College basketball upset alert: Why Alabama and St. John's need to be careful in Week 15

The college basketball season has been a fun one for fans and a big part of the drama has been a seemingly endless string of upsets. Last week saw a slew of upsets, including watching the top two teams in the AP Top 25 suffer losses on Saturday to show that no one is unbeatable even at this juncture of the season.

Duke and Auburn weren' the only upset victims last week as the likes of Marquette, Kansas, and Maryland also suffered disappointing defeats that cost them positioning in the poll. Which ranked teams should be on upset alert this week?

Which ranked college basketball teams should be on upset alert in Week 15?

No. 2 Alabama

There were surely some upset feelings in Tuscaloosa on Monday afternoon when the latest AP Top 25 poll came out and Alabama didn't have a No. 1 next to their name. The Crimson Tide have been on a roll and were coming off a strong road win at Arkansas but peaked at No. 2 after voters opted to leave Auburn, which was coming off a home loss to then-No. 6 Florida, in the top spot by a narrow margin of nine points.

While Nate Oats will surely use this snub as motivation ahead of a massive game against the Tigers on Saturday that will mark the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 basketball matchup in the history of the SEC, the Crimson Tide will first have to deal with a road trip to Texas on Tuesday night. While the Longhorns aren't nearly as dangerous of an opponent as Auburn is, Alabama will have to be sure they don't look past Texas in anticipation of Saturday's huge showdown.

There is a lot on the line here for Texas as well since the Longhorns are sitting just above the bubble in most brackets, leaving them little margin for error down the stretch. Getting a home shot against the No. 2 team in the nation should have the fans in Austin fired up and Texas will relish the opportunity to potentially spoil the 1 vs. 2 matchup by scoring an upset if Alabama isn't ready for this one.

No. 9 St. John's

While the Knicks have made a ton of noise on the professional level. No. 9 St. John's is the toast of the town in the New York basketball scene. The Red Storm are back in the Top 10 for the first time since 2000 as a result of sweeping a tough week against Marquette and UCONN, firmly establishing themselves as the beasts of the 2024-25 Big East.

While Rick Pitino's team is strong enough to make a deep run into March, this is also the first time in a while that this program is the hunted instead of the hunter in league play. While the Red Storm players will likely want to avenge their only Big East loss when Creighton comes to Madison Square Garden on Sunday, they also have to be careful not to lose focus for Wednesday night's trip to Villanova.

While the Wildcats are a fringe bubble team thanks to some bad losses early in the season, they did score a win over UCONN earlier in Big East play and beat fellow bubbler Xavier by 12 over the weekend. Getting a win over the Red Storm would do wonders for Villanova's slim at-large hopes and this looks like a potential trap game for St. John's, especially if they have wandering eyes for that Bluejays rematch.

No. 11 Michigan State

For a while, it looked like Michigan State was making a case to be the Big Ten's best team this season. Tom Izzo's Spartans raced off to a 9-0 start in league play before hitting a speed bump on their California trip, getting swept by USC and UCLA, before righting the ship with a win over Oregon on Saturday.

The top of the Big Ten is jam-packed to start the week as Michigan State trails No. 7 Purdue by a half game in the standings with a trip to West Lafayette on tap for next Tuesday. The game before that is a dangerous spot for the Spartans, however, as they head to Illinois on Saturday night in FOX's primetime spotlight game.

These teams met in East Lansing last month and the Fighting Illini took the Spartans to the wire despite getting only three points from leading scorer Kasparas Jakucionis, who played just nine minutes due to foul trouble. Illinois has been in a bit of a funk but can beat anyone if they are on their game, making this spot a very tough one to see Michigan State getting out of with a win if the Illini are knocking down their shots early on.