Winners and Losers from the AP College Basketball Top 25 Rankings in Week 10

Survive and advance is the unofficial motto of the NCAA tournament, but that was also the mantra for anyone hoping to be a winner in the latest men's college basketball Associated Press Top 25.

In what had to have been one of the most chaotic weeks of regular-season basketball in college hoops history, 25 of last week's top 36 teams suffered at least one loss. As you'll see with Kentucky, Gonzaga and Northern Iowa, simply not losing to inferior competition was more than enough to be a big winner this week.

Oddly enough, though, the losers were tougher to identify. With so many teams losing this week, there weren't nearly as many teams positioned to benefit from others' bad losses. Case in point, Duke lost by double digits to still-unranked North Carolina State, but the Blue Devils only dropped two spots to No. 4.

Texas was the only team to drop more than four rungs this week, though the Longhorns did plummet 10 spots for losing multiple games by double digits to Big 12 schools from the Sooner State.

We have no idea what type of calamity the week ahead has in store, but let's first reflect on the crazy week that was with the biggest winners and losers of the AP Top 25 for Week 10.

Winner: Gonzaga Bulldogs

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Much like Wichita State during the latter half of the 2013-14 season, Gonzaga has already done all it can realistically do to impress us this season. Comfortably winning home games against San Francisco and Santa Clara this week didn't move the proverbial needle much. Neither will anything else the Bulldogs do before the NCAA tournament.

At this point, all they can do is keep winning the games that they should win and hope that the teams ahead of them suffer some losses.

It was a pretty good week for that strategy.

No. 2 Duke, No. 4 Wisconsin and No. 5 Louisville each lost a road game over the weekend and dropped a good number of votes as a result. Even No. 7 Arizona lost to Oregon State late on Sunday night to remove most of the temptation of vaulting a team ahead of Gonzaga.

As Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com noted on Twitter on Sunday night, you've got Kentucky and Virginia at No. 1 and No. 2 before a long list of teams that don't look as good as they did a week ago.

Gonzaga jumped all the way from No. 6 to No. 3 while its share of possible votes increased from 79.7 percent to 89.0 percent.

Just a couple more upsets, and Gonzaga will be the No. 1 team in the country.

Loser: Big Ten

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It was an absolutely chaotic week for the AP Top 25 with 15 ranked teams suffering at least one loss in the past seven days, but no conference had it worse than the Big Ten.

Entering play on Wednesday, it was pretty apparent that Wisconsin was the best team in the conference and that Maryland was second-best. But then the No. 11 Terrapins were upset at Illinois—before the Illini proceeded to lose to Nebraska on Sunday.

With Maryland no longer No. 2 in the conference's pecking order, Iowa had a real shot to stake its claim at that spot. However, the Hawkeyes were beaten soundly at home by Michigan State on Thursday night—before the Spartans needed overtime to win a home game against Northwestern on Sunday.

Well that left Ohio State as the second-best team in the conference nearly by default, right up until the Buckeyes lost to Indiana on Saturday.

So, who is the second-best Big Ten team? I have no clue. I just wouldn't want to be rooting for that team when they are officially dubbed the likely runners-up to Wisconsin.

The Badgers weren't immune to the chaos, either, as they lost to a Rutgers team that was unanimously projected to finish in dead last by the experts at CBSSports.com—and probably everywhere else, too. Frank Kaminsky sat out with a concussion and Traevon Jackson missed most of the second half with an ankle injury, but that still might have been the most inexcusable loss of the entire week.

As far as the AP Top 25 goes, Wisconsin dropped three spots to No. 7, as did Maryland, dropping three spots to No. 14. Ohio State dropped from No. 22 to out of the rankings at No. 26 and Iowa went from 27th place with 63 votes to nary a vote this week.

The only good news for the conference was that Michigan State nearly got back into the rankings at No. 27 after a three-win week. Though, really, what does it say about the Big Ten that its third-best team lost a home game to Texas Southern and doesn't have a single RPI Top 50 win on its resume?

Winner: ACC

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The ACC's week was almost as chaotic as the Big Ten's, though you certainly wouldn't know it from how the Atlantic Coast Conference was treated in the latest AP poll.

Virginia was an obvious winner, picking up a home victory over North Carolina State and a very impressive road victory over Notre Dame. The Cavaliers now have 10 RPI Top 100 wins, and six of those have come away from home. Not only did Virginia climb to No. 2, but the Wahoos even picked up a pair of first-place votes, putting an end to Kentucky's five-week run as the unanimous No. 1 team in the country.

Beyond Virginia, every currently ranked ACC team suffered a loss but was either barely punished or actually rewarded for the week.

Duke barely won at Wake Forest before losing at North Carolina State, but the Blue Devils dropped just two spots to No. 4 for getting dominated by the Wolfpack.

Louisville eked out a home win over Clemson before blowing a 13-point lead at North Carolina to drop to 0-2 vs. RPI Top 50. The Cardinals only dropped one spot to No. 6.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame had a great road win over North Carolina before losing a home game to Virginia. Despite the loss the Fighting Irish were rewarded by jumping one spot to No. 12.

We've already indirectly touched on all four games that North Carolina and North Carolina State played. They each went 1-1 this week with an understandable loss and a marquee win. The Tar Heels moved up three spots to No. 15 while the Wolfpack jumped from zero votes to six of them for 35th place in the poll.

Elsewhere, Syracuse reappeared on a few ballots, picking up three votes for improving to 3-0 in ACC play with wins over Georgia Tech and Florida State.

Though there was plenty of commotion about upset losses in the ACC throughout the week, things worked out quite nicely in the end.

Loser: Texas Longhorns

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So, who thought that getting Isaiah Taylor back in the fold would be the start of Texas' downfall?

That isn't fair to Taylor. He played relatively well for someone coming back from an injury break of more than a month.

What's the excuse for Jonathan Holmes, though? Arguably the most important player on Texas' roster, Holmes had two of the worst games of his entire four-year career this week.

On Monday, the Longhorns were absolutely embarrassed at home by Oklahoma. They lost by 21 points, but the deficit felt like so much more. Holmes had just four points on nine field-goal attempts.

Then on Saturday, Holmes played 34 scoreless minutes as the Longhorns lost at Oklahoma State to more or less kill any hopes they had of finally putting an end to Kansas' Big 12 reign of terror.

Texas was the only ranked team to suffer multiple losses this week, and it didn't even look competitive in either loss. The Longhorns dropped from No. 10 all the way to No. 20.

Winner: Arkansas Razorbacks

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While Jonathan Holmes was doing a disappearing act for Texas, Bobby Portis was playing like a man possessed for Arkansas.

Between the home win over Vanderbilt and the road win over Georgia, Portis had 53 points, 16 rebounds, five blocks and two steals—all while committing a grand total of two personal fouls in 64 minutes.

He was already creeping onto the fringe of our Player of the Year rankings, but it will be hard to deny him a spot in the top 10 next week if the Razorbacks can take care of business against Tennessee and Ole Miss before then.

The victory over Georgia was the big one for Arkansas this past week. This team has been unstoppable at Bud Walton Arena, but the Razorbacks have had all sorts of trouble winning away from home under Mike Anderson. The last time they traveled for games, they were blown out by Iowa State and somehow blew a late lead to lose to Clemson.

Not only did beating the Bulldogs serve as a nice RPI boost, but Arkansas proved in shooting 42.9 percent from three-point range and committing just nine turnovers that it can play on the road.

As one of the only previously ranked teams that picked up a nice win without also sullying it with a loss elsewhere during the week, the Razorbacks jumped four spots to No. 19.

Loser: Arizona Wildcats

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It's never a good idea to suffer a bad loss when the AP voters are waiting for your game to end so they can fill out their ballots—except for Seth Davis, who tweeted out his ballot two hours before Arizona's game against Oregon State even tipped off. He did drop Arizona before submitting his official ballot, but that was a pretty big jumping of the gun by Mr. Sharpie.

The voters who stayed up to watch the game were very likely disturbed by Arizona's lack of offensive execution.

With all due respect to an up-and-coming Oregon State team that plays pretty solid defense, this was the second time in less than a month that T.J. McConnell was the only guy who really came to play for the Wildcats in a losing effort.

McConnell finished the night with 13 points, six rebounds and six assists, but that easily could have been 12 assists if his teammates had been able to convert on some of the wide-open opportunities he created for them.

You could make a case that Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (14 points and six rebounds) also showed up on Sunday night, but the good that he did was nullified by the complete lack of effort by Arizona's big men. Brandon Ashley had just five points and three rebounds in 29 minutes. Kaleb Tarczewski—a 7'0" giant, mind you—played 23 minutes without grabbing a single rebound.

It is not the responsibility of Gabe York and Elliott Pitts to carry this team. That burden falls on Ashley and Tarczewski, and they both completely dropped the ball against Oregon State—as well as against UNLV a few weeks ago.

This team has the talent to win a national championship, but the Wildcats don't belong anywhere near the top of the poll right now. They dropped three spots to No. 10, and it would have been worse were it not for all of the losses suffered by the teams previously ranked No. 10-14.

Winner: Kentucky Wildcats

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It was such a bizarre week in college hoops that the formerly unanimous No. 1 team in the country is undeniably a big winner despite needing a total of three overtimes to win two games against significantly inferior competition.

The Wildcats didn't play their best basketball this week. Not even close. And if Duke or Wisconsin had convincingly won their road games on Sunday, Kentucky very well might have lost a good number of first-place votes.

However, the Badgers and Blue Devils both suffered losses, and the majority of AP voters are so hesitant to give a real vote of confidence to Virginia that the Wildcats remained No. 1 in the nation with 63 out of 65 possible first-place votes.

And much like the fellow Top Five teams that did lose Sunday, Kentucky has its flaws. Coach John Calipari told reporters Monday: 

"

Every team right now has issues in the country. Every team. Every team's working through something. All I'll tell you is I'm happy I'm coaching this team. I believe I have the best team in the country with the best players. So we got some things to figure out.

"

Every SEC game is now officially a potential upset, but Saturday's road game against Alabama could be a real test for Kentucky. Through two conference games, the Crimson Tide have held their opponents (Texas A&M and Tennessee) to an average of 41.0 points per game. First team to 45 points might win that game.

Loser: No. 25

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Early in the season, buying stock in the team ranked 25th in the AP poll was a savvy investment. Utah spent multiple weeks at No. 25 before climbing up to its current ranking at No. 8. Arkansas, and Notre Dame each spent one week on the right side of the cut line before their current ranking in the top 20.

But for the past few weeks, being ranked No. 25 has been a death knell.

Michigan State was ranked No. 25 on December 15 only to suffer a home loss to Texas Southern and receive zero votes the following week. The Spartans climbed back into the poll this week, but that's a loss that will haunt their tournament resume all season long.

Next up was TCU. The Horned Frogs got to No. 25 on December 22 but dropped out of the poll the following Monday without even suffering a loss. They've suffered plenty since then, though, opening Big 12 play with three straight L's.

Georgetown replaced TCU on the 29th of December, but the Hoyas were blown out by Xavier just a few days later.

Last Monday, Old Dominion occupied the 25th spot. It was the first time in school history that the Monarchs were ranked by the AP, but they responded with a loss to Western Kentucky over the weekend.

Best of luck to this week's No. 25 team, Wyoming. The Cowboys have a home game against San Diego State and a road game against Fresno State that could realistically both be losses now that they're in the cursed spot.

Winner: Northern Iowa Panthers

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Think it was a rough week for teams who were in the AP Top 25?

Things were even worse for "others receiving votes."

Of the 11 teams who received more than 11 votes last Monday, 10 suffered at least one loss—and South Carolina and TCU each lost twice.

As a result, the lone survivor—Northern Iowa—looks pretty good despite playing a pair of games against the two worst teams in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Neither Drake nor Southern Illinois has beaten a D-I school since December 16, but beating those teams by a combined 40 points is a whole lot better than the losses suffered by all the teams previously surrounding the Panthers in the poll.

Their do-si-do with the AP voters is still in full swing. This marks Northern Iowa's third separate stint in the AP Top 25 since December 8. The Panthers are back at No. 23 for the fourth time this season.

Loser: Alabama Crimson Tide

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I don't have an AP ballot, but from voting in the B/R Top 25, I can assure you it was a very "Holy cow, who is actually good enough to be ranked No. 21-25?" type of week.

There are 19 teams who absolutely deserve to be ranked, and Texas might as well be No. 20 on that list, because there was no way the Longhorns were dropping from No. 10 to unranked in one week's time.

Beyond that, though, just throw it against the wall and see what sticks.

Wyoming sneaks into the Top 25 this week despite a resume that most bracketologists would agree does not belong in the tournament field at the moment. Oklahoma State jumped into the rankings despite going 1-1 this week.

Seton Hall remains a ranked team after suffering an 11-point loss to Xavier and needing a last-second three-pointer by Sterling Gibbs to beat Creighton.

Every fringe Top 25 team is covered in warts.

So, where's the love for Alabama?

The Crimson Tide only received seven votes this week, but they don't have a single bad loss. They have picked up three decent wins over UCLA, Texas A&M and Tennessee in the past two weeks—holding each of those teams to 50 points or fewer.

They'll have no shortage of opportunities over the next couple of weeks, though. By the end of January, Alabama will play road games against South Carolina and Arkansas, a home game against Florida and two games against Kentucky.

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