee's November aberration is a distant memory and we're only left with Kentucky in the top-25. They are just as young as they were last season, though not quite as talented. We'll always play the what-if Enes Kanter game because they could have been truly special with him.

I still think we can see Georgia and Florida crack the top-25 by the end of the season based on the talent of Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie for the Bulldogs and Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker for the Gators.

Vanderbilt has consistently been on the fringes of the top-25.

7. Pac-10: Washington and Arizona have both been underrated nationally and whoever wins the regular season title has to be considered a top-25 team.

The way UCLA has underachieved is extremely disappointing, as the Pac-10 can't survive nationally without them, at least in the post-Lute Olson era.

8. West Coast Conference: Saint Mary's and Gonzaga are about even right now. I was expecting much more from sophomore Elias Harris than.

9. Conference-USA: Memphis was an early season pretender, but they have dropped out of the ORV category altogether, leaving UCF and Southern Miss.

10. Missouri Valley: Missouri State and Wichita State have both been very good this season and appear poised to be upset darlings in the tournament.

 

Click here to see the current NCAA rankings from the AP, Coaches and RealGM.