Winners and Losers from the AP College Basketball Top 25 Rankings in Week 18

It's that time of year for college basketball. To paraphrase a great Morgan Freeman line from Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy peaking, or get busy dying."

We'll try not to get too dramatic here, although this is the time when basketball seasons do start to end. And it's exhilarating to see the poll get shaken up this late in the season by some programs doing their finest work in weeks or even years.

Boise State made a historical climb into Monday's Associated Press Top 25. There's also a return from a school which produced one of the most scintillating shooters in recent memory (tastes like Curry!). And one week is even quick enough for a bummed-out team to regain some high ground.

Without further ado, read on for this week's winners and losers from the AP Top 25 college basketball poll.

Winner: Davidson Wildcats

Associated Press

Yes, we can hear you, Bob McKillop.

Davidson is about a lot more than just one former player, even if that former player became an NCAA tournament legend and is currently tearing up the NBA scene for the league's best team.

Give it up for the Fightin’ Stephen Currys…er, Wildcats. They won big against Virginia Commonwealth last week, along with a 29-point victory over Duquesne, to improve to 23-6 and enter the AP poll (at No. 24) for the first time since 2008.

That was the year sharpshooting Curry nearly took out eventual national champion Kansas in the Elite Eight. Davidson has won its last nine games (since losing two in a row early in Atlantic 10 play) by an average of 16 points and clinched first place in the conference.

Watch out for the new style of Curry: Senior guard Tyler Kalinoski is coming off a career-best game at Duquesne. He made eight of his 10 three-point attempts and finished with 32 points. Oh, and don’t forget about the nine assists.

Loser: Wichita State Shockers

Tom Gannam/Associated Press

Perhaps in the long run, a three-point loss to Illinois State in the semifinals of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament isn’t such a bad thing.

But Wichita State sure paid for it—dropping four spots to No. 12—after allowing ISU to shoot 63 percent in the second half in a fairly stunning rally last Saturday.

Daishon Knight scored 25 points (he averages 14.3) and made 10 of his 15 shots as the normally feisty Shockers defense just couldn’t stay with him.

It would make sense if Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall was off his own game.

He was recently diagnosed with pneumonia leading up to the shorter-than-expected time in St. Louis.

WSU just didn’t seem like itself late in the game. Sturdy Ron Baker was held scoreless in the second half (missed all five shots), and perhaps a team that’s had some wild swings the last two years in the NCAA tournament just needed some extra rest to get ready for a hopeful chance again.

Winner: Iowa State Cyclones

Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

It doesn’t take long—seven days tops—to go from loser to winner here in the rankings department.

Last week, Fred Hoiberg’s Iowa State team was on the losing side of the coin, as it fell to No. 17 in the rankings. As noted in another one of my pieces, Hoiberg wanted to throw up after losing a couple of key Big 12 games that again let perennial champ Kansas off the hook.

But this week, ISU made the biggest strides of anyone in the poll, climbing four spots (back to No. 13) after wins against Oklahoma and TCU. The home win against OU was particularly sweet, as ISU scored 22 consecutive points to rally right after Isaiah Cousins of the Sooners was charged with a trash-talking technical foul.

“When someone gets up in your face,” the Cyclones’ Georges Niang said to reporters postgame, “telling you how they’re kicking your butt, you’re going to retaliate in some way, and luckily we retaliated in the right way.”

So much for letting the lion sleep in its den. So much for that 21-point OU lead.

And so long to that pit in Hoiberg’s stomach.

Loser: The No. 8-Ranked Team

Associated Press

Despite moving up two spots to No. 8 in the AP Poll, Maryland coach Mark Sturgeon won't be too happy with the prospect of facing Kentucky in the NCAA tournament before the Final Four.

Sorry, Maryland. You’ve chimed in at No. 8 on the AP ballot this week.

That’s the dreaded eight-ball spot, so to speak, as we enter postseason talk.

The No. 8 team was going to get a vote here no matter what. Not because of the national ranking but because this is the time when we really wonder: Who’s going to be stuck with the No. 8 overall seeding—meaning potentially the lowest No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament and the likely task of facing Kentucky to reach the Final Four?

Really, as ESPN Stats & Information pointed out Monday, anyone in that No. 2 seed range is in tough territory when it comes to possibly being lined up with the Wildcats.

It's time to play up from that spot or perhaps make like the Philadelphia 76ers at a conference tournament.

Maryland has enjoyed its finest season in more than a decade. So it seems a pity to discuss the Terps this way…

Winner: Maryland Terrapins

Nati Harnik/Associated Press

…So we're not going to end Terp talk on that last slide.

A three-point win at Nebraska last weekend was just the latest example of thriving amid a season of close calls.

Last week, the Terrapins moved into the Top 10 for the first time since the 2002-03 season and didn’t disappoint to wrap up the regular season. The 26-5 team won against Rutgers then against the Cornhuskers to improve to 11-0 in games decided by six points or less.

Maryland has won seven in a row, proving it could make a fast switch from the ACC to the Big Ten—even if it's had plenty of stomach-turning moments along the way.

It climbed two spots to No. 8.

Maryland improved nine wins from last year, and the school has never produced more wins in a regular season than this year.

Loser: Murray State Racers

Mark Humphrey/Associated Press

As cruel as it is, the photo above may be the image Murray State's program and fans could be stuck with for months after losing in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament championship game.

So much for giving the Racers some love last week, as they entered the poll for the first time in three years. The Ohio Valley Conference’s regular-season runaway champ lost to Belmont on March 7, so the Racers will miss out on the league’s automatic NCAA bid.

A high-degree-of-difficulty three-pointer with less than four seconds left ruined Murray State’s hopes of staying completely perfect in conference play. It also ended a 25-game winning streak, which was second only to Kentucky.

It’ll be a long, nervous wait for this coming Sunday and the bracket unveiling. That's what a single loss since Nov. 29 can do to a small-conference team, especially one that doesn't exactly have scheduling numbers that demand an at-large bid.

Murray State (27-5) finished its Ohio Valley Conference regular season 16-0 and is trying to make the NCAA field for the first time since 2012.

Winner: Kentucky Wildcats

John Bazemore/Associated Press

You've got to love that look on coach John Calipari's face.

Oh, the plight of being undefeated.

How can a team not move up all year and still be considered a winner? Well, of course, that team can only be Kentucky.

Two more weeks on top and Kentucky will become the eighth team and first since UNLV in 1991 to go wire-to-wire in the AP Poll. A very close call at Georgia last week wasn't enough to nudge the 'Cats a spot. The No. 2 team in Week 17, Virginia, lost a game, and Duke didn't even steal one of the 65 AP first-place votes.

Kentucky also just completed its first undefeated regular season in school history. That's reason enough to be a winner in our rankings.

Loser: Virginia Cavaliers

Karl B DeBlaker/Associated Press

Justin Anderson’s a two-way prong of health problems.

First, it was the fractured finger (surgically repaired) that kept him out eight games. Oh, the aggravation of breaking a pinkie. Or feeling some stomach discomfort. The talented off-guard required an appendectomy last Thursday.

Oy.

The Cavaliers just suffered their first loss without Anderson—on a last-second bucket by Louisville's Mangok Mathiang that even Rick Pitino was surprised by.

"Mangok (Mathiang) was the 64th option," Pitino said to reporters afterward, via Isabelle Khurshudyan of The Washington Post.

A 59-57 road defeat to a Top-25 team is not exactly a deal-breaker when it comes to thinking highly of Tony Bennett’s team.

But it’s a striking amount of uncertainty to be facing with Anderson heading into the ACC tournament and beyond. Virginia only dropped one spot to third, switching places with Duke.

Winner: Boise State Broncos

Lenny Ignelzi/Associated Press

You might remember Leon Rice as one of the builders of Gonzaga. Rice left that blossomed Northwest power (as Mark Few clearly wasn’t leaving anytime soon) to try his hand at building up a program of his own in the 2010-11 season.

Boise State sure has gotten there—and fast—as the 24-7 Broncos achieved their first-ever Top-25 ranking after two wins last week produced a Mountain West regular-season title.

BSU started 0-3 in league play but soon got rolling. It celebrated the scene at Taco Bell Arena by dropping confetti onto the sellout crowd and cutting down the nets.

Boise State: It’s not just about football and trick plays anymore, kids.

And watch out come postseason time. It’s not like BSU just feasted on the dregs of the MW. It swept the two-game series with San Diego State.

Loser: Ohio State Buckeyes

Nati Harnik/Associated Press

No team dipped harder than Thad Matta’s bunch, which went from No. 23 last week to No. 28 as calculated by going into the “others receiving votes” category.

Lesson here: Don’t get hammered 72-48 on a Sunday afternoon at home (not long before the 65 AP balloters turn in their weekly homework), even if it’s by the country’s No. 6 team, Wisconsin.