College Basketball Rankings: Projected Top 25 for Week 8
All Kentucky had to do in Week 7 was take care of a suddenly-struggling UCLA team at home in order to gain some respect from AP voters. However, John Calipari and the Wildcats weren’t able to take care of business, dropping the contest to the Bruins which will likely drop them a decent amount in the Week 8 poll. No, it’s not necessarily a “bad” loss, but Kentucky hasn’t proven much of anything this season to warrant top-10 consideration.
It’s hard to believe that Luke Maye is leading a prestigious team like North Carolina in scoring just two seasons removed from averaging five minutes per contest to go along with 1.2 points. However, he has improved more than about anyone in college basketball and he’s a reason this team has gotten off to an 11-2 start. He couldn’t help the Tar Heels avoid a major upset against Wofford earlier in Week 7, though. North Carolina did rebound to close the week with a win over Ohio State.
Week 7 wasn’t exactly a good week for TCU to prove itself as the only teams on the schedule after not playing a single game in Week 6 were Texas Southern and William & Mary. The Horned Frogs did take care of both teams and improved to 12-0 as one of the only unbeaten teams left in the country, but we still don’t know much about this team. Jamie Dixon has plenty of talent at his disposal, but time will tell if the Horned Frogs can compete for a Big 12 title.
Miami was dropped from the list of unbeatens after losing in a rare college basketball double-header on Saturday. The Hurricanes beat Hawaii in Honolulu in the Diamond Head Classic quarterfinals and then lost to a surprising New Mexico State team in the semifinals about seven hours later. The Hurricanes are definitely talented enough to contend in the ACC, but they’ll show how good they are when they bounce back from this defeat.
Can anyone slow down the Oklahoma Sooners? Trae Young has been the best freshman in college basketball this season, leading the Sooners from the ranks of the overlooked to a potential fringe top-10 spot. He’s averaging 28.7 points and 10.4 assists per game and he led the Sooners to wins over Northwestern State and a preseason Top 25 Northwestern team by 26 points. Oklahoma has the best offense in college basketball, but the defense ranks 302nd.