Every Monday, I will be posting a breakdown of the AP Top 25, as well as other headlines from power conference teams around the country. Each highlighted team will be in bold.
*AAC, A10, and WCC included in power conferences*
AP Poll
- Villanova
- West Virginia
- Virginia
- Michigan State
- Purdue
- Wichita State
- Duke
- Texas Tech
- Oklahoma
- Xavier
- ASU
- Kansas
- Seton Hall
- Cincy
- Gonzaga
- TCU
- Arizona
- Miami
- Clemson
- UNC
- Kentucky
- Auburn
- FSU
- Tennessee
- Creighton
Top-25 Breakdown
West Virginia jumps to #2, after they became the first team to slow down Trae Young and Oklahoma’s hot streak (Oklahoma falls to #9). Purdue and Wichita State are technically tied at #5 in votes. UNC and Kentucky are in an unfamiliar place, as they are in the 20’s of the poll. Lastly, Auburn enters as they have been completely running through the SEC so far, and also entering is Creighton, who is in a familiar place at #25, which they have been three times this year.
Top-25 Notes
- #11 Xavier ends Butler’s hot streak by beating them by seven, but they ended up suffering a bad upset from Providence to fall in the poll.
- #23 Florida State fell short to #7 Duke, who later got upset by NC State, but the Seminoles beat Duke’s rival UNC by one the game after. The Seminoles are playing very well so far this year, but they barely remained in the poll after falling to #19 Miami to close out the week. Miami’s win over Florida State was a great way to make up for a terrible upset loss to Georgia Tech.
- #5 Wichita State once again plays a stunning game at home in a rout of a very good Houston Cougars team.
- #11 Arizona State receives an unneeded upset from Colorado. However, we figured they would fall off a bit at some point. The Buffaloes had a week for the ages, as later in the week they pulled off another upset over #17 Arizona for two Top-25 wins on the week. ASU and Arizona both beat Utah in their wins for the week.
- #14 Cincy holds off Temple by two. The Bearcats have been the quietest top-25 team as of late, but the came out of hiding to close out the week with a blow-out over rival SMU.
- #19 Clemson still holds just one loss as they held off Louisville in overtime.
- #3 Virginia puts the defense to work once again as they held #20 UNC to 49 points in a great win for the Cavaliers.
- #13 Seton Hall continues to win tight, meaningful games; this time they went to Butler for a win over a hot Bulldog team.
- #12 Kansas leads the majority of the game to win a crucial Big 12 momentum game over #16 TCU.
- #24 Tennessee continues to impress and shock us, as the beat #21 Kentucky for another win to build their resume after the fell to #22 Auburn.
- At the time, #1 MSU was upset by Ohio State by 16 points to give way to Villanova to take over the top spot once again. (MSU falls to #4).
Other Headlines
- Texas edges out Iowa State in overtime by four in a much-needed game for both teams. However, as Texas began to get better they fell to Baylor who has sparked at the perfect time.
- Alabama falls on the road to Vandy by just one point. Then, Georgia holds Alabama to just 46 points in a beat down of the Crimson Tide by 19.
- In a weird week for the Big Ten, Wisconsin found themselves playing to not be last in the conference against Indiana in a game they won by ten. However, they fell to Rutgers later in the week. Maryland wins at home versus Penn State in a battle for a high position. Northwestern continues to struggle, as they fall to Nebraska and Penn State on the week. And lastly, Michigan continues to fly under the radar on a seven-game win streak.
- Florida finally comes alive to upset Texas A&M on the road by 17 points who then falls to LSU for their third-straight upset loss, which dropped the Aggies out of the top-25. Then, Florida got a wide open fast break steal that resulted in a lay-up that beat the buzzer to knock off Missouri in comeback fashion to move closer to getting back in the top-25. Also in the SEC, Mississippi State upsets newly ranked Arkansas by three to knock them out of the poll.
- VCU finally started to look like a tournament team, until they fell to St. Joes in overtime. After that, they miraculously erased a large deficit to grab a great win over La Salle.
- Syracuse could not figure out how to stop Wake Forest’s offense, as they fall to them by four, then they fell at home to Notre Dame, who played without their two best players.
- Duquesne is actually having a good season so far, led by Eric Williams Jr., they beat Dayton by eight and blew out GW by 17.
- Boston College has played two ranked teams so far in ACC play and they have lost by a combined five points. This week they fell to Clemson by four.
- St. Bonaventure was one of the hottest teams in college basketball, but they could not pick up a win in Dayton.
- SMU falls to Tulane who has surprisingly played fantastic basketball so far this year.
- UCLA hurts their tournament hopes with a terrible loss to the PAC 12’s worst team in Stanford. And sure enough UCLA’s rival does the same as USC continues to get worse as they also received an awful loss to Stanford but the Trojans loss happened on a half-court buzzer beater. Like I said, both teams tournament hopes are up in the air.
- Oregon State wins the battle of Oregon, as they beat Oregon by 12. Without a loss to Utah, the Beavers could have been projected as a team playing in March.
- St. Johns disappoints in a crushing loss to Depaul, which could hold them out of the NCAA Tournament once again.
- Memphis has six losses on the year, but they finally picked up a solid win over Tulsa.
- Ole Miss is getting hot at the right time, as they handed Mississippi State just their second loss. The Rebels’ non-conference losses could hurt them in the long run.
- Minnesota falls to Indiana for a loss that could hurt bad come March.
- BYU suffers a loss to Pacfic that should insure that they must win the WCC to make the NCAA Tournament.
- Davidson finally gets back on track with a massive blow-out win over George Mason.
- UCF dominates Temple for 40 minutes as they hold Temple to 39 points in a 21-point win. Temple keeps drifting away from tournament contention.
- Ohio State is fantastic at home, as they potentially pulled the biggest upset of the young season as they upset #1 Michigan State.
