Winners and Losers of AP College Basketball Top 25 Poll in Week 4
After a wild and crazy week of early season tournaments, Kentucky and Villanova at Nos. 1 and 2 are just about the only things that didn't change in the Week 4 edition of college basketball's Associated Press Top 25.
Indiana dropped 10 spots from No. 3 to No. 13 while Oregon suffered a similar slide from No. 13 to No. 23. Texas, Florida State and both Michigan schools dropped out of the Top 25 altogether, making room for Butler, South Carolina and Florida.
The biggest riser of the week, though, was Baylor. The Bears climbed 11 spots to No. 9 and even got a first-place vote after scoring a trio of key wins in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
Elsewhere, the SEC, Big East and West Coast Conferences all had big weeks, but the AP voters didn't show much love to the Big Ten—including one team that is inexplicably just outside the Top 25.
Read on for the rest of this week's biggest winners and losers from the AP Top 25.
Winner: Southeastern Conference
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The bottom two-thirds of the SEC are just as bad as expected. Excluding Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida and Texas A&M, the conference is a combined 1-15 against KenPom Top 80 teams. Auburn's 67-65 win over Texas Tech was the one exception to the rule, but the other SEC teams have made up for that result by losing four more games to teams outside the KenPom Top 80.
Contrary to what was advertised, though, the SEC is more than just Kentucky and a bunch of dreck.
The Wildcats are still No. 1 in the AP Top 25 and are clearly the class of the conference, but it's clear from Feast Week that there are a few teams hungry to catch them.
South Carolina had the most impressive showing, downing both No. 25 Michigan and No. 18 Syracuse by double-digit margins to improve to 6-0. Though the Gamecocks lost the entirety of their starting frontcourt from last season, interior defense was the key to those victories. The Wolverines and Orange shot a combined 29.1 percent from inside the arc, while each were held to what was their worst scoring output of the season by far. For the pair of wins, South Carolina debuts in the AP Top 25 at No. 20.
Elsewhere, Florida looked good in the Advocare Invitational after beginning the week with a 17-point win over Belmont. The Gators bested both Seton Hall and Miami for neutral-court victories that should only look better as the season progresses. They also put up one heck of a fight against Gonzaga before letting their lead slip away in the final 10 minutes. As a result, Florida jumped into this week's poll at No. 24.
And while they didn't get any votes for beating Virginia Tech and narrowly losing to UCLA, Texas A&M made a statement in the Wooden Legacy that it needs to be taken seriously. Between Robert Williams and Tyler Davis, the Aggies have one of the better frontcourts in the nation. If and when they figure out their point guard situation, they'll be able to give Kentucky a run for its money.
Loser: State of Michigan
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It's a good thing the Detroit Lions won their annual Thanksgiving Day football game, because it was not a great week for collegiate athletics in the state of Michigan.
On the gridiron, Michigan State was stomped by Penn State and Michigan lost to Ohio State—though its fans are refusing to accept the result of the game. And on the hardwood, things didn't go much better for the Spartans or Wolverines.
Tom Izzo's guys acquired their third loss of the season in a 73-58 Battle 4 Atlantis showdown with Baylor. Johnathan Motley terrorized MSU's lack of a frontcourt to the tune of 26 points. Fellow big man Jo Lual-Acuil got in on the action, too, with 14 points and eight rebounds. The freshmen on this team will continue to get better, but it would be nice if they could get taller. The Spartans will remain susceptible to abuse in the paint at least until Gavin Schilling returns from knee surgery.
John Beilein's team also took a 15-point beating from a team that did not receive a single vote in the preseason AP Top 25. Michigan's offense was firing on all cylinders in wins over SMU and Marquette two weeks ago, but the Wolverines could not buy a bucket in a 61-46 loss to the Gamecocks. They shot 8-of-26 from two-point range and 2-of-26 from beyond the arc for an overall field-goal percentage of 19.2.
Game logs on Sports-Reference only go back to the 2010-11 season, so we can't see a full history, but Michigan's worst field-goal percentage in a game in the past six seasons was 30.2. Suffice it to say, it wasn't the best offensive performance the Wolverines have ever had.
Michigan State and Michigan were Nos. 24 and 25, respectively, in last week's AP Top 25, but neither one is even sniffing the Top 25 this week.
Winner: Big East Conference
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The SEC gets a Winner slide for showing signs of life beyond Kentucky, but the Big East was the biggest winner of the week for having two more teams win early-season tournaments while looking the part of a Final Four contender.
We were already impressed by Villanova and Xavier in the Charleston Classic and Tire Pros Invitational. They each played just one game this week with the Wildcats beating Charleston and the Musketeers feasting on Northern Iowa. Villanova remains at No. 2 in the rankings while Xavier climbed two spots to No. 7.
Last Monday, Creighton put the finishing touches on its Paradise Jam title, beating Ole Miss by an 86-77 margin. The Bluejays shot an absurd 16-of-26 from three-point range to solidify their status as the best shooting team in the country. With further help from a 30-point win over Loyola (MD), Creighton jumped from No. 12 to No. 10. A one-week stint at No. 9 late in Doug McDermott's senior season is the only time in school history they have been ranked higher.
The biggest fireworks, though, came from Butler, which won the Las Vegas Invitational by beating Vanderbilt and Arizona—this after beating Norfolk State by a 36-point margin to begin the week. Freshmen Kamar Baldwin and Sean McDermott played crucial roles off the bench while Chris Holtmann's defense shut down the Commodores and Wildcats.
What's most ridiculous about Butler's hot start is that George Washington transfer Kethan Savage is just now getting into the action. He missed the first four games of the season while recovering from pneumonia and only played 17 minutes in Las Vegas, but he was expected to be a key part of this Bulldogs rotation. They're already quite good, and they're going to get better once he's at full strength.
Butler makes its debut in the AP Top 25 at No. 18, giving the Big East as many Top 20 teams as the ACC has. The ACC is still the much deeper conference, but who could have guessed the Big East's top four would be hanging right with the ACC's?
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Loser: Oregon Ducks
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With Dillon Brooks still not quite back to full strength, neither is Oregon.
Brooks returned to the floor for the Maui Invitational and put up impressive numbers, averaging 24.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists per 40 minutes. But he came off the bench in all three games and only averaged 18.7 minutes, which wasn't nearly enough.
In the opener against Georgetown, the Ducks dug themselves a massive hole, trailing by 17 at halftime. Even though the Hoyas scored a grand total of four points in the first 11 minutes of the second half, Oregon wasn't quite able to pull off the come-from-behind win against a 1-2 team that entered the Maui Invitational fresh off a home loss to Arkansas State.
Booted to the consolation half of the bracket, the Ducks narrowly averted yet another disaster against Tennessee. They committed 20 turnovers, shot poorly from the field and were somehow out-rebounded by a team that was previously out-rebounded by Appalachian State. Oregon got the win, but needing overtime to beat the Volunteers was almost uglier than actually losing to Georgetown.
Even in the fifth-place game against Connecticut, the Ducks didn't look great. They jumped out to an early 30-9 lead, but they were outscored by 11 points the rest of the way by a Huskies team that has been unarguably the most disappointing in the nation in the opening weeks of the 2016-17 season. Chris Boucher and Tyler Dorsey were great, but Oregon still committed too many turnovers and struggled to defend the paint.
There's no beating around the bush here: Oregon is not good right now. And it dropped from No. 13 to No. 23 in this week's AP Top 25 as a result. Getting Brooks back to 30 minutes per game in the starting lineup will help, but with guys like Tennessee's John Fulkerson putting up big numbers against the Ducks, it might take more than that.
Winner: Baylor Bears
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I don't know what the old record was for fewest number of weeks between receiving zero votes of any kind in the preseason AP Top 25 and receiving at least one first-place vote, but thanks to AP voter Jon Wilner, there's a good chance Baylor just shattered that record.
The Bears debuted at No. 20 in last week's poll after smoking Oregon. They were on the rise again this week, climbing all the way to No. 9 after beating VCU, Michigan State and Louisville to win the Battle 4 Atlantis.
It's not even December yet, but it's a foregone conclusion that no team in the country will enter Selection Sunday with four better non-conference wins than Baylor already has.
Johnathan Motley was the unofficial national MVP of the week. He averaged 20.0 points and 7.3 rebounds in the Battle 4 Atlantis and was the go-to guy for the Bears for three straight days. He was particularly unstoppable against Michigan State, but even Louisville—which annually has one of the best defenses in the nation and has the necessary pieces in the frontcourt to stifle an opposing power forward—couldn't slow him down.
It wasn't just Motley, though. His whole Crue made major contributions. Manu Lecomte and Al Freeman both had huge games against VCU. Jo Lual-Acuil is still averaging better than 4.0 blocks per game on the season after rejecting six Louisville field-goal attempts. Terry Maston and King McClure were incredible off the bench against the Cardinals. And Ish Wainright nearly messed around and dropped a triple-double on Michigan State.
Everyone that steps on the court is making a positive impact for Baylor.
We've seen plenty of teams fizzle out after hot starts before, but this feels more like the type of November Xavier had last year before flirting with a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. Thus, it's fitting that the Bears will have another big non-conference test this weekend against the Musketeers. Win that one and there will be even more voters that start out their Week 5 ballots with Baylor at No. 1.
Loser: Indiana Hoosiers
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If you've ever wondered why title contenders don't play more true road games during the non-conference portion of the season, Indiana gave an emphatic demonstration this week by losing at Fort Wayne.
The Mastodons aren't a bad team. John Konchar entered this season as one of the most underappreciated sophomores in the country. Between Mo Evans and Purdue transfer Bryson Scott, they have a backcourt duo that can put a ton of points on the board while wreaking havoc on defense. If they earn the Summit League's auto bid, they'll be a serious threat for more upsets in the NCAA tournament.
But that's a bad loss that Indiana is going to spend the rest of the season trying to erase, as it dropped from No. 3 to No. 13 in the AP Top 25.
The loss happened for three major reasons—two of which are things to watch out for going forward.
First, they lost the turnover battle by a 15-8 margin. They have lost that battle in all five games and are now at minus-36 on the season. Indiana doesn't need to force 20 turnovers a game to win, but this offense is too good to be coughing the ball up as much as it does. This is where the Hoosiers miss Yogi Ferrell the most.
Second, they shot 7-of-24 from three-point range. They're 42.3 percent as a team from beyond the arc in their other four games, but that 29.2 percent stroke was a dagger against Fort Wayne. This has been the biggest question for the Hoosiers for the past two-plus years. They shoot a ton of three-pointers and usually make better than 40 percent of them, but what's Plan B when those shots aren't falling?
But the real reason Indiana lost was OG Anunoby—and this is the one of the three we aren't concerned about henceforth. In Indiana's four wins, Anunoby has averaged 14.8 points, 7.5 rebounds and a combined 2.8 blocks and steals. Against Fort Wayne, though, he played 13 scoreless minutes with one rebound and one block. That cannot and should not happen again.
All the good the Hoosiers did for their resume by winning the season opener against Kansas was nullified on Tuesday. They'll now need to win at least two of their three remaining non-conference games against North Carolina, Butler and Louisville to get comfortably back into the national championship conversation.
Winner: West Coast Conference
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Turns out it was a big week for conference winners. We've already tackled the SEC and Big East, but the West Coast Conference is looking pretty good with Gonzaga and Saint Mary's each jumping three spots this week to Nos. 8 and 12, respectively.
Gonzaga won the Advocare Invitational by going through Quinnipiac, Florida and Iowa State. Both the Gators and the Cyclones pushed the Bulldogs to the limit, but they were able to make just enough three-pointers to hang on. After a lackluster shooting performance against Quinnipiac, they were 20-of-41 from downtown in the two wins over major-conference foes.
Jordan Mathews was Gonzaga's star early in the season, but he didn't do much of anything in this tourney. Rather, Nigel Williams-Goss and Josh Perkins led the way in the backcourt with Johnathan Williams III and Przemek Karnowski stringing together a pair of good games. Throw in the two big freshmen and Silas Melson and this is one of the best eight-man rotations in the country.
While Gonzaga took care of business with a team-wide assault, Saint Mary's continued its domination with one big man. Jock Landale earned his third and fourth KenPom MVPs of the season by averaging 22.0 points and 7.5 rebounds in wins over San Jose State and UAB. The big man shot 18-of-21 from the field and is quietly emerging as the most unstoppable player Saint Mary's has ever had.
Emmett Naar and Calvin Hermanson also had great weeks for the Gaels, who once again have one of the most lethal offensive attacks in the nation.
Wednesday's road game against Stanford could be the win that pushes them even higher in the AP Top 25. This is already the first time in school history that they have been ranked better than No. 15, but they've got Top 10 in their sights.
(As a sidenote, the WCC was also responsible for the worst loss of the season to date, as BYU lost at home to Utah Valley by a 114-101 margin. UVU is substantially better than its preseason 321 ranking on KenPom.com, but that could be the loss that keeps the WCC at two bids instead of three.)
Loser: Maryland Terrapins
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Good luck trying to explain this one.
Maryland opened the season at No. 25 in the AP poll.
Maryland is one of 24 remaining undefeated teams in the country, improving to 7-0 with wins over Richmond and Kansas State in the Barclays Center Classic this weekend.
Yet, the Terrapins are unranked in this week's poll.
Granted, most of their wins were by the skin of their teeth. They needed second-half comebacks to beat American, Georgetown and Towson before this week and just barely escaped with wins over the Spiders and the Wildcats in Brooklyn.
But how do you justify vaulting Florida ahead of Maryland and into the Top 25 when the Gators lost a game this week? And if barely beating mediocre opponents is a problem for AP voters, what in the world is Oregon still doing in the Top 25 with two losses and two ugly wins?
I'm all for being a little hesitant with this young team. It's why I had the Terps as the No. 37 overall seed in the June projection of the 2017 NCAA tournament field. But if they were the consensus No. 25 team three weeks ago, what are they doing just outside the Top 25 now?
Perhaps home wins over Pittsburgh and Oklahoma State would move the needle in the proper direction, but Maryland deserves to have a number in front of its team name for those games.
Stats are courtesy of KenPom.com and Sports-Reference.com. Recruiting information is courtesy of Scout.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.
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