The Week 5 college basketball rankings will be released Monday afternoon and here are our Top 25 projections.
The college basketball rankings are currently taking a backseat to College Football Playoff rankings each week, but that will soon change. This is the final week for the playoff poll and the next month will be filled with football fans watching basketball to pass time until the national title.
Still, loyal college basketball fans know just how important it is to get a jumpstart on the AP rankings. Although being outside of the AP Top 25 this early in the season doesn’t mean much, it could definitely go a long way in deciding the type of momentum teams bring into conference action.
Some programs have already fallen out of the rankings — like Michigan State and Connecticut — but it’s early enough that there’s a good chance at least one of them will get back in. The Spartans, for example, have lost to four ranked teams which have all been the in the top 10 at some point this year. Tom Izzo will have them back. Connecticut, well, it has just struggled.
This week’s rankings will have a obvious new look as the No. 1 team in the nation fell on Saturday afternoon. Kentucky lost, at home, to No. 11 UCLA in upset fashion, but the Bruins continue to show why they’re the real deal.
A couple of top-five teams fell, opening the door for some mid-majors to climb. Will a team like Gonzaga or Butler take advantage of the Goliaths losing?
Here’s what our projected AP Top 25 looks like.
Iowa State went without a win in Week 4, which was disappointing, but the only loss was a one-point overtime defeat against a tough Cincinnati team. I don’t think the Cyclones drop completely out of the rankings, especially since their two losses are by a combined three points and the opponents weren’t slouches. They’ll have a tough road game against a struggling Iowa team this week, though.
USC is a football school, right? Wrong. The Trojans’ basketball team is pretty good, too. They added wins over South Dakota and BYU this week to improve to 8-0 on the season and this team might just contend for a Pac-12 title. It took a couple of years, but Andy Enfield has USC in the conversation as one of the best teams in the conference.
Another team that has gone from unranked to AP Top 25-worthy is Notre Dame. After fans suffered through a football season in which the Fighting Irish missed out on a bowl game, they’re watching a solid basketball team start to develop. The Fighting Irish are coming off a double-digit home win against Iowa and have beaten Northwestern and Colorado as well.
Last week, the Gators lost to red-hot Gonzaga, but it seems like everyone is losing to the Bulldogs these days. However, they rebounded to beat Miami to end the week and in their only contest of Week 4, they took down North Florida by 31 points. It’s tough to tell what kind of talent this team truly is right now, but we will learn this week when it takes on Duke and Florida State.
Arizona remains without Allonzo Trier, which has likely led to the Wildcats’ two slim losses to Butler and Gonzaga over the past couple of weeks, but this team is still worthy of a spot. Dropping from No. 16, the depth is hurting, but once they get everyone back, the Wildcats will be a force to be reckoned with. Yet another team with a Gonzaga loss on the resume, though.
Oregon started the season as one of a number of national title favorites, but the Ducks have struggled a bit and find themselves with two losses early on. The loss to Baylor doesn’t look as bad anymore now that the Bears are dominating, but the defeat against Georgetown was soul-crushing. Dillon Brooks is starting to play like his old self and the Ducks will need him to continue if they’re going to contend for another No. 1 seed.
Purdue lost a close one in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge last week to Louisville and that happens to be the Boilermakers’ second loss to a ranked opponent. Their other was a slim defeat at home against a team that might be the No. 1 overall ranked squad this week, Villanova. The Boilermakers finished off the week with a comfortable 34 point win over Morehead State and Caleb Swanigan continues to be a double-double machine.
West Virginia had one of the best weeks of any team in the Top 25, beating Manhattan by 47 and then closing it out with a nine-point road victory over No. 6 Virginia. Although the Cavaliers may have been a bit overrated, beating a tough defensive-minded team like that on the road is huge for the Mountaineers. Bob Huggins might just have a true Big 12 contender on his hands.
South Carolina has been a surprise team to come out of the SEC thus far. While everyone might talk about Kentucky and Florida when thinking about SEC basketball, the Gamecocks should not be forgotten, either. South Carolina has beaten Michigan and Syracuse, both ranked at the time, and Frank Martin has this team playing all-around solid basketball. They can shoot, rebound and defend. Typical Martin-coached team.
Not much of a jump for Butler this week since the Bulldogs only had a win over Central Arkansas, but they look to be one of the top mid-majors in college basketball. Who would have thought this program would remain afloat in the post-Brad Stevens era? Definitely not me. However, as long as Kelan Martin can play lights out, the Bulldogs are going to keep winning. They face a tough test in Cincinnati this week.
Wisconsin proved its dominance in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge with a 17-point win over then-No. 22 Syracuse and then closed out the week with 20-point victory against Oklahoma. This team is starting to click after a sluggish start to the season and we are seeing now why they were considered the favorite to win the Big Ten. Bringing back basically everyone from last year’s team, Wisconsin won’t go down easy.
Xavier suffered its first loss of the season against Baylor over the weekend and I think they’ll get a pretty sizable drop in the rankings. Why? Well, this was the first game in which the Musketeers faced off against a ranked opponent and they ended up losing by 15 points. Trevon Bluiett is one of the best players in the country, but they’ll need to avoid more non-conference losses with a tough schedule approaching.
Virginia took its first tumble of the season as well last week as the Cavaliers dropped a tough one at home against West Virginia in a border battle. Tony Bennett has a talented team at his disposal, but he’s going to have to figure out how to replace a guy like Austin Nichols who was dismissed from the team earlier this season.
After blowing a double-digit lead against Baylor in the Battle 4 Atlantis Championship last week, the Louisville Cardinals rebounded to put together a couple of solid wins over No. 15 Purdue and to close out the week against Grand Canyon. Not having a true go-to scorer might hurt Rick Pitino’s team in conference play, but the Cardinals have enough size to cause matchup nightmares.
This year’s West Coast Conference race is going to be extremely top-heavy with Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga battling it out, but it will also be one of the more intriguing matchups in the country. The Gaels are coming off a win over Stanford on the road by 15 points and they remain unbeaten heading into the fifth week of the season. They don’t face another tough opponent for the remainder of non-conference play, so don’t expect them to rise too much.
Creighton hasn’t been this high in the polls since Doug McDermott was draining threes for the Bluejays and contending for a national player of the year award. Creighton is back in the conversation for top-10 contention this year as it has beaten teams like Wisconsin, Washington State, N.C. State and Ole Miss to improve to 8-0. Will this high ranking hold up? Ask me again in a few weeks.
Indiana took down a tough North Carolina team, which was ranked No. 3 in the nation, at home last week to make up for a huge upset loss against IPFW. This year’s Hoosiers team might be Tom Crean’s most talented with guys like Thomas Bryant, James Blackmon and OG Annoy, but avoiding big upsets will be crucial. Remember, this team is missing its leader from last season, Yogi Ferrell.
North Carolina took its first loss of the season against Indiana, but I still have the Tar Heels ranked ahead of the Hoosiers. You might ask why, but it wasn’t an egregious enough loss on the road to drop them six spots in the polls after proving to be the third-best team in the country through four weeks. Pin Indiana and North Carolina against each other on a neutral floor and you may have a different outcome.
With the biggest victory of the week, the UCLA Bruins improve to 9-0 and look like a team that’s ready to run away with the Pac-12 title. The Bruins took down No. 1 Kentucky on the road, no less. This team might just be the hottest in the country as its averaging 97 points per game with that unbeaten record. Yes, you read that right, 97 points each game. Freshman sensation Lonzo Ball is living up to the hype.
If the Baylor Bears weren’t so red-hot, I would have put UCLA right here, but this team has been just dominating opponents left and right. Baylor has been so good that they even received a first-place vote in the AP poll last week. That was even before the Bears took down No. 7 Xavier this week by 15 points. Johnathan Motley is one of the best big men in the country and this team has arguably the best resume out there.
Every year Kentucky loads up with young talent and each season the Wildcats dominate early on in the campaign. This season is no different, but a home loss against No. 11 UCLA will drop the Wildcats just a bit in the rankings after being No. 1 for a short time. This team hasn’t played the toughest schedule in the world so far, but things will start heating up in a couple weeks against North Carolina.
Looking for another team with potentially the best resume in college basketball? Look no further than the Gonzaga Bulldogs. It seems like a handful of teams in the rankings have one or two losses and one of them has come against Gonzaga. They’ve beaten San Diego State, Florida, Iowa State and the latest victory was over Arizona. Watch out for this team as it might be on a tear toward an unbeaten season.
Duke faced a tough matchup in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge in a young, hungry Michigan State team that had faced a grueling schedule through the first month. It was the Blue Devils’ premier matchup of the week and they pulled away at the end, winning by nine at home. As long as Grayson Allen can stay healthy, this team will be just fine until it gets three top-tier freshmen back from injury.
Kansas will take advantage of two losses ahead of it in the top-five last week to jump all the way to No. 2, in my opinion. The Jayhawks are playing some excellent basketball after losing to Indiana to open the season. Kansas has now won seven games in a row, including a two-point victory over Duke in the Champions Classic in the second contest of the year. This team is young and talented and should be the favorite in the Big 12.
Villanova was receiving about a third of the first-place votes in the AP poll last week and that will change this week as the Wildcats will jump over a Kentucky team after it fell to UCLA. The reigning national champions look to be back in the conversation as title favorites this season. There is no drop-off in talent from last year and it wouldn’t be shocking to see this team lose just a couple of regular season games.