Week 10 will see plenty of movement in college basketball’s AP Top 25.
Conference play is back, ladies and gentlemen, and we are starting to see contenders separate themselves from the pretenders. Sure, it’s just the first week of true conference action, but there was plenty of battering and bruising from title contenders against lesser opponents in league play.
This is when we truly begin to realize who will be there when March rolls around, but there’s still plenty of time for those who have struggled in the first couple of weeks of league play to turn things around. It’s a new year, so you can expect some teams to have hit the reset button on a disappointing season, steering toward national relevancy.
Will we ever see defending champion Villanova back in the AP Top 25 or have the Wildcats been bounced for good after an average start to the year? Jay Wright sure has his work cut out for him.
Duke continues to dominate as the Blue Devils are on a mission to earn that No. 1 overall seed once the tourney rolls around — and who’s going to stop them? The rest of the ACC, North Carolina and Virginia included, may be playing catch-up by the end of the season. However, the Cavaliers had a solid week with a double-digit victory over Florida State in a top-10 battle.
The Big Ten is already looking like a two-team race between rivals Michigan and Michigan State, the Pac-12 is disappointingly average, the Big 12 is wide open after a Kansas loss and the emergence of Iowa State and the SEC, too, looks to be a winnable race for about 4-5 teams.
What will the AP Top 25 look like after a crazy Week 9?