College basketball rankings: Texas Tech jumps in Top 25 And 1 after winning first Big 12 title

Lots of schools secured league championships on Saturday — among them Virginia, North Carolina, Purdue, Michigan State, Villanova, Nevada and LSU (under the strangest circumstances). But arguably nothing was more improbable, and by extension impressive, than the league title Texas Tech won this weekend.

The Red Raiders were unranked in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll after losing five of their top six scorers from last season’s team. They were picked seventh in the preseason Big Ten poll. And yet, on Saturday, they extended their winning streak to nine games to secure their first Big 12 regular-season title in history — and their first conference championship of any kind since 1996.

“I think you’ve got to give all of our players the credit — [because] they’re the ones that believed,” Texas Tech coach Chris Beard said after Saturday’s 80-73 win at Iowa State. “You can imagine the outside noise. It starts in the recruiting process when people say, `Man, you can’t win the Big 12 at Texas Tech.'”

Clearly, you can win the Big 12 at Texas Tech because Beard just did it. But that doesn’t mean you’re supposed to win the Big 12 at Texas Tech — which is why what Beard just did, in only his fourth season as a Division I head coach, is truly remarkable. If you rank Big 12 jobs from easiest to hardest, Texas Tech would be close to, if not at, the bottom. It’s why Bob Knight, one of the greatest basketball minds in history, never finished better than third in the Big 12, or advanced past the Sweet 16, in six full seasons at Texas Tech. But Beard has already been to an Elite Eight and and won a league championship. So, yeah, he’s probably about to win some National Coach of the Year awards — and deservedly so.

Texas Tech is No. 7 in Sunday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. Kansas State, which shared the Big 12 title with the Red Raiders, is No. 16. And Gonzaga is No. 1 for the 21st consecutive morning. The Zags’ next game is Monday night.