The college basketball regular season has come to a conclusion and we are less than a week away from seeing an NCAA Tournament bracket on Selection Sunday. The push for improved seeding in March Madness or finding your way off the bubble is still ongoing, but a new mystery was added to the process after No. 1 Auburn stumbled down the stretch.
A fixture atop the AP Top 25 for the past eight weeks, the Tigers had a rough week. After looking outmatched on the road at No. 22 Texas A&M, Auburn then returned home and lost an overtime thriller against No. 7 Alabama, which got revenge for an earlier loss to the Tigers in a 1 vs. 2 matchup in Tuscaloosa.
While Auburn's overall body of work still leaves them in a strong position to be the top overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, their standing did take a hit and will cost them the top spot in the final regular season polls. How far will Auburn fall, and how will the end of the regular season impact the Top 25? Read on for the final AP Top 25 projections of the year.
Projected AP Top 25 Poll After No. 1 Auburn Falls Twice
1. Duke Blue Devils
2. Houston Cougars
3. Florida Gators
4. Auburn Tigers
5. Alabama Crimson Tide
6. St. John's Red Storm
7. Michigan State Spartans
8. Tennessee Volunteers
9. Texas Tech Red Raiders
10. Clemson Tigers
11. Iowa State Cyclones
12. Maryland Terrapins
13. Louisville Cardinals
14. Memphis Tigers
15. Kentucky Wildcats
16. Texas A&M Aggies
17. BYU Cougars
18. Wisconsin Badgers
19. Purdue Boilermakers
20. Saint Mary's Gaels
21. Missouri Tigers
22. Drake Bulldogs
23. UC San Diego Tritons
24. Arizona Wildcats
25. Michigan Wolverines
Auburn stumbles in the final week of the season
The weight of being No. 1 in a league as historically tough as the 2024-25 SEC is immense, and it is impressive that Auburn has managed to hold onto that perch for as long as they have. Things started to unravel for Auburn early in the week when they ran into a desperate Texas A&M side that needed a bounce-back performance after a two-loss week and led wire-to-wire.
Saturday's defeat to Alabama was an instant classic that saw Auburn force overtime late before Mark Sears beat the buzzer in the extra session to send the Crimson Tide home victorious. Two bad games doesn't outweigh a whole season of goodness from Bruce Pearl's team, but it does raise some questions about Auburn, which should drop a few slots in the AP poll ahead of the SEC Tournament.
Duke snuffs out North Carolina's tournament hopes
It's been a minute since Duke has been tested in the ACC, and Jon Scheyer surely appreciated having the Blue Devils pushed on Saturday at North Carolina. With the Tar Heels in desperate need of a quality win to get into the field of 68, the momentum was swinging towards the home team when a 22-6 spurt put North Carolina up 52-47 with 17:43 to go.
Scheyer called a key timeout and Duke came out firing, stabilizing the game and eventually pulling away for an 82-69 win to spoil Senior Night while effectively forcing their biggest rivals to win the ACC Tournament to reach March Madness. The No. 1 spot in the poll should be Duke's after this week, and they have a chance to establish an argument for the top overall seed if they can claim the conference tournament crown to pair with their outright ACC regular-season title.
Kentucky might be back
Inconsistency has been a theme for No. 19 Kentucky, which has been battling injuries and compiled a 6-7 record over their previous 13 games entering this past week. A light switch appears to have flipped on for the Wildcats, however, who followed up a blowout win of LSU at home with an impressive road victory at No. 15 Missouri to end the regular season on a strong note.
There have been flashes of brilliance for this Kentucky team all season long, including a sweep of Tennessee and a victory over Duke in the Champions Classic back in November. If the Wildcats we saw this week are here to stay, Mark Pope's team has an outstanding shot at making a deep run in March Madness.
Michigan State snags the Big Ten regular-season title
A loss by No. 17 Michigan on Wednesday offered a lane for No. 8 Michigan State to seize the outright Big Ten regular season title with a win at Iowa on Thursday, which they did after a massive rally in the second half. Seeing the Wolverines in East Lansing for Senior Day ignited another gear for the Spartans, who cruised past their arch rivals with a 17-point win that got chippy at the end when two Wolverines players appeared to disrespect Michigan State's Senior Day tradition by standing on the Spartans' mid-court logo as seniors were preparing to check out and kiss the floor.
The victory was the seventh in a row for Michigan State, which earned a runaway regular-season title after being projected just fifth in the Big Ten preseason poll. The depth of this Spartans team makes them a very difficult challenge to face in March and they look well-positioned to land on the 2-line on Selection Sunday.