Winners and Losers of AP College Basketball Top 25 Poll in Week 6
AP voter Soren Petro refuses to smell what the Spartans are cooking, as he was the lone holdout keeping Michigan State from becoming the unanimous No. 1 team in the country in this week's AP Top 25.
With five of the bottom six teams in last week's Top 25 suffering losses, it was a great week for new faces to join the fold.
Texas A&M and Connecticut are both back in the poll after a brief hiatus. UCLA makes its season debut in the AP Top 25 after upsetting Gonzaga, becoming the fifth Pac-12 team to be ranked already this season. And George Washington broke a nearly decade-long drought in being ranked for the first time since 2006. Quite the opposite of the Pac-12, this marks the A-10's first representation in the 2015-16 poll.
Of course, it's a zero-sum game, so for those teams to move up, Gonzaga, Vanderbilt, Oregon and Utah all had to fall out. Similarly, most of the Top 10 teams moved up at least one spot this week thanks to North Carolina tumbling eight spots to No. 11.
Read on for the rest of this week's biggest winners and losers of the AP Top 25.
Winner: Oklahoma Sooners
1 of 10
Newsflash: Buddy Hield is good at basketball.
As ESPN's Jeff Goodman pointed out on Twitter on Sunday night, Hield is putting up some serious National Player of the Year numbers. He's averaging 22.1 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game. Most importantly, he's scoring at an absurdly efficient rate, shooting 50.0 percent from beyond the arc and 90.0 percent from the free-throw line.
However, he was just one piece of Oklahoma's three-point wrecking crew in the monumental 78-55 win over Villanova this past week. The Sooners shot 14-of-26 from downtown and tallied 18 assists in what was arguably the most impressive display of ball movement and shooting from any team this season.
They were even hotter this weekend against Oral Roberts, shooting 16-of-27 with 20 assists. Hield was the star of that game with 30 points and five steals, but Isaiah Cousins, Jordan Woodard and Ryan Spangler were equally crucial contributors, per usual.
We're still waiting to find out who the fifth-best player on the roster is—my money is on Akolda Manyang eventually filling that role—but doesn't that just make Oklahoma even scarier?
It's easy to argue that the Sooners are too reliant on their primary four players and three-point shooting, but it's also pretty easy to say that the new No. 3 team in the AP Top 25 will be the best team in the country if and when someone really steps up to claim the power forward job.
Either way, we feel bad for Creighton, because the Bluejays are the next team standing in the way of this freight train.
Loser: Villanova Wildcats
2 of 10
When two Top 15 teams play each other on a neutral court, the end result is typically a pretty big net gain. The winning team picks up a very impressive win while the losing team absorbs an understandable loss. Just look at what happened in the Champions Classic with Kentucky and Michigan State skyrocketing while Duke and Kansas each slipped just one spot in the subsequent AP Top 25.
Such was not the case for Villanova, however, as the Wildcats looked every bit as bad as Oklahoma looked good in Pearl Harbor. They shot 4-of-32 from three-point range and finished the game with eight fewer rebounds than a Sooners team that doesn't really have a power forward.
Like last year's 20-point loss to Georgetown and the previous season's blowout losses to Syracuse and Creighton, there was really nothing good for Villanova to take away from the game. The AP voters agreed, dropping the Wildcats from No. 9 to No. 12 this week.
On the one hand, Villanova has a big opportunity to redeem itself at Virginia this Saturday. Win that game and the loss to Oklahoma immediately becomes just another blip on the radar of a 29-plus win season. This team always relies heavily on the three ball, and bad things happen on occasions when that shot isn't falling.
Lose in relatively ugly fashion to Virginia, though, and suddenly we're questioning just how good the reigning back-to-back Big East champion actually is. Despite 62 wins over the past two seasons, the Wildcats didn't advance to the Sweet 16 in either of those tournaments. Are they paper tigers once again?
That much pressure in advance of a road game against the No. 1 team on KenPom could be a problem, but it should be fun to see what transpires in one of the best nonconference games of the season.
Winner: Louisville Cardinals
3 of 10
It was not a great week to be ranked in the bottom quarter of the AP Top 25. Gonzaga, Vanderbilt, Cincinnati, Oregon and Utah all suffered losses, guaranteeing a lot of shake-up at the back end of this week's poll.
But one team emerged unscathed, quietly yet dominantly taking care of business once again.
Louisville smoked Eastern Kentucky by a 33-point margin to improve to 7-1. Plenty will be said in the weeks leading up to Selection Sunday about the quality of opponents in those wins, but all seven have come by a margin of at least 20 points. Louisville climbed from No. 22 to No. 19 as a result of the most recent blowout victory.
It's one thing to consistently win games against teams that won't be in the conversation for at-large bids to the NCAA tournament, but it's another thing to repeatedly eviscerate those teams.
The Cardinals will have four more opportunities to assert their dominance before the annual showdown with Kentucky, as they host Kennesaw State, Western Kentucky, UMKC and Utah Valley over the course of the next 10 days.
Loser: Ranked Teams Playing on the Road
4 of 10
It's always difficult to play true road games in college basketball, but it has been particularly challenging this season.
That trend continued in earnest this week as four ranked teams played true road games and lost them all.
North Carolina fell at Texas on a Javan Felix buzzer-beater and then fell from No. 3 to No. 11 in this week's poll. The offense has been good, but the defense for the Tar Heels has been a disaster. Marcus Paige was supposed to help solve that problem, but between the play of opposing guards in the games against Maryland and Texas, that certainly hasn't been the case.
No. 23 Cincinnati lost at No. 12 Xavier. The end result could hardly be considered a surprise, but Cincinnati trailed by as many as 18 points in the first half, as the home team very clearly had the early upper hand. The Bearcats did remain No. 23 in the country for a second straight week, though, so clearly the voters appreciated the difficulty of this rivalry affair.
No. 24 Oregon lost by two points at Boise State, though it is kind of hard to beat a quality opponent on the road when both of your starting guards are sidelined by injury and your starting center is playing in his first game of the season. The Ducks dropped out of the AP Top 25 this week, but they're too talented to not be back if and when they get healthy.
And No. 25 Utah lost at Wichita State, which not only booted the Utes out of this week's poll but also opened the door for a lot of voters to put the four-loss Shockers at the back end of their ballots. Injury to Fred VanVleet or not, it's a real sign of the parity at play this year that a four-loss team can receive 17 votes just barely one month into the season.
In case you're curious where the carnage may come from in the next seven days, this week's true road games for ranked teams are Villanova at Virginia, Baylor at Texas A&M and Michigan State at Northeastern.
Winner: UCLA Bruins
5 of 10
Don't call it a comeback, but the Bruins look nothing like the team that lost at home to Monmouth on the opening day of the season.
Jonah Bolden did not play in that game due to disciplinary reasons and Isaac Hamilton shot 0-of-6 from the field. The two big men and Bryce Alford played well, but it's hard to win three-on-five.
The duo has played well in season-altering wins over Kentucky and Gonzaga in the past two weeks, though. Bolden had a double-double on Saturday night against the Zags while Hamilton had a game-high 20 points and three steals.
Truly, Bolden determines how high UCLA can fly.
When the 6'10" "small" forward is playing well, the Bruins have one of the best primary five-man lineups in the country. But it's looking like they're going to struggle when he's ineffective. Not only did he not play in the loss to Monmouth, Bolden played seven scoreless minutes in the loss to Wake Forest and merely had three points and two rebounds in 17 minutes of action in the loss to Kansas.
With freshman guards Aaron Holiday and Prince Ali the only other somewhat viable options to replace Bolden on nights that he struggles, it completely alters what this team can and cannot do on both ends of the floor. If he can start consistently delivering 27 minutes, eight points and six rebounds per game, UCLA might be the best team in the Pac-12.
Though the Bruins aren't anywhere near a finished product, the big wins over Kentucky and Gonzaga were enough for the AP voters to award them with the No. 22 spot in this week's poll.
Loser: Gonzaga's At-Large Resume
6 of 10
We're really not used to seeing Gonzaga lose this often this early, but after Saturday's home loss to UCLA—and, more concerning, Tuesday's near home loss to Montana—that's where America's Cinderella currently sits.
Only once in the past 12 years did the Zags suffer three or more losses in the first full month of the season. That happened in 2010-11, and they eventually earned a No. 11 seed for winning the West Coast Conference tournament. They very well might have missed the dance without that automatic bid.
Might they be on a similar path this year? Gonzaga does own a quality win over Connecticut and still has nonconference games remaining against Tennessee and SMU. But if you take away the name of the school and just judge the resume, it's not a pretty picture.
It seems the AP voters recognized that this week by dropping Gonzaga out of the poll from last week's spot at No. 20.
The RPI rankings of both ESPN and NCAA have the Bulldogs ranked in the 70s, and their strength of schedule certainly isn't going to get any stronger against their weak conference. It seems safe to assume we'll see this team in a negative light in blind resume arguments on a fairly regular basis in February and March.
Yes, Przemek Karnowski has been out for the past four games with back spasms and Gonzaga clearly isn't the same without him. If he eventually gets healthy, that's something the tournament selection committee will take into consideration.
However, they'll also consider how poorly everyone other than Kyle Wiltjer and Domantas Sabonis has been playing. This team desperately misses the veteran leadership and ball-handling skills of Kevin Pangos, as Gonzaga currently has nine more turnovers than assists. Moreover, the team's four primary guards are shooting a combined 29-of-101 from three-point range, and none of them is shooting better than 32 percent.
It's time to face the cold, hard truth: Gonzaga is not good right now. There's still time to turn things around, but if the Bulldogs don't start getting more from their guards, they're going to have some serious trouble against a conference that has been dying for an opening to chop them down.
Winner: George Washington Colonials
7 of 10
They had to wait for other teams to suffer enough losses, but finally—four weeks after a huge upset win over Virginia—the Colonials of George Washington make their first appearance in the AP Top 25 since the end of the 2005-06 season.
In addition to that win over the Cavaliers, now No. 21 George Washington has also scored victories over Seton Hall, Tennessee, Penn State, South Florida and Rutgers. Whether the AAC counts as a major conference is a debate for another day, but that's either five or six wins over major-conference programs for a team that wasn't expected to finish top three in the Atlantic 10.
Wake Forest transfer Tyler Cavanaugh has been the star of the show for the Colonials. The big man leads the team in both points and rebounds and has actually been one of their most reliable three-point shooters, sinking 10-of-18 in the past six games. He has done a fantastic job of filling the void left by Kethan Savage when he decided to transfer.
Now that they're ranked, the big question is: How high can they climb?
George Washington has a very rough stretch of seven games from mid-January into mid-February, but it's tough to see this team losing again before the Jan. 15 game at Dayton. As long as they don't slip up against a team like UCF or Saint Louis, the Colonials should have a 16-1 record for that game.
With the aforementioned impressive wins already on their resume, it'll be hard to argue that they are undeserving of moving ahead of other ranked teams as they suffer losses. If chaos continues to reign supreme on this season, could GW get into the Top 10? What if the Colonials get to 17-1 with a road win over Dayton?
It's definitely something to keep an eye on, as George Washington's national standing could very likely determine just how many A-10 teams go dancing this year.
Things are looking pretty sunny for the school in Foggy Bottom.
Loser: Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans
8 of 10
We are down to just eight remaining undefeated teams.
Five of those squads (Michigan State, Oklahoma, Iowa State, Purdue and Xavier) are ranked in the Top 10, and a sixth (SMU) isn't far behind at No. 18.
Even idle South Carolina climbed to within just five votes of 25th place.
So why did Arkansas-Little Rock receive only 14 votes? That's less than three-loss Vanderbilt (18 votes) and four-loss Wichita State (17 votes) got.
The Trojans have certainly played a few cupcakes, but this is a team that already had true road wins over San Diego State and Tulsa before a 66-44 win at DePaul on Saturday. The Blue Demons aren't exactly a model of offensive efficiency, but UALR's aggressive style of defense resulted in more turnovers (20) than made field goals (17).
This isn't some flash-in-the-pan squad that accidentally hasn't lost a game yet. The Trojans are led entirely by juniors and seniors and defend extremely well while playing at one of the slowest paces in the country.
That's pretty much exactly what we had to say about Northern Iowa last season, except the Panthers were able to get more respect in a more timely manner by playing in the Missouri Valley Conference instead of the Sun Belt Conference.
Let this serve as your warning, though, that Arkansas-Little Rock has only one particularly challenging game remaining: a road tilt with Texas Tech on Dec. 22. Should the Trojans win that game, it's anchors away on what might be an undefeated regular season.
Winner: The SEC's Second-Best Team
9 of 10
It has been a rough couple of weeks for the Southeastern Conference, but Texas A&M jumps back into the AP Top 25 at No. 24 following what currently looks like a quality win over Kansas State.
Danuel House had his third consecutive horribly inefficient shooting performance. He now has 39 points on 48 field-goal attempts in the month of December. That definitely isn't going to cut it in January and February.
Fortunately, Jalen Jones came to the rescue. He also had a very poor game in the previous week's loss to Arizona State, but he bounced back in a big way with 25 points and nine rebounds off the bench. He now has at least 22 points in three of his last four contests, clearly devoid of any rust that may have accumulated while sitting out the first four game of the season.
The Aggies also got an outstanding game out of starting point guard Alex Caruso. He isn't anywhere near the volume scorer of the aforementioned 6'7" stars of the team, but he owned the day with 13 points, nine assists and six steals against just one turnover.
Because they were also primary contributors on last year's roster, that trio seems to get all of this team's individual attention. However, the frontcourt duo of Tyler Davis and Tonny Trocha-Morelos has actually been more valuable. Among the Aggies who have logged at least 20 minutes, they have the highest O-rating on KenPom and the highest win shares per 40 minutes ratio on Sports-Reference.com.
That's what makes this team a legitimate threat going forward. Most expected A&M to be pretty strong on the perimeter, but it was the uncertainty in the paint that kept the Aggies just outside of the preseason AP Top 25. And those big men will get a big test this weekend against one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country in Baylor.
Loser: Other Candidates for SEC's Second-Best Team
10 of 10
In one form or another, "Might be the second-best team in the SEC" was a phrase that was thrown around a lot this offseason. Kentucky was obviously still going to be the leader of the pack, but with Arkansas losing pretty much everyone of value from last year's team, the next tier in the conference's pecking order was very much up for grabs.
Four teams in particular seemed to be the consensus top candidates: Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, Florida and LSU. And while we've already declared A&M to be one of this week's biggest winners, the other three have really struggled, posting a combined record of 0-5 in the past 10 days.
As far as the AP Top 25 is concerned, Vanderbilt's slippage is most noteworthy.
For the second straight game, the Commodores gave away what should have been an insurmountable lead. They went on a 17-0 run to take a 13-point lead over Baylor midway through the second half last Sunday before fumbling it away. Similarly, they got hot and took a 16-point lead late in the first half against Dayton on Wednesday, but couldn't hang onto it.
They were No. 21 in last Monday's poll but dropped out of the rankings this week.
As was the case last year, Vanderbilt has looked very good for long stretches of games, but it doesn't have many quality wins to show for it. Selection Sunday is now less than three months away, and Vandy's best win is either Stony Brook or Wake Forest. If the Commodores don't beat Purdue on Dec. 22, they might be watching the NCAA tournament from home for a fourth straight year.
Elsewhere, Florida had a big opportunity to get the attention of the AP voters in games against Miami and Michigan State. The Gators played excellent defense in both games, but they were unable to put points of their own on the board. South Florida transfer John Egbunu has been an outstanding addition to the roster, but first-year guys Brandone Francis-Ramirez, KeVaughn Allen and Kevarrius Hayes have yet to do much of anything. This could be a really good team if those guys start cooking, but like Vanderbilt the Gators currently have very little to show for their efforts.
And nowhere near the AP Top 25 radar, LSU suffered another loss this week, allowing 105 points to a Houston team that scored 57 against Rhode Island on Tuesday. Forget about the NCAA tournament: We won't even see Ben Simmons in the NIT if the Tigers don't turn things around soon.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.
.jpg?w=480)
.jpg?w=600 "Report: Falcons, Jags Make DT Trade")
.jpg?w=600 "WWE Hall of Fame Recap 👏")
