Winners and Losers from the AP College Basketball Top 25 Rankings in Week 5

College basketball's Associated Press Top 25 rankings might not carry as much intrigue as the College Football Playoff rankings, but there are substantially more winners and losers in the hardwood hierarchy of the nation's best teams.

After all, it was just another chaotic week in the world of college basketball with 14 Top 25 teams suffering at least one loss.

More than half of those losses were pretty understandable with eight games being played between ranked teams, but how did Michigan lose at home to NJIT?

Why was West Virginia unable to hang onto a 14-point lead at home against LSU?

And perhaps most curious at all, how did a five-point home loss to Iowa cause the entire world to give up on North Carolina?

There were some minor shake-ups in the top 11—the most noteworthy change is that Kentucky is finally the unanimous No. 1 team in the country—but it's more fun to focus on the calamity that transpired from No. 12 through No. 25. 

How far did those teams who suffered losses fall and who were the primary beneficiaries of their demise? Find out in this week's list of the biggest winners and losers of the AP Top 25.

Winner: Big East

Nick Lisi/Associated Press

It took a while for the voters to catch on, but the Big East is finally being properly represented in the AP Top 25.

Villanova jumped from No. 10 to No. 7 after another flawless week. Butler, too, experienced a boost as the Bulldogs leaped from No. 23 to No. 15 for winning games against Indiana State and Northwestern.

Those teams were already ranked, though. The big winners are the new arrivals to the Top 30.

St. John's received just five votes last week, but the Red Storm debuted in the Top 25 at No. 24 with 211 votes this week to give the Big East a third ranked team.

St. John's picked up a very impressive 12-point road win over Syracuse on Saturday evening at the exact same time as Gonzaga was oh so close to a road win over Arizona—showing that the Red Storm's sole loss this season to Gonzaga was a quality one indeed.

The Johnnies are celebrating by practically taking the week off with home games against Fairleigh Dickinson and Fordham.

Just outside the Top 25, Georgetown picked up a few more votes this week, improving from 30 to 62 for destroying Towson. Seton Hall still needs a signature win—and has a great chance at one on Tuesday against Wichita State—but the Pirates improved from five votes to 57. Creighton dropped to seven votes for losing to Tulsa but responding with a 10-point road win over Nebraska.

That's 60 percent of the Big East ranked in the Top 37. Good luck finding another conference that can make that claim.

(Note: The Big 12 had 70 percent of its teams ranked in the Top 32, which serves as a pretty good defense for my ranking of the Big 12 as the best conference in the country.)

Loser: Michigan Wolverines

Tony Ding/Associated Press

On Saturday morning, it looked like Michigan was headed for a nice little boost in this week's poll.

No. 16 West Virginia had lost at home to LSU and No. 12 North Carolina and No. 14 Ohio State suffered losses in the same ACC/B1G Challenge in which No. 17 Michigan picked up a quality win over Syracuse.

(At some point, we need to discuss the absurdity of people talking about Syracuse potentially missing the tournament while simultaneously praising any team that beats the Orange. Either they're good or they're bad, but they can't be both just to fit into your narratives. End miniature rant.)

All the Wolverines had to do was win a home game against some school called the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Whoops.

As tweeters gleefully and repeatedly pointed out after the game, Michigan was a 24.5-point favorite (according to OddsShark.com) in what was supposed to be a "buy game"—in other words, a game in which the vastly superior team pays an opponent to come get destroyed by them.

Like the Appalachian State football game from a few years back, this was the type of loss that will hang over Michigan all season long. It might be the worst loss that any team suffers all season.

Michigan supporters will try to brush it under the rug by pointing out that NJIT shot an absurd 64.7 percent from three-point range—as if making way more three-pointers than the opposition hasn't been Michigan's strategy since John Beilein arrived in Ann Arbor eight years ago—but there was a deeper problem on display here.

NJIT played only one guy taller than 6'5"—6'8" forward Daquan Holiday—yet the two teams broke even in rebounds at 26 apiece while Michigan had seven shots blocked. If you don't think interior play is going to be a huge problem for Michigan in conference play, you might be delusional.

And, oh yeah, Michigan dropped from No. 17 to just 14 votes. Ouch.

Winner: Northern Iowa Panthers

Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

Better late than never.

Not to toot my own horn, but I'm usually pretty good at predicting what the AP poll will look like each week. However, I was surprised that Northern Iowa was unable to crack the Top 25 last week, missing the cut by just five votes.

This week, the Panthers did absolutely nothing to warrant moving up in the rankings. They played just one game and needed overtime to win a home game against a not-very-good George Mason team.

But, lo and behold, almost losing to George Mason wasn't nearly as indefensible as actually losing to LSU, NJIT, Clemson and Miami, allowing the Panthers to leapfrog the teams who did those things.

Meanwhile, it was hard to make a case for any teams who were ranked directly behind Northern Iowa in last week's poll as Connecticut, Oklahoma State, Providence, VCU, Syracuse and Florida each suffered losses.

Under the rule that voters are required to submit a full ballot of 25 teams, the Panthers incredibly make their AP debut at No. 23. Their vote count increased by nearly 200 percent from 83 to 232.

This week's lackluster showing notwithstanding, they deserve it. They have wins away from home against Stephen F. Austin, Virginia Tech and Northwestern and are one of the 12 teams in the country still undefeated.

Northern Iowa has finished above .500 in 11 consecutive seasons, but this marks the first time the Panthers were ranked in the AP poll since the 2009-10 season, in which Ali Farokhmanesh would eventually go down in March Madness lore for upsetting the No. 1 overall seed Kansas Jayhawks in the round of 32.

Loser: North Carolina Tar Heels

USA TODAY Sports

Yes, this was North Carolina's second consecutive week with a "bad" loss, but how did the Tar Heels drop so far, given the poor showing of the teams previously ranked right behind them?

Should they have won the home game against Iowa? Certainly.

Was it really any worse than Miami losing at home to Green Bay, West Virginia losing at home to LSU, Michigan losing at home to NJIT or Arkansas losing two games on the road? Not in the least.

Even though every team ranked No. 12 through No. 19 suffered at least one loss last week, North Carolina somehow dropped from 864 votes to 350 votes.

How's this for voting logic: Last week, Seth Davis had North Carolina at No. 13 and Maryland at No. 21. This week—after North Carolina's narrow home loss to Iowa and Maryland's home loss by double digits to Virginia—he moved Maryland up five spots to No. 16 and dropped North Carolina out of his Top 25.

Davis wasn't alone in that madness, either.

Just like Davis, Bret Strelow—an ACC beat writer, no less—dropped North Carolina from No. 13 to unranked while elevating Maryland from No. 23 to No. 19.

Chris Dachille dropped North Carolina from No. 12 to No. 24, but only dropped Miami from No. 14 to No. 16 for losing to Green Bay.

(Dachille also saw fit to drop Iowa State from No. 19 to No. 23 after the Cyclones beat Arkansas by 18 and beat Lamar by 37. And while hating on Iowa State, he elevated Northern Iowa from No. 21 to No. 13 for, as discussed on the previous slide, doing absolutely nothing.)

I'm not going so far as to suggest a conspiracy theory, but it sure does seem like people are quick to dismiss North Carolina—perhaps because of the offseason turmoil surrounding the Wainstein report?

North Carolina's next game is at Kentucky on Saturday. It will be very interesting to see what the AP voters decide to do if the Tar Heels give the Wildcats a real fight or even end their quest for 40-0.

Winner: Iowa State Cyclones

Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

Last Monday, the Cyclones were one of the biggest losers. Every team ranked from No. 13 to No. 25 went up at least one spot except for Iowa State. The Cyclones dropped seven spots from No. 13 to No. 20.

This week, however, they are one of the biggest winners. Thanks to a blowout win over then-No. 18 Arkansas and losses by all eight of the teams ranked directly ahead of them, the Cyclones sprang right back up to No. 14, more than doubling their vote count from 330 to 668.

Their big win wasn't a surprising one by any stretch of the imagination. Over the past few seasons, few teams have been better at home than Iowa State and few teams have been more disappointing on the road than Arkansas. Plus, the Razorbacks haven't exactly beaten anyone good this season, unless you're still buying stock in SMU.

Still, it was a statement game in which Iowa State showed that the loss to Maryland was an aberration—a blip on a radar that will otherwise feature absurdly efficient offensive outputs.

Iowa State has a huge test coming up this week in the form of a road game against in-state rival Iowa.

Score 95 points in that game, and the AP might be impressed enough to vault the Cyclones into next week's Top 10.

Loser: Big Ten

USA TODAY Sports

We already covered Michigan on its own slide, but it needs to be mentioned that the Big Ten had a pretty lousy week as a whole.

The Big Ten did win the ACC/B1G Challenge by a slim 8-6 margin, but that was mostly thanks to teams near the bottom of the conference like Rutgers, Penn State and Purdue holding their own. Just about all of the top dogs in the Big Ten fell.

Wisconsin lost at home to Duke. Maryland (understandably, without Dez Wells) lost at home to Virginia. Michigan State and Ohio State lost at Notre Dame and Louisville, respectively. Illinois lost to Miami.

Sum it all up and the Big Ten teams in the Top 25 went 1-5 against the ACC—and that one win by Michigan was effectively negated by its loss to NJIT.

Iowa got some "others receiving votes" love for beating North Carolina, and Ohio State and Maryland somehow improved in the poll while suffering losses, but it was far from an ideal week from what is supposed to be one of the best conferences in the country.

Winner: Washington Huskies

USA TODAY Sports

Washington deserved to be ranked last week, but no one much cared to wait until the end of the 10 p.m. tipoff in the Wooden Legacy championship to submit their ballots.

It's similar to how the Big Ten championship never seems to make any sort of impact on the final bracket, because the game ends less than half an hour before the selection show begins.

In a span of four days, Washington won games against San Jose State, Long Beach State and UTEP to improve to 6-0, but received only 17 votes.

Fortunately, the voters had little choice but to wait until the end of Sunday night's game against then-No. 13 San Diego State to submit their ballots, and they saw a very good, defensive-minded Washington team hold the Aztecs to a woeful 36 points in a 13-point victory.

The Huskies improved from 17 votes to the No. 17 ranking this week.

The biggest winners of all, though, are those of you who will now start paying attention to Washington enough to know who Robert Upshaw is. The sophomore center is averaging better than 9.0 blocks per 40.0 minutes.

Let the record show that Anthony Davis averaged 5.8 blocks per 40.0 minutes during his time at Kentucky, and he is anecdotally regarded as the best shot-blocker of this decade. Upshaw is about to give the Brow a run for his money.

Loser: Arkansas Razorbacks

USA TODAY Sports

Getting blown out at Iowa State? These things happen.

Blowing a six-point lead in the final 56 seconds against Clemson before losing in overtime? That's a problem.

Save for Kentucky, the SEC has been a train that wrecked into a dumpster fire. Florida is losing to every respectable team it plays. LSU and Ole Miss are hellbent on oscillating between winning quality games and suffering inexcusable losses or near losses.

You could probably make an argument for Texas A&M as a tournament-worthy team, but Arkansas was the clear-cut, second-best SEC team coming into this past week.

But now, it's the same old story of Mike Anderson being unable to win games on the road.

As Raphielle Johnson noted in his game recap of the Clemson loss for NBC Sports, "Even with their win at SMU, there will still be questions regarding their ability to go on the road and play the style they want to consistently."

Arkansas was No. 18 in last week's AP poll with 438 votes, and it's pretty much a miracle that the Razorbacks still received 22 votes this week.

Winner: V's in the Top 10

John Minchillo/Associated Press

In last week's poll, there were three schools in the Top 10 with a "v" in its name: No. 5 Louisville, No. 7 Virginia and No. 10 Villanova.

Those schools didn't just go 6-0 this week. They did so in dominating fashion.

The closest game of the bunch ended up being the one that most looked like it was going to be a blowout as Louisville allowed Ohio State to make a bit of a comeback before ultimately beating the Buckeyes 64-55. The Cardinals then comfortably handled FIU by a 25-point margin.

Meanwhile, Villanova easily won grudge matches against La Salle (84-70) and Saint Joseph's (74-46) as part of the Philadelphia Big 5 rivalry.

But it was Virginia who had the strongest week in the entire country, winning true road games against Maryland and VCU by double digits. Not only did they win those games, but starters Darion Atkins and Justin Anderson were both injured against Maryland. Anderson played (and very well) against VCU, but Atkins was in street clothes against the Rams.

In College Basketball Talk's Top 25, Rob Dauster wrote of Virginia (at No. 7 in their rankings), "The Cavaliers won at Maryland and followed that up by winning at VCU. You may not find a week this season where one team puts together two wins that are that impressive."

Coupled with Wisconsin, Texas, Wichita State and Gonzaga all suffering losses this week, the combined vote total for the "v" schools increased by 7 percent from 3,531 to 3,777, and all three now rank in the Top Seven.

Loser: This Week in College Basketball

USA TODAY Sports

This past week was pretty incredible. No. 1 Kentucky vs. No. 6 Texas, No. 2 Wisconsin vs. No. 4 Duke and No. 3 Arizona vs. No. 9 Gonzaga highlighted a week with eight games being played between Top 25 teams.

But with fall semester finals and the ensuing winter break on the horizon, we're about to embark on the two- or three-week stretch of college hoops that is undeniably weak.

It happens every season.

When looking ahead at this week under the lens of last week's rankings, though, there were at least a few marquee games. Illinois vs. Villanova, North Carolina at Kentucky, Michigan at Arizona and Kansas vs. Utah were all supposed to be battles between ranked teams.

With Illinois and Michigan falling out of the rankings, though, two of those four are no longer the case.

We did get to add one game with Seton Hall climbing into the Top 25 before its trip to Wichita State, but what kind of self-respecting week of college basketball has only three games with ranked teams facing one another? And why are we getting a combined total of two games involving ranked teams on Monday, Thursday and Friday?

Whatever we did to end up on the naughty list, we apologize. Now, please take back this seven-day lump of coal.

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