I know it’s been a month since the season started. I want to personally apologize for the lack of focus on the college basketball rankings. As I said in the introduction yesterday, we will be giving you our power rankings of the top 25 in the world of college basketball each week.
But first, I would like to congratulate all the conference championship winners from Saturday’s title games. It will now be up to the committee to determine who’s in the playoff and what bowl game each team gets. We are still too far away in the basketball season to worry about madness, but let’s see where each team ranks in this week’s rankings.
- Gonzaga (8-0)
- Virginia (7-0)
- Michigan (8-0)
- Duke (7-1)
- Kansas (6-0)
- Nevada (8-0)
- Tennessee (5-1)
- Auburn (6-1)
- Kentucky (7-1)
- North Carolina (6-2)
- Kansas State (6-1)
- Michigan State (6-2)
- Iowa (6-1)
- Florida State (6-1)
- Wisconsin (7-1)
- Virginia Tech (6-1)
- Villanova (6-2)
- Ohio State (6-1)
- Texas Tech (7-0)
- Buffalo (7-0)
- Arizona State (7-0)
- Maryland (6-1)
- Mississippi State (6-1)
- St. John’s (7-0)
- Furman (8-0)
On the Bubble
Iowa State, Boston College, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Louisville, Nebraska, Clemson, Creighton, UCLA, UConn
Dropped From the Rankings
Texas, Oregon, Purdue
Top 25 Breakdown
Looking at the top five teams, are you really surprised? I mean, each of these teams could be winners in March when they all go dancing, but they should also be at the top of the rankings all season long barring any major injuries.
Gonzaga has proven this is the year they’ll be National Champions, or at least they want us all to think that. Their win over Duke earlier this season has proven they could do it. Virginia and Michigan make the jump into the top three because not only are they winning, but they are destroying teams right now. Did you not see what Michigan did to North Carolina? Yeah me neither, I tuned off after they built a 20 point lead! Duke and Kansas round out the top five, as they should because they have continued to be some of the dominant teams in the NCAA. Despite Duke’s loss to Gonzaga, Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett are going to do some great things together this year.
The next set of five are also teams well deserving of their spot. Nevada has continued off from a great tournament last year and started off strong. They’re only out of the top five right now because of their strength of schedule and who they’ve played so far. The next three SEC teams are three teams who could’ve easily been top five if they hadn’t lost to them. Tennessee lost to Kansas, but could jump in the top five with a win over Gonzaga next week. Both Auburn and Kentucky have lost to Duke. That’s what is keeping them out of the top five. But let’s talk about the North Carolina Tar Heels. They have lost two games already this season. One to Texas and another to Michigan, but because they are North Carolina and have always been one of the top 10 teams, we’ll leave them there for now and hope they can start to rebound against better teams.
The middle five teams are teams who still have more to prove as the season goes on. Kansas State started out 6-0 until their loss to Marquette Saturday night. Kansas State’s biggest win was against Missouri. They are quickly falling if they can’t get things together, and are not expected them to remain in the top 25 much longer. Michigan State should be one of the top teams in the NCAA like they have been over the years, but they have struggled a bit early on, losing games to unranked Louisville and Kansas. Their next stretch of games will give us a better idea of which Spartans team we have this year. Iowa, like K-state, has started off undefeated, but then lost to Wisconsin. Fortunately, they will not move in the rankings just yet, but their next few games will be huge factors in their rankings next week.
Florida State has beaten several ranked teams, but lost one to the reigning National champions, Villanova. Florida State has also remained in the same spot they were last week and they might be there for a while. Wisconsin suffered a loss to Virginia, which knocked them down a bit, but their wins over Oklahoma and Iowa have helped them climb back into the top 15 of the rankings.
The next five are teams who look to make an impact as the season goes on. We have seen Virginia Tech in the top 15 before, but with a loss to Penn State and a not so impressive schedule, they have fallen out. They will need to prove themselves worthy of being in the top 25, but let’s see how long that will last. Villanova are the defending champions, but they haven’t played like it recently. They got destroyed by Michigan and upset by Furman, but they are slowly turning themselves around and could likely be in the top 15 next week. Ohio State’s loss to Syracuse has knocked them out of the top 15 as well, and, like Virginia Tech, they haven’t had any impressive wins yet, besides maybe Creighton.
Texas Tech has remained undefeated and jumped into the top 20 because of the teams in front that have fallen, but they also need to find a way to get better wins against better opponents if they want to make a run into the top 15 or higher. Buffalo is in the same situation as Texas Tech. They are also undefeated and ranked higher than expected because of multiple losses by Texas, Oregon and Purdue that have dropped all three teams from the top 25 this week.
The bottom five teams are teams who have either remained because of those who fell out the top, or those like Maryland and Mississippi State, who are hanging on because of losses to teams ranked higher than them. One of those teams is Arizona State, who is undefeated and has beaten Mississippi State. They may be making a move to get even higher if they can pull out a victory in their game against Nevada next week.
Maryland’s one loss is to the No. 2 ranked Virginia, but Maryland hasn’t been playing as well as we all hoped they would despite holding off Penn State. Maryland will have to prove themselves this week if they want to stay in the top 25. Mississippi State is also out to prove they belong in the top 25 and that their loss against Arizona State was just a common loss every team will ultimately get. But when will that loss come for teams like Furman and St. John’s, who have started surprisingly strong and enter this week ranked as an undefeated team?
Will we see the same teams in the top 25 next week? Who will rise? Who will fall? Can one of the bubble teams make their case for a top 25 spot? Stay tuned next week and see who’s in and out of the top 25. Also, share who you believe should be in the top 25 based on what you’ve seen this season!
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