Among the big early storylines in this college basketball season — right there with UConn finishing last in the eight-team Maui Invitational — is the SEC emerging as the sport’s best league.

Most impressively, Auburn is off to a tremendous 7-0 start featuring wins over Houston, Iowa State, Memphis and North Carolina. Bruce Pearl’s Tigers are No. 2 in Saturday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings after winning the Maui Invitational. Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama are also in the top eight of the Top 25 And 1, a total of eight SEC schools appear in these rankings, and the most recent addition is Oklahoma, which is 7-0 after beating Louisville 69-64 on Friday to win the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas.

“I want to give Oklahoma a lot of credit,” said Louisville coach Pat Kelsey. “Porter [Moser]’s a phenomenal coach, doing a great job there. Kids are tough. They compete. And they had an amazing tournament. Winning a championship down here’s a heck of an accomplishment.”

Indeed it is.

The Battle 4 Atlantis field included three teams that entered the event ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 — specifically No. 3 Gonzaga, No. 14 Indiana and No. 24 Arizona. But the team holding the trophy at the end was Oklahoma, which was not only unranked but also picked 15th out of 16 schools in the preseason SEC poll.

OU was not supposed to win this. OU was never supposed to be 7-0.

But the Sooners did, and the Sooners are, and now they’ve entered the Top 25 And 1 at No. 26. Next up for Oklahoma is Tuesday’s game with Georgia Tech. The Sooners will play a rivalry game on a neutral court against Oklahoma State on December 14, another neutral-court game with Michigan on Dec. 18, and eventually open the SEC portion of their schedule at Alabama on the fourth day of 2025.

Top 25 And 1 rankings