Winners and Losers from 2014-15 Preseason AP College Basketball Top 25 Rankings

At long last, the first Associated Press Top 25 poll of the 2014-15 college basketball season has arrived, and there was no shortage of winners and losers.

After nearly seven months of reading varying opinions on who will be the best teams in the country, we finally have a consensus ranking to reference for what remains of the offseason.

As was the case with the coaches poll released two weeks ago, there were no surprises in the top two spots. We more or less agreed all summer that Kentucky would be the best team and that Arizona would be its primary challenger. All hail the year of the Wildcats.

But it certainly didn't take long for some dissension to arise between the two polls. The coaches had Duke at No. 3 and Wisconsin at No. 4, but the AP had those two reversed.

That's nothing compared to some of the winners and losers, though.

Winner: Utah Utes

Rick Bowmer/Associated Press

The Utes were snubbed in the coaches poll, but they found their way into the Top 25 that we actually use.

Deservedly so. They were one of the more underrated teams in the country last season and are returning virtually everyone from a team with BPI and KenPom numbers that were way better than their RPI and SOS figures.

In fact, they should be even better than last season after adding 4-star power forward Brekkott Chapman. Their biggest weakness last season was offensive rebounding and Chapman should help in that category—even if it's merely by allowing Jordan Loveridge and Dallin Bachynski a few extra minutes of rest per game.

The real reason the Utes cracked the Top 25, though, is because we all spent the offseason falling in love with Delon Wright.

No one said much about him during the 2013-14 regular season, but the more they researched for the season ahead, the more they realized the guy is a stud. This is a pretty ridiculous stat line: 15.5 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 5.3 APG, 2.5 SPG and 1.3 BPG.

Can he and Utah keep it up now that the world is watching?

Loser: Iowa Hawkeyes

Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

For every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction.

In order for Utah to appear in the AP Top 25, some team from the coaches Top 25 had to miss the cut.

As it turns out, Iowa was that team.

Like Utah, Iowa was underrated last season. The Hawkeyes lost 13 games, but they could have just as easily won each of those games. Their biggest margin of defeat came in the first round of the NCAA tournament in a rarely seen 13-point loss in overtime.

Every other loss was by 10 points or fewer.

According to KenPom, Iowa ranked 347th in luck. That basically means they were breaking mirrors while walking under ladders in front of 13 black cats.

That unlucky team lost a trio of noteworthy seniors in Roy Devyn Marble, Melsahn Basabe and Zach McCabe, but remains just on the outside of the Top 25. Early games against Texas and either California or Syracuse will determine whether they deserve a ranking in the third poll of the season.

Winner: Kentucky Wildcats

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

For the second straight season, the AP voters have declared that Kentucky is the preseason No. 1 team.

Last year, it was a close call. The Wildcats received just 27 of the 65 first-place votes and edged out Michigan State by three points.

However, they didn't have nine McDonald's All-Americans last year, making this year's gap a little more pronounced. Kentucky received 52 first-place votes and finished 86 points ahead of a very deserving Arizona squad.

All things considered, it's surprising that there isn't more steam in the 40-0 train this fall. Kentucky does play a difficult schedule (vs. Texas, vs. North Carolina, UCLA and Kansas on neutral court, at Louisville, improved SEC), but it's pretty clear that the Wildcats are the best team in the country.

Loser: Duke Blue Devils

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Of the 32 coaches who voted in the coaches poll, two considered Duke worthy of the No. 1 ranking in the country.

The Blue Devils opened that poll in third place, receiving 715 out of a possible 800 votes (89.4 percent).

But not a single one of the 65 AP voters put Duke at No. 1. Not because they gave all of their votes to Kentucky, but because they gave five first-place votes to Arizona and eight to Wisconsin.

Duke was nine votes ahead of Wisconsin in the coaches poll, but 68 votes behind them in the AP poll, receiving 1,415 of 1,625 possible points (87.1 percent).

In the grand scheme of things, it's not a significant difference, but it's interesting that the coaches think Duke is better than Wisconsin but the writers and analysts feel otherwise.

Winner: Harvard Crimson

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

Lest you thought CBS Sports had a monopoly on the Top 25 (and one) idea, the AP Top 25 was actually an AP Top 26.

Utah and Harvard tied for 25th place with 98 votes apiece.

It's about time Harvard opened a season ranked, too. The Crimson received 46 votes in last year's preseason poll, which would have been good for 31st place, but they never quite made it into the rankings at any point during the season.

During the 2011-12 season, they had three different stints in the Top 25, spending a total of five weeks in the poll. It was the only season in history in which Harvard was ranked.

Then there were two.

With Siyani Chambers and Wesley Saunders still in the mix, Harvard is more than just a great Ivy League team or great mid-major team. The Crimson truly are one of the 26 best teams in the country.

They won't have very many chances to prove it. A home game against Massachusetts on Nov. 29 and a road game against Virginia on Dec. 21 are about as challenging as the schedule gets all season. But if a cupcake schedule didn't keep Wichita State from stealing our hearts last year, Harvard deserves the same treatment this year.

Loser: Mitch Vingle

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I don't know Mitch Vingle from Adam, but unless I'm mistaken he wasn't an AP voter last season.

Let's just say he took some serious liberties in his inaugural ballot.

For starters, the man has Texas at No. 2.

Yes, Texas is ranked No. 10. The Longhorns are going to be very good this season. But to put them at No. 2 while ranking Duke at No. 8 and Wisconsin at No. 9 borders on insanity.

Were that his only drastic leap of faith, we'd be willing to let it slide, but he also had five teams on his ballot who didn't finish in the consensus Top 25. For two of them, Vingle was the only person who cast a vote.

UCLA received a total of 35 votes, but nine of those came from Vingle ranking them at No. 17. There are plenty of Pac-12 teams other than Arizona who deserve votes. Utah, Stanford and even Colorado come to mind. But to think that highly of UCLA without voting for any of those other three teams makes little sense.

At the bottom of his ballot, Vingle put Memphis (15 votes), LSU (eight), UNLV (two) and West Virginia (one) in spots 22 through 25, respectively. Those four teams received a total of 26 votes—10 of which are because of Vingle.

I'm all for voting with your gut instead of voting with the masses, but maybe calm that gut down with a few antacids before the next round of voting.

Winner: SMU Mustangs

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It was a tumultuous offseason for the SMU Mustangs.

Once considered a candidate for a spot in the Top 10, they slipped considerably when Emmanuel Mudiay bolted for China before being ruled ineligible to play as the team's only incoming freshman.

Things took another turn for the worse when it was ruled that Markus Kennedy is currently ineligible to play this season.

But what makes the Mustangs a winner is that the Kennedy news broke a few days after the coaches poll, yet they remain in the exact same spot in the AP poll.

They received slightly fewer total votes—18.6 percent in the coaches poll vs. 17.5 percent in the AP poll—but what exactly are we to make of this nearly identical ranking?

Did some AP voters miss the memo that Kennedy could miss the season?

Are they assuming that he'll get his grades up enough to become eligible?

Or are they that confident in the rest of the roster that they think SMU will somehow be just as good without my projected AAC Player of the Year?

Either way, pop some bubbly for SMU appearing in the preseason AP Top 25 for the first time in 30 years.

Loser: Michigan Wolverines

Michael Conroy/Associated Press

Before the start of the 2014 NCAA tournament, the 65 AP voters submitted one final ballot.

Of the teams who were in their top 10 in mid-March, nine remain in their top 14 at the end of October.

Michigan was the odd team out.

Not surprising by any stretch of the imagination. When the Wolverines were ranked No. 7, they still had Nik Stauskas, Glenn Robinson III, Jordan Morgan and Jon Horford. It's pretty impressive that they were able to remain in the Top 25 at No. 24 after everything they lost.

Still, Michigan's piece of the pie was considerably less in the AP poll than it was in the coaches version. The Wolverines received just 10.3 percent of possible votes from the AP, but were given 17.4 percent in the coaches poll. Of the teams who appear in both rankings, that was the largest negative difference.

It seems worth noting, also, that nearly all of the top teams at the end of last season are still being considered top teams at the start of this one. That certainly isn't always the case in a day and age where talented underclassmen bolt for the NBA with regularity.

At the end of the 2012-13 season, Georgetown, Indiana and Miami were all ranked in the top eight, but not one of them was ranked when the 2013-14 season began.

Winner: Iowa State Cyclones

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If you caught the note on the previous slide about Michigan receiving the largest negative percentage difference between the two polls, then you had to know that the largest positive percentage difference would be listed as a winner.

That team is Iowa State.

The Cyclones were ranked No. 14 in both polls. However, the coaches poll had a pretty big drop after No. 13, as they were 100 points behind Gonzaga—the largest gap between two teams in the entire poll.

But the AP voters felt that Iowa State belonged in that upper tier of teams. The Cyclones are still 59 votes behind Gonzaga, but they are 207 votes ahead of No. 15 VCU.

They received 48.1 percent of possible votes from the AP as opposed to 40.4 percent from the coaches. Not only was the 7.7 percent increase the largest in the AP poll, but Texas (thanks in large part to Mitch Vingle) was a distant second with a 5.4 percent increase.

Curious that two Big 12 teams were at the top of that list. Kansas was also slightly higher rated in the AP poll (82.8 percent) than the coaches poll (81.8), but Oklahoma was one of the biggest negatives, receiving 3.4 percent fewer votes from the AP than the coaches.

Loser: Others Receiving Votes

Andy Lyons/Getty Images

In years past, the teams rounding out the top 30 still received a considerable number of votes.

Take last year, for example. Baylor was ranked No. 25 with 180 votes, but Tennessee (176), Creighton (145) and Indiana (111) weren't far behind.

In 2011-12, Missouri took the last spot in the AP Top 25 preseason poll with 139 votes, but it just as easily could have been Florida State (131) or Michigan State (128).

This year, though, instead of having a tough time deciding between the top 28 teams in the country, the voters seemed to reach a consensus on the top 24 before throwing darts for No. 25.

And, really, the consensus only seemed to be on the top 22. Syracuse and Michigan finished more than 100 votes behind SMU, indicating that they would have missed the cut if there was any other team actually worth voting for.

Utah and Harvard tied for 25th place with 98 votes, but that number would have put them in a tie for 29th place last November.

Some team(s) from just outside the Top 25 will inevitably rise up for a solid season, but it's harder to pinpoint those squads than it has been in previous years.

The first three teams snubbed (Stanford, Iowa and Colorado) is usually a good place to start, but you can't sleep on Kansas State (27 votes) or Georgetown (five votes) either.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.