Stuckey’s College Basketball Power Ratings Movers, Feb. 25: Separation at the Top

As I do on Tuesday of each week, I will provide a summary of my updated power ratings, which I update every night as needed after adjusting for results, injuries and other factors as necessary. My model rates an average team at 50.0.

I will not only provide the raw data update, but also share the biggest movers of the week in each direction.

To create projected spreads based on the power ratings below, simply take the difference between the two power rating numbers and then add in home-court advantage if the game is not being played on a neutral court.

Home-court advantage can be worth anywhere from 1.5 to 5.0 points based on historical regression, in addition to a myriad of other factors (travel, elevation, etc.) that I consider. You'll see others use different values when it comes to home-court advantage, but almost everybody would agree it's diminishing across the board over time.

These power ratings are meant to serve as a starting point, as many other factors come into play before I ever pull the trigger on a bet, such as the matchups for a particular game and potential situational angles.

As I mentioned last week, I've had Kansas at No. 1 for quite some time, as I think the Jayhawks are the most complete team in college basketball — led by two potential first-team All-Americans. The team can also defend as well as any team in the nation and it's role players are now much more connected than it was at the start of conference play.

Kansas picked up a huge road win at Baylor over the weekend and then followed that win up with a comprehensive victory over Oklahoma State. Combine that with some of the upsets we saw over the weekend and I now have the Jayhawks as 3.2 points better than the next best team (Duke).

Here are the 12 teams that dropped at least 20 spots over the past week:

• Albany (-40)
• Western Carolina (-31)
• Wright State (-30)
• Charleston (-28)
• New Mexico (-27)
• Iowa State (-24)
• Sam Houston State (-23)
• Northwestern (-22)
• Rider (-22)
• McNese State (-21)
• Fordham (-21)
• Boston College (-20)

And here are the 16 that rose at least 20 spots:

• Evansville (+58)
• Texas A&M (+45)
• Tulane (+43)
• VMI (+38)
• UNLV (+35)
• Loyola MD (+35)
• Lamar (+32)
• UMBC (+31)
• Radford (+30)
• Mercer (+27)
• Charlotte (+26)
• Sacramento State (+24)
• UC Santa Barbara (+22)
• Lehigh (+21)
• St. Joe's (+21)
• UCLA (+20)

If you are just interested in the top 50, Purdue and West Virginia both dropped 12 spots over the past week after more disappointing results.

If you want to look for your potential national champion, focus on the top 14 teams below — which all have the necessary offensive and defensive efficiency combination to get to to the Final 4, in my opinion.

College Basketball Power Ratings

Subtract the higher-rated team's power rating from the lower-rated team's, then add home-court advantage (HCA), to create a point spread.

For example, Kansas would be about a 7-point favorite at home against Duke, but Duke would be a 1-point favorite at home vs. Kansas.