Winners and Losers of AP College Basketball Top 25 Poll in Week 3

The newest college basketball AP Top 25 has been published, and the 2015-16 season is starting to look like a repeat of last season with Kentucky already completely dominating the polls. The Wildcats aren't quite the unanimous No. 1 team, but with 1,619 total votes, they have 101 more than second-place Maryland.

Kentucky is obviously one of the biggest winners of the week, but how about the team that used to be No. 1?

North Carolina plummeted all the way to No. 9 for its loss to Northern Iowa over the weekend. We expect it'll be back in the Top Five shortly after Marcus Paige returns from his hand injury, but the AP voters sure were harsh on the Heels for losing a true road game without their star player.

Elsewhere, Miami headlines a quartet of four new teams in the AP Top 25, which also includes Xavier (No. 23), Cincinnati (No. 24) and Texas A&M (No. 25).

Utah, Baylor, Butler and Michigan were the teams to disappear from the rankings to make room for those hot commodities.

Read on for the full list of the biggest winners and losers from the Week 3 AP Top 25.

Winner: Champions Classic

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Let this serve as a reminder for teams that load up their November schedule with cupcakes and cream puffs: There's no harm in trying to beat the best teams in the country.

Games between ranked teams have been few and far between—just the two games in the Champions Classic and a back-end-of-the-poll battle between Baylor and Oregon. But you would think they would be more commonplace, considering the losing teams suffered little to no damage to their national reputation while each of the winning teams climbed in the polls.

The biggest winner from the Champions Classic was absolutely Michigan State. The Spartans entered the week ranked No. 13 in the country, but Denzel Valentine's epic triple-double in a win over Kansas helped Michigan State skyrocket all the way to No. 3.

Were it not for Miami's even more meteoric rise this week, it would have been the biggest jump in the third week of the AP Top 25 since 2010-11 Minnesota went from unranked to No. 15 for beating Western Kentucky, North Carolina and West Virginia to win the Puerto Rico Tip-Off.

And how far did the Jayhawks fall for allowing Michigan State to make that leap?

Well, umm, they didn't. Kansas lost its five first-place votes from last week but only dropped one spot to No. 5—even though the loss to Michigan State was its only game in the past seven days.

In the other game in Chicago, Kentucky turned in a performance reminiscent of its 38-1 season, leaving us drooling for more. Even if North Carolina hadn't lost to Northern Iowa, these new-look, same-swagger Wildcats might have ascended to No. 1. UNC's loss merely ensured that Kentucky would receive 59 of the 65 first-place votes.

For making Kentucky look really good, Duke only dropped one spot to No. 6. However, that's largely because the Blue Devils rebounded with impressive wins over VCU and Georgetown to secure the 2K Classic title.

(How many times over the past decade has this happened? Duke looks bad in a game but manages to barely move in the polls by immediately bouncing back for a big win or two. That Mike Krzyzewski is some kind of evil genius.)

Loser: Wichita State Shockers

Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

The top 60 percent of the AP Top 25 remained relatively unchanged. Yes, there was a lot of shuffling around, but 14 of the 15 teams ranked in the Top 15 last week are still there today.

The one exception is Wichita State, which dropped all the way from No. 9 to No. 20 for its loss to Tulsa.

First, the AP voters don't seem to appreciate how good Tulsa actually is. Of the eight players on that roster averaging at least 15 minutes per game, seven are seniors, and one is a junior. 

Tulsa's absurd amount of veteran leadership led to this controversial postgame remark from Ohio head coach Saul Phillips after his team blew a big lead to the Golden Hurricane: "Disappointing, disappointing. They have nine seniors, we got one. When those guys are selling car insurance, we’ll be winning championships."

How Tulsa—now 4-0 with wins over Wichita State, Ohio and Indiana State—received a mere 17 votes in this week's poll is a mystery.

Let's turn back to Wichita State, though, which managed to lose that game by double digits despite strong contributions from Ron Baker, Fred VanVleet and Anton Grady.

The problem for the Shockers is they still don't have a complete starting five. Evan Wessel is an outstanding role player, but that's all he is. Like Josh Gasser over the past four years with Wisconsin, Wessel is a guy who can shoot but rarely does. He's mostly out there for defense and hustle.

But the Badgers were able to thrive with Gasser because they always had four other guys on the court more than capable of making up for Gasser's lack of assertiveness.

Wichita State is still searching for that fourth guy.

Aside from the aforementioned primary trio, there wasn't a single Shocker with more than four points or four field-goal attempts against Tulsa. Freshman Landry Shamet did a fair amount of damage against Charleston Southern and Emporia State, but he fouled out in just 10 minutes against Tulsa. Someone needs to step up going forward, and he might be the guy.

Adding injury to insult, ESPN's Jeff Goodman reported on Monday morning that VanVleet will likely miss the entire Advocare Invitational, and Shamet is going to have an MRI on a stress reaction that could result in lost time, as well.

Guys, I promise I was only kidding about the kiss of death thing in projecting Wichita State to potentially go undefeated.

Winner: Miami Hurricanes

Ricardo Arduengo/Associated Press

"Did any team have a better week than Miami?"

A lot of people have been rhetorically asking that question today, but (puts on hipster attire) I was asking it before anyone. That's a quote from last year's Winners and Losers from the Week 3 AP Top 25, when Miami jumped from unranked to No. 17 for knocking off Florida and subsequently winning the Charleston Classic.

Lather, rinse and repeat, as the Hurricanes went from unranked to No. 15 in this week's poll after driving a freight train straight through the Puerto Rico Tip-Off.

They destroyed Mississippi State and Utah before opening up a 19-point lead in the first half against Butler. Midway through that game, half of the college basketball Twitter-verse logged on for the sole purpose of proclaiming in one version or another, "Boy, were we wrong about Miami."

But, we've been here before with this team—just 12 months ago, in fact—and it responded with blowout losses at home to Green Bay and Eastern Kentucky in mid-December.

Will the Hurricanes be able to avoid a similar fate this time around?

They certainly should.

Seniors Tonye Jekiri and Sheldon McClellan are both playing the best basketball of their careers, and Ja'Quan Newton has gotten out to a hot start in his sophomore campaign. This is a significant improvement over the first half of last season when Miami was pretty much Angel Rodriguez or bust.

Once Oklahoma State transfer Kamari Murphy starts making a legitimate impact, the 'Canes will have one of the most complete rotations in the country.

Loser: ACC Teams Not Named Miami

Mic Smith/Associated Press

While the Hurricanes have established themselves as a serious threat in the ACC, it seems the rest of the conference has taken a sizable step backward in the eyes of the AP voters.

The most notable drop is, of course, No. 1 North Carolina falling to No. 9 after its road loss to Northern Iowa over the weekend, but the stranger tumble was Virginia from No. 6 to No. 11 for a tough loss at George Washington.

The Cavaliers responded admirably by comfortably winning the Charleston Classic—Is the ACC going to win all of the early-season tournaments?—beating Bradley, Long Beach State and George Mason by a combined margin of 77 points. But, apparently it wasn't impressive enough to keep Virginia from abdicating its spot in the Top 10.

Elsewhere, Duke slipped one spot to No. 6, while Notre Dame climbed one spot, profiting from Wichita State's free fall.

Perhaps most confusing for the ACC was the continued lack of votes for Louisville. The Cardinals received 39 votes last Monday, proceeded to beat Hartford and North Florida by a combined margin of 63 points and now have a vote count of 40.

We're not necessarily campaigning for Louisville as a Top 25 team, but the Cardinals haven't had a game decided by fewer than 28 points. And it's not like people aren't paying attention to them. Thanks to all that Katina Powell drama, Louisville was the most scrutinized team in the country for the final six weeks of the offseason. But it seems we'll have to wait until that big road game against Michigan State on Dec. 2 for people to start forming a 2015-16 opinion about this team.

Winner: Cincinnati Bearcats

John Minchillo/Associated Press

Miami has gotten all sorts of respect for playing extremely well against quality teams, but has any team been more dominant thus far than Cincinnati?

Save your strength-of-schedule blathering for someone who cares at this stage in the season, because the Bearcats have an average margin of victory of 42.3 points per game and have yet to win a contest by fewer than 25 points. And it's not like they have been exclusively beating up on the Little Sisters of the Poor. Cincinnati beat Robert Morris by 62 points and won a true road game at Bowling Green by 33 points.

For a blue-blood program with an annually explosive offense, this would be no big deal.

However, this is Cincinnati. The Bearcats failed to score 85 points in a single game last season and have had a painfully average offensive efficiency for most of Mick Cronin's tenure. For them to be out here routinely dropping 95 on teams is an indication of both their overnight improvement and the effectiveness of the offseason rule changes you've heard about 3.7 billion times already this year.

And their defense is even better than ever. It's still way too early to be scouring KenPom for reliable numbers, but the Bearcats are on pace for a fourth consecutive season ranked in the top 10 in the nation in block percentage and are currently No. 1 in the nation in steal percentage. Three different Bearcats are averaging at least 1.5 blocks per game. Nine are averaging at least one steal per game.

Despite opponents the caliber of Western Carolina and Arkansas-Pine Bluff, the AP voters have taken notice of Cincinnati's play, ranking it No. 24 in this week's poll.

If you're skeptical, don't worry. The level of competition is going to drastically increase shortly. By this time next month, the Bearcats will have played Iowa State, Butler, Xavier, VCU and possibly George Washington.

Loser: Utah Utes

Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports

Here's where "poll logic" eludes our grasp.

Kansas lost to an extremely good Michigan State team and played no other games this week. The Jayhawks did not drop a single spot in the poll.

Utah lost to an extremely good Miami team and won games this week against San Diego State, Texas Tech and Temple. The Utes dropped from No. 16 to unranked.

Say what?

I'm near the top of the list of people who are skeptical about Utah. Jakob Poeltl and Jordan Loveridge make one heck of a one-two punch, but Brandon Taylor is struggling, and Brekkott Chapman still isn't playing nearly as well as we expected him to out of high school. Even with their dynamic duo, the Utes are barely eking out wins against good but unranked teams.

Still, booting them 10 spots for running into Miami seems pretty harsh. I fully appreciate that they looked awful throughout the course of that 24-point beatdown. Coupled with wins over San Diego State and Temple, though, one could make the argument that Utah deserved to more or less maintain its previous ranking.

Unfortunately, it seems none of the AP voters made that argument.

Winner: Oregon Ducks

Chris Pietsch/Associated Press

When playing early season games without a starter, teams are supposed to struggle. Just look at what happened to North Carolina without Marcus Paige.

Oregon, on the other hand, is currently without two starters (Dylan Ennis and Jordan Bell) because of injury, but the Ducks still have two of the most impressive wins of the season, jumping from No. 25 to No. 21 this week as a result.

Baylor beat Stephen F. Austin by a 42-point margin in its season opener, but the Bears were unable to bring that magic to Eugene, Oregon, falling to the Ducks by a score of 74-67. Similarly, Valparaiso already has wins over Iona and Rhode Island and has been regarded by most as the best team in the country from a one-bid league, but the Crusaders couldn't handle Oregon, losing 73-67 on Sunday night.

Two new players on this year's roster have been crucial to Oregon's success.

Freshman point guard Tyler Dorsey is leading the team in both points and assists, averaging 15.3 and 3.8, respectively. We'd love to see him cut down on the turnovers (3.0 per game), but it's a small price to pay for a 52.6 percent three-point shooter.

And down low, JUCO transfer Chris Boucher has helped the Ducks survive the early absence of Bell. Boucher is averaging 11.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.0 blocks per game—the latter of which could lead to Oregon serving as one of the best defensive teams in the nation once Bell (2.7 blocks per game last season) gets healthy.

When Joseph Young ran out of eligibility last season, many worried whether Oregon would have enough firepower to fill that void. At this point, though, the bigger concern is how it's going to feed all these mouths if and when everyone is available. Regardless of how they set the starting lineup, the full-strength Ducks might have the best trio of reserves in the country.

Loser: Michigan Wolverines

Tony Ding/Associated Press

Caris LeVert had a phenomenal game on Friday, finishing the night with 29 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals. Save for the pilfers, he led the Wolverines in each of those categories. D-III transfer Duncan Robinson also had a pretty nice game, scoring nine points in the process of emerging as one of the better options on this roster.

Michigan still lost at home by 16 points to Xavier because of the lack of size we have been lamenting for the past two seasons.

The Wolverines have four players on their roster who are 6'9" or taller: Ricky Doyle, Mark Donnal, Moritz Wagner and D.J. Wilson. On Friday, they combined for 40 minutes, nine points, four rebounds, one block, three turnovers and 11 personal fouls.

Meanwhile, Xavier's Jalen Reynolds and James Farr combined for 45 minutes, 23 points, 22 rebounds and two blocked shots in leading the Musketeers to a plus-18 rebounding margin.

LeVert and Derrick Walton Jr. are healthy. That's great news for Michigan. Unfortunately, neither one grew five inches this summer, meaning the Wolverines are just as undersized as last year when they went 16-16 and finished the season with a minus-124 rebounding margin.

Through three games, no one on Michigan's roster has more than 15 rebounds or two blocks. The Wolverines are 29-of-66 (43.9 percent) from three-point range, and they still haven't looked good.

Michigan was No. 24 in last week's poll but is now very much gone from the rankings. And if the Wolverines don't do some damage this week in the Battle 4 Atlantis, we might not see them in the poll again this year. They open with Connecticut, which should be an absolute field day for Amida Brimah and Daniel Hamilton.

Winner: Purdue Boilermakers

Mark L. Baer-USA TODAY Sports

Aside from Michigan, it was a pretty good week for the Big Ten.

As previously mentioned, Michigan State soared from No. 13 to No. 3. Indiana moved up (though arguably not as much as it should have) to No. 13. Maryland climbed one spot to No. 2. And Iowa gained some traction by blowing out Marquette, experiencing an increase in votes from eight to 47.

Purdue might have been the biggest winner of all, though, for appearing to solve its point guard problem.

Heading into the season, we were all enamored with Purdue's frontcourt. With the addition of stud freshman Caleb Swanigan, the Boilermakers had such an abundance of quality big men that they had little choice but to move Vince Edwards from the 4 to the 3 and Rapheal Davis from 3 to 2. Both were pretty good perimeter players last season, though, so we weren't too worried about that transition.

The 1, however, was a mystery.

They brought in graduate transfer Johnny Hill, but he had a 1.15 assist-to-turnover ratio last year with Texas-Arlington that really didn't scream "primary ball-handler in the Big Ten." He did pretty well in Purdue's first two games, but in the last three against Incarnate Word, Old Dominion and Florida, he's had a total of five assists and six turnovers.

Needless to say, that's no bueno.

Fortunately, sophomore P.J. Thompson has emerged to the tune of 34 points, 12 assists, five steals and no turnovers. He hasn't started a game yet this season, but I'd bet a pretty penny he's in there for the tip-off against Lehigh on Saturday.

With their point guard situation presumably figured out and guys such as A.J. Hammons, Kendall Stephens, Dakota Mathias and Ryan Cline coming off the bench, the Boilermakers are easily one of the deepest teams in the entire country. They're only No. 16 in this week's poll (up from No. 21 last week), but it won't be long before they're knocking on the door of the Top 10.

Loser: Vanderbilt Commodores

Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

A lot of teams are going to struggle with Stony Brook and Jameel Warney this season. If you haven't already, circle Dec. 8 on your calendar for Stony Brook's game against Notre Dame.

But Vanderbilt became the first to pay the price for said struggle. The Commodores won the game but needed overtime to escape at home with the victory. Warney had 22 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, despite giving up four inches to projected first-round draft pick Damian Jones.

Vandy shot poorly from three-point range (27.8 percent), lost the rebounding battle and just all around did not look the part of a Top 25 team, resulting in a drop from No. 17 to No. 19.

The good news, though, is that the Commodores' biggest weakness in 2014-15 appears to be one of its early strengths this year.

The freshman-heavy roster was careless with the ball last season, turning it over once every five possessions. Through three games this year, it's more like once every nine possessions, as they enter play on Monday ranked ninth in the nation in offensive turnover percentage, per KenPom.com. It's arguably only because they were plus-nine in that category against Stony Brook that they were able to win the game.

We'll see if they can continue taking care of the ball this week in the Maui Invitational. The Commodores may have slipped a few spots this week, but if they go out and beat St. John's, Indiana and Kansas on consecutive days, you better believe they'll be back with a vengeance in next week's poll.

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