Winners and Losers from the AP College Basketball Top 25 Rankings in Week 17

Nothing is healthier for college basketball than for fans and teams to see home court isn’t a sure thing.

The Associated Press Top 25 gets a great bill of fitness this Monday.

Desperate bubble teams inflicted some damage to hostile crowds and the weekly poll last week. There were seven nationally ranked teams which couldn’t take care of business in friendly confines.

BYU (at Gonzaga) was a particularly shocking result—the Cougars hadn’t fared well the previous three trips to Spokane, Washington, as a West Coast Conference member but found a way this time, which distinctly changed their at-large-bid portfolio.

Boise State has had some recent close calls at Viejas Arena but finally upset San Diego State. North Carolina State and Baylor also ended rough road-venue skids.

Ah, the insanity of basketball’s shiniest month has started already.

While last week’s rivalry week didn’t produce a ton of movement, this one certainly brought some extra flavor.

Healthy flavor, you might say.

Read on for the rest of the week’s winners and losers.

Winner: Baylor Bears

Rod Aydelotte/Associated Press

Often-scrutinized Bears coach Scott Drew has an outsider rep of someone who just recruits and rolls the ball out there.

But Drew’s crew is finding a solid time to play really good ball.

BU is on a four-game winning streak and shot lights-out in the second half at Iowa State—then handled home affairs against West Virginia.

It doesn’t take reading the Waco Tribune to realize the Bears are the hottest team in the Big 12 these days. However, the local newspaper points out Baylor just defeated nationally ranked teams in consecutive games for the first time in school history, and it was rewarded Monday by jumping from No. 19 to No. 14.

Loser: West Coast Conference

Young Kwak/Associated Press

Gonzaga never led (on senior day no less) on Saturday against BYU, the first time that’s happened at home for the Zags since Feb. 12, 2007 (a span of 124 games), according to ESPN Stats & Info.

Gonzaga—and basically the WCC—was punished by dropping four spots to No. 7. The 29-2 team—whose only other loss is at Arizona—had never come close to losing to BYU in three previous tries since the Cougars joined the WCC.

BYU is getting lots of positive bubble praise for the upset after also moving into a tie for second place in a top-heavy league.

But the win, by voters’ behavior, seemed to punish Gonzaga more than it rewarded BYU, which has won six straight (three away from Provo, Utah) and still didn’t hop into the Top 25.

So much for being allowed a late-night slip-up or getting rewarded for a monumental win.

Winner: Wisconsin Badgers

Andy Manis/Associated Press

Clinching no worse than a share of the Big Ten title by handling Michigan State at home Sunday? Check. Getting a vote for Frank Kaminsky as the best player in the country? Check (thanks, Tom Izzo). But easily the best checkmark of the week came by making it home safely from Maryland.

See, losses can turn quickly into wins. The Badgers didn’t take advantage of a fine Top 25 game Feb. 24 at Maryland, but that seemed like a moot point after they were stranded in Pittsburgh for a night following the loss. The team plane made an emergency landing because of engine issues, according to the Wisconsin basketball Twitter feed.

Problems continued the next day when the group was further delayed getting home, as its winged ride was trapped in South Carolina. Oh, and the team bus broke down on the way to the airport.

No word if Planes, Trains and Automobiles was the in-flight movie once the team was jet-bound for Madison.

It all makes dropping one spot in this week’s poll (fifth to sixth) seem pretty trivial, right?

Loser: Iowa State Cyclones

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

Fred Hoiberg always looks like the definition of poise and cool.

He about lost it Saturday.

Two second-half breakdowns last week death-spiraled Iowa State in the poll, going from No. 12 to Monday’s No. 17 spot. After losing at home to Baylor, ISU fell apart again at suddenly spry Kansas State, 70-69.

The first quote in the Ames Tribune write-up by Travis Hines after that one said it all:

“Certain things in life make you want to throw up,” Hoiberg said, “and this is certainly one of them.”

This was supposed to be the year someone—especially someone like Hoiberg’s experienced group—was supposed to end Kansas’ 10-year Big 12 regular-season reign. But being two games behind the Jayhawks in the final week likely makes that impossible.

“Impossible” seemed like the odds of winning at magical Hilton Coliseum—until Baylor ended ISU’s 21-game winning streak there. A win last Wednesday would’ve vaulted the Cyclones into a first-place tie with Kansas.

Instead Baylor won in Ames for the first time in 13 tries.

Winner: Utah Utes

Kim Raff/Associated Press

The weekend’s Pac-12 showdown with first place on the line just didn’t show the Utes fully up to the challenge.

They fell behind early, 17-8, while missing 13 of their first 16 shots on Saturday in what was arguably the biggest game at the Huntsman Center since some guy named Tim Duncan and Wake Forest visited in 1996 for a top-10 showdown.

Utah (22-6) has lost two of its last three games but actually didn’t move this week—staying at No. 13. And Arizona climbed a couple of spots (from No. 7 to No. 5), giving some positive play to Utah finally getting Salt Lake City interested in college basketball again.

Loser: Duke Blue Devils

Gerry Broome/Associated Press

Duke’s defense continues to get lame reviews. It won a couple of games and climbed a spot from last week’s No. 4, but it needed overtime to win at Virginia Tech.

Besides that, a bigger problem has arisen now that Rasheed Sulaimon’s name has resurfaced.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s first in-season dismissal during 35 years in Durham will be an ongoing hot topic, as the standout junior is clouded by multiple allegations of sexual assault, according to The Chronicle's Emma Baccellieri and Nick Martin.

For all the goodwill Coach K has built up over his career and especially this year while chasing 1K wins, he sure did deliver a snarky answer when asked about it Monday, according to Sports Illustrated's Brian Hamilton: "Yeah, I don’t have any comment about that. Thanks for asking, though.”

He followed up "multiple times" with quick “no comment” answers, according to a Sports Illustrated recap of the teleconference.

An obvious question amid the deep reporting will be why the team didn't take more action sooner than the Jan. 29 eviction, as the athletic department allegedly knew about the issues in March 2014.

On the actual court, Duke was just happy to have Jahlil Okafor looking healthy again. The freshman big man led the team with 30 points on 13-of-18 shooting against Virginia Tech. According to Duke’s records, it was the sixth time a Blue Devil freshman had posted at least 30 in a game according to ESPN Stats and Info. It connected him to a pretty impressive alum list: J.J. Redick (twice), Kyrie Irving, Johnny Dawkins and Jabari Parker.

Winners: Oklahoma and Louisville T.C.O.B.

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

Can we get a Monday request in for some Bachman-Turner Overdrive? That’s for the Sooners and Cardinals simply takin’ care of business.

Everyday, every way, producing a combined four wins that set up even bigger stakes this week.

Oklahoma survived Texas Tech in overtime and then handled a vastly improved TCU to stay in sight of Kansas in the Big 12 race. The Sooners head to Iowa State Monday night and follow up by bringing in the Jayhawks over the weekend.

Seeking its 11th straight Big 12 title, Kansas (No. 9, down a spot) leads the conference with a 12-4 record while Oklahoma is a game back at 11-5.

Oklahoma hopped a spot to No. 15.

Meanwhile, Louisville has encountered a ton of recent drama (including a string of losses in three of five games), so maybe it was good for Rick Pitino’s squad to take the show on the road. It produced wins at Georgia Tech and Florida State, the latter of which Louisville's coach called the “best team win of the season" in a press conference.

The Cards scored 32 points off 21 turnovers against FSU.

Now imagine getting to return home with No. 2 Virginia and No. 12 Notre Dame coming to town this week as the No. 16 team—also up a spot from last week.

Loser: North Carolina Tar Heels

Luis M. Alvarez/Associated Press

Not all split weeks are created equally.

North Carolina fell an intriguing four spots to No. 19 as it went 1-1 against a couple of desperate bubble-bouncers. North Carolina State went to the “Dean Dome” and won for the first time in a dozen years on Feb. 24.

UNC rebounded at Miami on Saturday.

It looked a little bouncier in South Florida than it had for most of February. That didn’t resonate with voters, who may have noticed the Tar Heels are only 5-3 in their last eight games.

Winner: Murray State Racers

Stephen Lance Dennee/Associated Press

The Racers didn’t exactly speed to the polling booth. They were 3-4 heading into December but have not lost since a Nov. 29 neutral-court setback against Valparaiso.

That steady Horizon League success has been rewarded with a three-spot climb to No. 25 this week.

The 26-4 team became the fifth team in the Ohio Valley Conference history to go undefeated in league play, according to the school's recap of the weekend’s win against UT Martin. That’s dating back 67 years.

Currently speaking, only Kentucky has won more consecutive games than Murray State’s 24.

Loser: Virginia Commonwealth Rams

Zach Gibson/Associated Press

The Atlantic 10 race is one of the tightest around, yet the highest-ranked team in the poll just can’t keep up.

VCU lost a stomach-churner at Richmond in double overtime then followed up with a home loss to Dayton that knocked the Rams off the first-place tracks.

“You learn a lot about yourselves as a team and about individuals when you go through something like this,” VCU coach Shaka Smart told the Richmond Post-Dispatch's Tim Pearrell after the Dayton loss. “We’re no different.”

His team needs to get back to making the game easy. That means converting on breakaway dunks—they clanked one with about four minutes left when the Rams were seeking the lead against UD—and finding ways to get steals and transition scores would help too.

Shaka Smart's hectic defense only produced half its typical input of turnovers forced against the Flyers, who had just eight on the road last Saturday.

VCU has lost four of its last seven games and fell out of this week's poll after being No. 22 in Week 16.