Winners and Losers of AP College Basketball Top 25 Poll in Week 12

College basketball's year of the upset continued in earnest as 15 teams from last week's AP Top 25 suffered at least one loss, but even a road loss to Iowa State wasn't enough to knock Oklahoma from its throne as the No. 1 team in the nation.

Of course, that's because the Sooners followed up that close loss with an impressive road win over Baylor to set up a sweet matchup for Saturday's SEC/Big 12 Challenge: the No. 1 team—and likely No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament—and likely Wooden Award winner (Oklahoma's Buddy Hield) vs. the likely No. 1 overall draft pick in June (LSU's Ben Simmons).

You're not going to want to miss that one.

But that's getting ahead of ourselves. For now, we're focused on the biggest winners and losers of the latest AP Top 25.

Winner: Providence Friars

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As far as ranked teams go, it's hard to remember the last time a team needed a big win as badly as Providence did this week.

The Friars just so happened to get two of them.

After opening the season 14-1, things had taken a turn for the worse for Kris Dunn and Co.

First, they somehow lost a home game to Marquette in which they forced 19 turnovers and held the Golden Eagles to just two offensive rebounds. They sort of bounced back with a road win over Creighton, but that 50-48 game was so unwatchable there was no chance of gaining any momentum from it. And then they shot 22-of-73 (30.1 percent) from the field in a home loss to Seton Hall.

The Friars had yet to play any of their games against Villanova, Xavier or Georgetown, but they were already falling apart. Dunn's assist-to-turnover ratio in the first four games of January was 0.86, and Rodney Bullock had forgotten how to score or rebound.

That duo came back around this week, though, and even got some long-awaited help from a fourth contributor.

Kyron Cartwright—starting alongside Dunn for the first time this season—matched a career high with 13 points in a 71-68 win over Butler and then put up another 13 in a resume-bolstering overtime win at Villanova.

At long lost, Bullock, Dunn and Ben Bentil appear to have someone to help shoulder the scoring load, and it resulted in the best and fourth-best wins of Providence's season.

"I believe in my teammates, and they made big plays today," Dunn told reporters after the game, according to Aaron Bracy of the Associated Press. "It was a great team win for us because everybody contributed."

The Friars' schedule doesn't get any easier. They'll host Xavier on Tuesday before traveling to Georgetown on Saturday but will bring a better ranking with them, as they jumped from No. 16 to No. 10 in this week's poll.

Loser: Rest of the Big East

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As tends to be the case in the second half of the season, for one team to have an incredible week, several of its conference rivals must take a bit of a tumble.

In shooting 29 percent from three-point range in an overtime home loss to Providence, Villanova lost some of its supporters who had been buying stock since losses to Oklahoma and Virginia.

The Wildcats had gotten away from relying too much on the long ball and were winning with defense rather than offense. After giving up 86 points to Virginia in a 60-possession game, they had held eight consecutive opponents to one point per possession or fewer.

They snapped that streak this week, however, with back-to-back subpar defensive efforts against Seton Hall and the Friars. Worse yet, Villanova relapsed against Providence and took 50 percent of its field-goal attempts from beyond the arc. The Wildcats do have a full week off before a medicinal game against St. John's, but they'll be ranked No. 6 instead of No. 4 for that one.

Butler fell much harder than Villanova, though.

How the Bulldogs even entered last week ranked No. 18 is a mystery to me. They weren't ranked in our Week 11 Top 25, and they weren't even remotely considered in Week 12 after losses to Providence and Creighton.

Butler entered Big East play ranked No. 9 in the nation but is no longer in the Top 25 after losing five of its first seven conference games. Once a legitimate Final Four contender, the Bulldogs only have DePaul and St. John's to thank for the fact they aren't winless in the conference right now.

The Friars didn't have any impact on this one, but Xavier lost a home game to Georgetown to slip from No. 5 to No. 7. Probably not much to worry about, as the Hoyas got a career-high 21 points from Tre Campbell and have a stout two-point defense that created a mismatch for the Musketeers. Still, it served as a reminder that Xavier is just another one of the 351 teams that can't be trusted this year.

Winner: SEC Contenders

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For a fourth consecutive season, it seems we're doomed to wonder who the third-best team is in the SEC and whether that team will actually be worthy of an invitation to the NCAA tournament. Florida is probably that team right now, but the Gators have an ugly loss to Tennessee and nothing better than a neutral-court win over Saint Joseph's on their resume.

But at least there's no question about who belongs on top of the conference.

Head and shoulders ahead of the crowd is Texas A&M. The Aggies have won 10 in a row and are even 3-0 this season against teams from the Big 12—with all of those victories by double digits, for whatever that's worth in the eternal argument about the best conferences in the country.

Led by 20 points per game from Jalen Jones and a combined 34 turnovers by LSU and Missouri, Texas A&M comfortably won a pair of home games this week to catapult from No. 10 to No. 5—its highest ranking in school history.

The more click-worthy story, though, is the resurgence of Kentucky.

With Derek Willis replacing Marcus Lee in the starting lineup—and playing 65 minutes in two games, no less—the Wildcats put together their best basketball of the season. They won at Arkansas for the first time since John Calipari became the head coach and also decimated Vanderbilt by 19 points.

Tyler Ulis led the way with a combined 45 points and 10 assists, but Jamal Murray wasn't far behind with 37 points and 14 rebounds. We even had a Skal Labissiere sighting in the win over the Razorbacks (11 points and three blocks in 20 minutes), though he did go right back into hiding with two fouls and a horribly inaccurate three-point attempt in four minutes of action against the Commodores.

It has been a long time since we've felt good about Kentucky, hasn't it? Even in their two-point home win over Louisville, the Wildcats committed 15 turnovers and allowed the Cardinals to corral 21 offensive rebounds. Prior to this week, the last time Kentucky looked like a championship-caliber team was probably in the Champions Classic against Duke.

If the Wildcats keep playing like they did against Arkansas and Vanderbilt, though, they'll be back on top of the world in no time. Kentucky jumped three spots to No. 20 in this week's AP poll.

Loser: USC Squared

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One of the big reasons it feels like there isn't a third-best team in the SEC is because South Carolina has lost two of its last four games and never established itself as a contender for the conference title. Even as Kentucky was showing signs of slipping and the Gamecocks were still undefeated, it was borderline maddening how unwilling people were to consider South Carolina one of the SEC's top dogs.

After losses to Alabama and Tennessee, though, it needs to prove something if it expects to be taken more seriously moving forward.

In some ways, the loss to the Volunteers was just bad luck. Kevin Punter put on a scoring clinic by shooting 6-of-11 from beyond the arc and 14-of-15 from the free-throw line. He scored a career-high 36 points while pacing Tennessee to its best team three-point and free-throw percentages of the season.

The Vols simply could not miss, but the Gamecocks have not defended the three-point line very well this season and compounded the problem by committing 17 turnovers. A lite version of West Virginia, South Carolina has gotten by this season on effort and little else, forcing a lot of turnovers, grabbing a lot of offensive rebounds and getting to the free-throw line with regularity. But Tennessee stuck right with it in all three categories to pull off the upset, knocking the formerly No. 24 Gamecocks out of the rankings.

The other USC didn't fare any better.

It's hard to win on the road in conference play, especially in the Pac-12 and particularly when that road trip consists of games in Oregon, where the Ducks and Beavers are now a combined 21-3 at home this season. The Trojans found that out the hard way by getting swept.

USC played pretty well on offense in both games but had no answer for Oregon's Elgin Cook or Oregon State's Gary Payton II—the latter of whom had 22 points, 15 rebounds, eight assists and four steals.

I'm still buying stock in the Trojans for the long term, but the AP voters want nothing to do with them at the moment. One week after cracking the Top 25 for the first time since November 2008, USC is back to its familiar status as an unranked team.

Winner: Big Ten Elite

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If it feels like Iowa has been one of our biggest winners more often than not for the past month, you're absolutely right. The Hawkeyes were in this spot in Weeks 9 and 11, and they certainly deserve it again this week.

Seven of the teams who entered last week ranked in the Top Eight suffered a loss, so it was a pretty great week for the team ranked No. 9 to pick up a convincing win over Purdue. Now in possession of a season sweep of both the Boilermakers and Michigan State, Iowa looks like the favorite to win the Big Ten and a strong candidate for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

For the fourth straight week, the Hawkeyes jumped multiple spots, this time ascending six rungs to No. 3 in the nation.

Indiana also surged in the polls this week after beating Illinois and Northwestern by a combined 66 points.

You read that right. The Hoosiers just had a week in Big Ten conference play with an average margin of victory of 33 points per game. Their 12-game winning streak must be making life really tough for the anti-Tom Crean crowd. So must their new ranking of No. 19.

And while Iowa and Indiana continued their hot streaks, the Spartans snapped out of their cold spell with a big win over Maryland. Michigan State did suffer a one-point loss to Nebraska earlier in the week to kill any hopes of jumping back into the Top 10, but it only slipped one spot to No. 12.

All things considered, even the Terrapins have to be a winner for how minimally they were punished for needing overtime to win a home game against the Wildcats before getting completely outworked in the loss at the Spartans. It could have been the final straw for a team that has not lived up to its potential, but the AP didn't see it that way, merely dropping Maryland from No. 7 to No. 8.

Even Purdue inexplicably moved up one spot to No. 21 after looking pretty ugly in the loss at the Hawkeyes on Sunday.

Things are looking up for the teams in the hunt to win the Big Ten.

Loser: Baylor Bears

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Let me see if I have this straight.

No. 1 Oklahoma loses to No. 19 Iowa State and retains its ranking.

No. 3 Kansas gets blown out by unranked Oklahoma State and only falls one spot.

But No. 13 Baylor loses to the No. 1 Sooners and falls four spots?

Sure, the Bears were kind of embarrassed, but wasn't Purdue also embarrassed in its loss to Iowa? And didn't the Boilermakers move up one spot despite that loss and despite the fact that they didn't have a quality win this week?

For Baylor, it wasn't so much what it did badly as what the teams behind it did well.

The Bears were tied with Virginia in last week's poll, and the Cavaliers recorded wins over Clemson and Syracuse. No. 15 Miami took care of business against Boston College and Wake Forest, No. 16 Providence had one of the most impressive weeks of the season, No. 17 Louisville had its best week of the season and the No. 19 Cyclones beat the No. 1 team in the country.

So, while it seems like an unfair punishment on the surface, it makes sense once you look at the details.

At least Baylor didn't fall as hard as Arizona did. The Wildcats lost by one point at California—in a game between the two teams everyone projected to finish atop the Pac-12 standings—and dropped from No. 12 to No. 18. The success of teams behind them played a major role, but it's pretty harsh, considering the AP barely penalized Michigan State for losing at home to Nebraska.

Winner: Mid-Majors

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With the exception of Dayton occupying the No. 25 spot in Week 9 and Gonzaga holding that distinction in Week 10, you have to go back to Dec. 21 to find the last time a team from outside the seven main conferences (AAC, ACC, B12, B1G, BE, P12, SEC) appeared in the AP Top 25.

Fortunately for all the little guys out there, Wichita State should be ranked for the rest of the season.

After an eight-week hiatus, the Shockers broke back into this week's poll at No. 22. Save for an overtime loss at Seton Hall, they have gone undefeated since the beginning of December. Of the 12 wins they've tallied during that stretch, 10 have come by at least 15 points, including this week's 19-point win at Northern Iowa and 34-point home win over Bradley.

We weren't expecting much from the Missouri Valley Conference this season, but these teams have been Wichita State's doormat thus far. The only other team in the MVC with fewer than two league losses is 7-1 Southern Illinois, and the Salukis' lone loss was by 25 points when the Shockers came to town.

Tired of trying to justify why teams such as South Carolina, Pittsburgh and Butler are worthy of votes, the AP balloters decided to take notice of the old friend they had written off after a 2-4 start to the year.

And they almost killed two birds with one stone, as Saint Mary's earned 42 points this week, good for No. 28 if the rankings went that deep.

At 17-2 with home wins over BYU and Gonzaga already on their resume, the Gaels are by far the closest thing the West Coast Conference has to an at-large candidate right now. They were No. 32 in last week's poll with eight points, but people must have taken notice of their come-from-behind victory over the Zags on Thursday night.

After one more week, Saint Mary's should be in, given the likelihood of a few ranked teams dropping out of next week's poll.

Loser: Tobacco Road

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For the second time this season, Oklahoma suffered a loss and did not drop in the rankings.

And for the second time this season, the team that was ranked right behind the Sooners has a right to be a little peeved about that.

In this edition of "Oklahoma Can Do No Wrong," it was the Tar Heels of North Carolina who were forced to grin and bear it.

Already No. 2 in last week's poll, the Tar Heels won both of their games this week against Wake Forest and Virginia Tech. They weren't pretty—especially the five-point win at the Hokies—but, hey, they won, and Brice Johnson (combined 46 points, 28 rebounds, six steals and five blocks) looked pretty dadgum incredible. As far as poll logic is concerned, it should have been enough for North Carolina to jump to No. 1 after the Sooners' loss to Iowa State on Monday night.

The Tar Heels did come close, though. They picked up 29 first-place votes and now sit just six points behind Oklahoma.

The real losers from Tobacco Road, however, were the Duke Blue Devils.

As you might have heard a few hundred times in the past week, Duke's loss to Syracuse on Monday was its third straight—all to unranked teams.

The Blue Devils rebounded with a road win over North Carolina State on Saturday afternoon. (Funny, they look a lot better when Grayson Allen and Brandon Ingram are combining for 53 points.) But they slipped from No. 20 to No. 24.

Really, though, Duke should probably be a winner for getting any votes at all.

While Indiana has won 12 straight games since losing to the Blue Devils, Duke has taken the opposite approach by suffering four losses and beating no one of value in nearly eight weeks. A road win over Miami on Monday night would help immensely, but with five games remaining against North Carolina (two), Louisville (two) and Virginia (at home), it might want to figure things out sooner than later.

Winner: ACC's Second Tier

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We can and will disagree on the order in which they deserve to be ranked, but between North Carolina and Duke in the ACC's pecking order is another full tier of teams that had pretty strong weeks devoid of losses.

Miami bounced back from a winless week against Virginia and Clemson with a perfect week against Boston College and Wake Forest. The Hurricanes won both games fairly easily thanks to aggressively smart defense (23 total steals against just 31 personal fouls) and a pair of quality games from reserve sophomore guard Ja'Quan Newton.

Newton has been their X-factor as of late, as the 'Canes have won their last seven games in which he scored at least 10 points and have lost their last two in which he failed to reach double figures.

They held steady at No. 15 in this week's AP poll, in part because they had some points stolen by Louisville, which is hot on their tail.

The Cardinals scored arguably their two biggest wins of the season this week, blowing out Florida State at home before surviving at Georgia Tech. Chinanu Onuaku's outstanding sophomore campaign continued as he extended his double-double streak to six games. Anas Mahmoud scored a career-high 15 points in the win over the Yellow Jackets, and Quentin Snider fell one point shy of matching a career high with 20 against the Seminoles.

Because of their dreadful nonconference strength of schedule, it took a while to accept that Louisville might actually be pretty good. The Cardinals, however, jumped another spot to No. 16 this week while the nation continued to notice this is one of the most well-rounded teams in the country.

Elsewhere, the Cavaliers took care of business at home with a pair of wins over Clemson and Syracuse. They moved up two spots to No. 11. And Notre Dame broke back into the poll at No. 25 after home wins over Virginia Tech and the Eagles.

All told, those teams went 8-0, while seemingly every other program in the country suffered at least one loss. That's a pretty big win for the ACC.

Loser: Perfection

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Thanks to SMU's loss at Temple on Sunday afternoon, for the first time since January 2013, we can usher in a few weeks of regular-season college basketball without having to discuss whether or not a team will go undefeated.

Don't get me wrong—I was rooting for the Mustangs to pull it off. It would have been comical to watch the NCAA try to justify that an undefeated team doesn't deserve to be in the tournament because someone no longer employed by the school allegedly completed a class for a player no longer on the roster.

Still, after Wichita State in 2013-14 and Kentucky last year, it'll be refreshing to focus on the chaos of college hoops as opposed to the one team somehow consistently avoiding it.

Having said that, there's no way SMU should have dropped from No. 8 all the way to No. 13 for a conference road loss in which its opponent set a new season high in three-point percentage and made three-point field goals.

To be sure, I expected three-point defense to eventually be the Mustangs' undoing. When Brown shoots 15-of-32 from downtown against you, you've got a problem. But I certainly didn't expect the Owls to be the team to do it.

Devin Coleman had other plans, as the former Clemson Tiger came off the bench to drain all seven of his three-point attempts.

Just like that, the dream of a perfect season ended, and the AP voters capitalized on the window of opportunity to stop rewarding SMU for a great start to the season.

Chin up, though, Mustangs. With Arkansas-Little Rock, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Xavier all faltering this week, you're still the only one-loss team in the country. And you're still the front-runner to win a second consecutive AAC regular-season championship.

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