Kansas becomes latest No. 1 team to go down in college hoops

It’s not quite Christmas yet, and on Saturday the Kansas Jayhawks became the fifth No. 1-ranked team in college basketball to lose this season.

Usually college basketball waits until March to offer a full dose of madness. But it’s not even Christmas, and with Saturday’s 56-55 loss to No. 18 Villanova the Kansas Jayhawks became the fifth No. 1 team to lose this season. It is first time in college basketball history that five different No. 1 teams have lost before the calendar flipped to a new year.

Michigan State opened the season at No. 1, then lost to Kentucky. Kentucky became No. 1, and loss at home to Evansville. Duke took the top spot then, before losing at home themselves to Stephen F. Austin. Then it was Louisville’s turn, before they lost to Texas Tech in the Jimmy V Classic. Ohio State was No. 2 last week, and perhaps set to become No.1, before a loss to Minnesota last weekend.

Jermaine Samuels led Villanova with 15 points including what proved to the game-winning 3-pointer with less than 20 seconds left in the game. Devon Dotson led Kansas with 15 points of his own, but he had the ball in his hands with opportunities to put the game away, tie it or win it in the final minute, and fell short all three times.

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It was not a great exhibition of offense on Villanova’s home floor on Saturday. The home team shot 34.9 percent from the floor, and 24.4 percent from 3-point range (10-for-41), and Kansas shot 43.6 percent from the floor while going 3-for-13 (23.1 percent) from beyond the arc. The two teams combined to shoot just 12 free throws (Kansas 4-for-10, Villanova 2-for-2).

Kansas becoming the latest No.1 team in the country to fall begs the question – who’s next? No. 2 Gonzaga seems likely become the top-ranked team on Monday morning, as long as they take care of business at home against Eastern Washington later on Saturday.