Winners and Losers of AP College Basketball Top 25 Poll in Week 14

For the 13th consecutive time, chaos was college basketball's biggest winner this week, as a total of 16 losses by ranked teams resulted in another thorough shuffling in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll.

Your new No. 1 team in the country—already the sixth team to hold that title this season—is Villanova. As we'll get into momentarily, though, the Wildcats were hardly the unanimous top dog, receiving just 49.2 percent of available first-place votes.

At the other end of the poll, things were significantly quieter. One USC (Southern California) jumped in, replacing a different USC (South Carolina), and Texas took the spot vacated by Indiana, but the collection of 25 ranked teams otherwise remained the same this week.

And summing up how bizarre this week was, Louisville was simultaneously one of the biggest winners and losers, climbing six spots in the AP poll while declaring itself ineligible for postseason play.

A hearty welcome to those of you who annually wait until after the Super Bowl to dive into the college basketball season, and congratulations on already being as likely to predict what will happen this week as those of us who religiously follow the game 12 months a year. We're all experts, and no one knows anything. It should be a fun March Madness, per usual.

Winner: Villanova Wildcats

Jim Rogash/Getty Images

The race for the top spot in the AP poll was predictably chaotic.

Last week's No. 1 (Oklahoma) lost, but for the third time this season, we were left to question how harshly (if at all) the Sooners deserved to be punished for a road loss in Big 12 play.

Last week's No. 2 (North Carolina) suffered two losses, dropping completely out of the running for the top spot. But the difference between No. 3 (Villanova) and No. 5 (Iowa) in last week's poll was only 22 points, so it's not like there was previously anything close to a consensus among AP voters about the order of the teams in best position to jump to No. 1.

The end result was one of the most indecisive late-season polls in recent history, with Villanova, Maryland, Iowa and Oklahoma all receiving at least seven first-place votes.

Week 16 of the 2010-11 season is probably the closest comparison to this situation, as that poll featured six different teams with at least one first-place vote.

But at least Duke received more than 50 percent of the first-place votes that week. Villanova took hold of the No. 1 spot this week with only 32 first-place votes—just about the lowest vote of confidence a team can receive while being crowned the nation's best.

Really, though, the Wildcats deserved better. Even if you weren't sold on them as the third-best team in the country before this week, they slaughtered Creighton by 25 points and won by 12 on the road against No. 11 Providence—and both of those victories came with their starting center (Daniel Ochefu) sidelined by a concussion.

Villanova is alone in first place in the Big East—the only major conference leader that makes any sense right now—and has done more than enough to earn its first No. 1 ranking in program history.

Loser: Providence Friars

Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

If you weren't already of the mindset that Ben Bentil means more to Providence than Kris Dunn does, this was a pretty good week to jump on that bandwagon.

Bentil suffered an ankle injury in the first half of Tuesday's game against DePaul. He tried to get back on the court in the second half, but it was a short-lived attempt. The Friars played two-thirds of the game without him.

And lost.

To DePaul.

At the same time, it was a rough night for Dunn. He attempted 20 shots and scored just 14 points as the Blue Demons focused all of their defensive energy on making sure he wasn't the one to beat them. But Providence really missed Bentil's presence on the glass, as DePaul won the rebounding battle 48-24.

It was more of the same against Villanova. Dunn had 11 points on 15 shots and committed six turnovers, but the Friars might have been able to stay in the game if Bentil had been healthy enough to grab more than two rebounds. They finished minus-17 on the glass, while the Wildcats—playing without Ochefu, no less—had three players record double-doubles.

Despite suffering a pair of losses to fall to 4-5 since Jan. 5, I was pretty impressed with Providence this week.

It has been a two-man show for most of the season, and the Friars got drastically less than 100 percent from both of those guys this week. So, yeah, they lost both games, but they were within shouting distance in each of them thanks to Ryan Fazekas draining six three-pointers, quality play from Rodney Bullock and Kyron Cartwright against DePaul and Jalen Lindsey returning from the flu to give 20 good minutes against Villanova.

If those supporting guys are going to finally start contributing on a regular basis, this team becomes a much bigger threat in the long run. But Providence had to pay the price for a two-loss week that included handing the Blue Demons just their eighth win of the year. The Friars dropped from No. 11 all the way to No. 20.

Winner: West Virginia Mountaineers

Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports

Have you ever driven through West Virginia? The entire eastern half of the state is pretty much a roller coaster of mountains and valleys—which is simultaneously wonderfully scenic and slightly nauseating.

That's about what West Virginia's basketball season has felt like, as the Mountaineers have gone up and down and back again.

And this week was one of the highest peaks of their 2015-16 campaign.

Despite playing without Jonathan Holton, West Virginia was able to rally from an early 15-point deficit to win at Iowa State—its first true road win against a team likely to make the NCAA tournament, unless you now count Kansas State among that group after its win over Oklahoma.

Devin Williams had a mega double-double with 17 points and 18 rebounds, and Jaysean Paige had 23 points in 23 minutes off the bench. The final box score was pretty much what we've come to expect from a "Press Virginia" game, as the Mountaineers recorded 17 offensive rebounds and 10 steals.

Against Baylor, though, they had just nine offensive rebounds and four steals. That's normally a recipe for disaster for West Virginia, but Daxter Miles Jr. and Co. won by 11 points simply by playing better, turnover-free basketball.

Even more so than the rare road win over the Cyclones, the home win over the Bears put the Mountaineers back on the list of Final Four contenders because it showed that they can win even when things don't go their preferred way.

West Virginia climbed four spots in the AP poll to No. 10.

Loser: North Carolina Tar Heels

Robert Franklin/Associated Press

North Carolina suffered a pair of losses this week, but they weren't bad losses by any means.

By far the worst thing about them is they happened in succession.

Louisville was hopelessly desperate for a win. Not only was its (now-defunct) tournament resume completely lacking in RPI Top 25 wins, but it had just been embarrassed in a 16-point home loss to Virginia two days before its game against the Tar Heels. Meanwhile, North Carolina had neither lost a game nor faced a surefire NCAA tournament team in more than seven weeks.

Given those circumstances, a Cardinals blowout wouldn't have been all that surprising. It's actually kind of impressive that UNC was within two points in the final 30 seconds.

And to a lesser degree, it was more of the same for Saturday's road game against Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish did already have quality wins over Iowa and Duke on their resume, but they also had seven losses with a pretty difficult upcoming schedule. They weren't exactly on the bubble, but a loss to the Tar Heels would have put them at 15-8 with four projected losses remaining.

How it transpired—North Carolina blew an 11-point second-half lead and forced a grand total of two turnovers while allowing Notre Dame to corral 20 offensive rebounds—wasn't particularly the stuff of champions, but there are much worse things than four-point losses in South Bend, Indiana.

The Tar Heels certainly didn't deserve to remain ranked No. 2 in the country, but it seems pretty harsh to drop them seven spots to No. 9—particularly because Oklahoma slipped only two spots after suffering a much less forgivable 11-point loss at Kansas State.

North Carolina should get back on the winning track at Boston College and versus Pittsburgh this week, but then it's one heck of a three-week gauntlet to close the season: versus Duke, versus Miami, at North Carolina State, at Virginia, versus Syracuse and at Duke. The Tar Heels better remember how to win games against quality opponents, or it's going to get ugly down the stretch.

Winner: ACC's Second Tier

Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports

It was a rough week for North Carolina, but that helped make it a pretty fantastic week for the other ACC teams vying for the conference title.

Building on last Saturday's 16-point win at Louisville, Virginia made two more statements this week in shutting down both Boston College and Pittsburgh. The Cavaliers have now held three straight opponents to 50 points or fewer and played their slowest game of the season in the 54-possession win on the road against the Panthers. They're clearly getting back to what got them to the top of the ACC mountain in each of the past two seasons and enter the final four weeks of the season ranked No. 7 in the nation.

Also on the rise is Miami, as the Hurricanes climbed five spots to No. 12 after wins over Notre Dame and Georgia Tech. He doesn't often make an obvious impact on the box score, but Tonye Jekiri was huge this week in shutting down Zach Auguste and Charles Mitchell. This allowed both games to be decided by guard play, which is almost always an advantage for Miami. Angel Rodriguez did nothing against the Yellow Jackets, and the Hurricanes still won a difficult road game.

And Louisville probably would have been the biggest winner of the week were it not for Friday's news that the Cardinals are self-imposing a postseason ban, effective immediately.

Though their plans for March and April have changed drastically, the Cardinals are still looking pretty great in early February. Thanks to a home win over North Carolina and a 32-point blowout of Boston College, they soared from No. 19 to No. 13 in the AP poll, tying Arizona for this week's biggest jump.

Loser: Texas A&M Aggies

Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

If we've learned anything through the first three months of this season, it's that we can't trust anybody. Well, that's not entirely true, because Rutgers and Boston College have proved pretty reliable at finding ways to lose to teams of any value whatsoever—but we cannot trust teams to win regularly.

Texas A&M was just the latest and harshest example of that reality.

The Aggies were finally staking their claim in the national conversation. Steadily climbing from No. 21 to No. 5 in a matter of three weeks, they entered the final week of January with a 17-2 record, no losses in SEC play and a serious case of Final Four sleeper syndrome. And despite suffering a loss to Arkansas right after hitting their apex in the AP poll, Texas A&M responded like a champ with a subsequent win over Iowa State.

For all of us who bought stock in them, though, this week was a rough one.

First, they were run out of the gym at Vanderbilt. Jalen Jones and Danuel House shot a combined 3-of-21 from the field, while the Commodores' Wade Baldwin IV and Jeff Roberson couldn't miss, shooting 15-of-22. Vanderbilt is much more talented than its 10-loss record suggests, though, and road losses are quite common in SEC play. The margin was ugly, but the loss wasn't particularly surprising.

For the Aggies to follow up on that with a home loss to South Carolina, however, was quite the gut punch.

The Gamecocks had scored just 56 points in a road loss to Georgia earlier in the week and lost by 23 at Alabama in mid-January. They had pretty well established that they couldn't win away from home in conference play, but then they shot 57.1 percent from three-point range and scored 81 in knocking off what was the No. 8 team in the country.

Texas A&M fell out of first place in the SEC and dropped seven spots to No. 15 in this week's AP Top 25. And the slide might not be over yet, because it has road games against Alabama and LSU before the next poll comes out.

Winner: Pac-12 Elite

Chris Pietsch/Associated Press

At long last, we're starting to see some separation in the Pac-12. There's still a pretty big blob of bubble teams in the middle, but Oregon, USC and Arizona are pulling away from the pack after going a combined 5-0 this week.

The Wildcats did their damage on the road, sweeping Washington State and Washington to improve to 19-5 and climbing from No. 23 to No. 17 in this week's AP poll.

Ryan Anderson was incredible in both games, putting up a combined 53 points and 27 rebounds. Arizona even got Allonzo Trier back in the mix Saturday, after he missed nearly a month with a broken hand. The freshman guard didn't have a great game, but he played 16 minutes and seemed to be pain-free in the process. He'll play a big role the rest of the way.

Speaking of big roles, Oregon's Dillon Brooks posted career highs in both points and assists with 30 and nine Sunday afternoon. Chris Boucher also had another solid week, tallying 22 points, 16 rebounds and nine blocks in the two wins over Colorado and Utah. The Ducks are flying just about as high as any team in the country right now after jumping five spots to No. 11.

And welcome back to the rankings, USC. The Trojans briefly appeared in the poll at No. 21 after a previous win over UCLA, and they're back at No. 23 this week after completing a season sweep of the Bruins. Jordan McLaughlin and Julian Jacobs are quietly putting together seasons worthy of consideration for All-Pac-12 first-team honors.

Loser: Indiana Hoosiers

Ralph Wilson/Associated Press

The proverbial needle was all over the place for Indiana this week.

The Hoosiers entered Tuesday's game against Michigan needing to prove something. Despite a 12-game winning streak spanning from early December through late January, they hadn't beaten many quality opponents this season. Moreover, in the previous seven days, they had lost to Wisconsin and nearly lost a home game to a Minnesota team still seeking its first Big Ten win.

With the meat of its conference schedule coming up soon, the national perception of Indiana was somewhere between skeptically optimistic and pessimistically fatalistic.

The Hoosiers proceeded to go on a 28-0 run in a road win over the Wolverines that had everyone jumping on their bandwagon. Michigan isn't exactly a primary contender for the national championship, but to do that in the Crisler Center—where Maryland suffered a loss less than a month ago—was pretty darn impressive.

"[It] was the kind of total basketball Indiana has not played since Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo were still in school," Zach Osterman of the Indianapolis Star wrote, equating the Hoosiers' run against the Wolverines to the play of the 2012-13 team that nearly earned the No. 1 overall seed in that year's NCAA tournament.

High but worthy praise for one heck of an accomplishment.

But then Michigan State also beat the pants off Michigan on its home court, somewhat devaluing Indiana's win—and that happened just in time for the Hoosiers to hand Penn State its third conference win later that same day.

Now, in advance of a week featuring a home game against No. 4 Iowa and a road game against the No. 8 Spartans, we're right back to questioning whether this Indiana team is actually any good. And with home games against Purdue and Maryland and a road game against the Hawkeyes still looming after that, the final month of the season could get pretty ugly for the Hoosiers.

They were No. 22 in last week's poll but dropped out of the rankings.

Winner: Dayton Flyers

Rafael Suanes-USA TODAY Sports

Mea culpa on not including Dayton as one of the biggest winners of last week's AP poll, but it was my civic duty to avoid cursing the Flyers again.

When they debuted at No. 25 on Jan. 4, I sang their praises as a team capable of winning a couple of games in the NCAA tournament and every bit as good as they were for the last two seasons—only to see them suffer an indescribably bad loss to La Salle a handful of days later.

So, with 7-14 George Mason the only game on its schedule last week, I elected to say nothing about Dayton returning to the AP poll for fear of jinxing it again.

Based on its 34-point rout of the Patriots, though, that fear might have been unfounded.

Charles Cooke led all players with 24 points and was part of the three-point assault that shot 14-of-22 (63.6 percent) in what was nothing short of a bloodbath. Dyshawn Pierre had 15 points and seven rebounds and scored at least 11 points for the ninth consecutive game since being inserted into the starting lineup.

Aside from occasionally getting bitten by the turnover bug, this team's only weakness is its lack of national attention. The Flyers are a serious threat to reach the Final Four and could get into position for a No. 3 seed if they can close the regular season with eight more A-10 wins.

Dayton jumped to No. 19 in this week's poll—its highest rank since November 2009.

Loser: Others Receiving Votes

Scott Olmos-USA TODAY Sports

This could have been a big week for teams that were previously just outside the AP Top 25. Nos. 18, 20, 21, 22 and 25 each suffered a loss, and Nos. 11 and 15 suffered two losses each. It was the type of week after which voters were grasping at straws by the time they got halfway through their ballots, so teams that were "ranked" in the Nos. 26-31 range had a good shot at jumping into the poll.

But five of those six squads also suffered losses.

Saint Mary's was No. 26, but the Gaels lost by 11 points in a game that nearly included another triple-double by BYU's Kyle Collinsworth (17 points, nine rebounds, seven assists). With a schedule pretty much devoid of quality wins, their margin for error was just about nil. If they can score a road win over Gonzaga two weekends from now, maybe they'll sneak into the AP Top 25, but that's about their only hope at the moment.

Nos. 28 (Utah) and 31 (Michigan) each suffered multiple losses. The Utes' first loss of the week at Oregon State featured one of the most ridiculous endings of the season, as Brandon Taylor fouled Stephen Thompson Jr. on a half-court heave with 0.1 seconds remaining. The freshman guard drained all three free throws to give the Beavers a much-needed two-point win. Meanwhile, the Wolverines were trounced at home by both Indiana and Michigan State and clearly need Caris LeVert—who has missed the last 10 games with a lower left leg injury—back in the lineup ASAP.

No. 28 VCU (which tied Utah with 33 points in last week's poll) had a 12-game winning streak snapped with a home loss to George Washington—in one of its few remaining opportunities to pick up something resembling a quality win. Forget the AP Top 25—the Rams will be lucky to make the NCAA tournament if they suffer one or two more regular-season losses.

Last, but certainly not least—because they redeemed themselves with a win over North Carolina over the weekend—the No. 30 Notre Dame Fighting Irish were beaten by Miami on Wednesday. Aside from a key win over Duke, Notre Dame's high-powered offense has had trouble getting going on the road this season.

The only other unranked team that had more than seven points last Monday was No. 27 USC, and we already mentioned the Trojans, who jumped back into the poll this week. So, at least it wasn't a total loss for the others receiving votes.

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