Winners and Losers of AP College Basketball Top 25 Poll in Week 10
At the midway point of the 2016-17 college basketball season, the Baylor Bears are the biggest winners in Week 10's Associated Press Top 25.
No matter how many times Jon Rothstein tries to warn us, the unexpected never becomes ordinary in college basketball. Few experts had Baylor pegged in the preseason as a real contender to win the Big 12, let alone had the Bears ranked in the Top 25. And now that they have climbed all the way to No. 1, we're getting bombarded with tweets and stories about the most surprising team in the country.
The funny thing is that honor doesn't even belong to Baylor anymore, now that Minnesota has turned a 23-loss team in 2015-16 into a Top 25 team in 2016-17. There were four Big Ten teams ranked in the preseason, but now the league is down to three with the Golden Gophers inheriting some of the magic Indiana and Michigan State were supposed to have.
Meanwhile, the ACC has six teams in the Top 20, and the Big 12 has the top two teams in the country, once again establishing themselves as the two best leagues.
Read on for the rest of this week's biggest winners and losers of the AP Top 25.
Winner: Baylor Bears
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Baylor didn't have the most impressive week in the country. Far from it, actually. In home games against unranked Iowa State and unranked Oklahoma State, they trailed in the final 10 minutes before clawing back for wins by a combined margin of six points.
But when you're ranked No. 2 in the nation in a week where the No. 1 team loses, wins are golden, no matter the margin.
Last Monday was the first time in program history Baylor was ranked higher than No. 3 in the AP Top 25. This Monday comes with another "first ever," as the Bears ascend to the top spot with 55 first-place votes.
At roughly the halfway point of the 2016-17 season, Baylor's ranking is a testament to how much can change in this sport in less than two months.
This team did not receive a single vote in the preseason AP poll—B/R had the Bears at No. 19—and now it is No. 1 in the nation. Johnathan Motley wasn't even an afterthought on preseason All-American teams. Now he's a borderline first-team inclusion with a chance at Big 12 Player of the Year. And Jo Lual-Acuil has been so great that we may need to dig through the annals of JUCO transfer history to verify he's the best one ever.
This is no time to rest on laurels, though. Baylor's two biggest weaknesses this season have been offensive turnover rate and defensive rebounding rate. That's a rough combination to take on the road against West Virginia on Tuesday night.
If the Bears can survive that test and remain undefeated for another week, perhaps more will start taking them seriously as a potential No. 1 overall seed that can win the NCAA tournament. At the very least, it would silence the ever-dwindling "Scott Drew can't coach" crowd for good.
Loser: The 3 Virginias
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Last week was the first time in the history of the AP poll that Virginia, Virginia Tech and West Virginia were all ranked in the same week. Heck, it's only the second time since 1983 that all three were ranked at any point in the same season—the other was 2006-07, in which not one of the three ever made it into the Top 15.
The trio took that joint honor and flushed it right down the toilet, cobbling together a combined 2-4 record in the past six days.
Virginia faltered on the road in overtime thanks to a subpar defensive performance. The Cavaliers had not allowed an opponent to score more than 66 points against them yet this season, so Pittsburgh's 88-point outburst was a huge surprise. The Panthers shot 13-of-21 from three-point range for the night and put up 18 points in the five-minute extra session.
Likewise, West Virginia's trademark defense was nowhere to be found in an overtime loss on the road. The Mountaineers entered the game against Texas Tech with an average turnover margin more than twice as impressive as the nation's second-best team in that category, but they posted a negative-one against the Red Raiders. Dating back to the start of the 2014-15 season, they are now 1-9 when forcing 13 or fewer turnovers.
But those are forgivable, close losses to quality opponents that were buoyed by bounce-back home wins. As a result, it's surprising WVU and UVA dropped a combined 11 spots in this week's poll. West Virginia slipped three rungs to No. 10, while the Cavaliers plummeted to No. 19.
Virginia Tech, meanwhile, "built upon" its season-defining win over Duke with a pair of blowout losses to NC State and Florida State. The Hokies even made 13 three-pointers against NC State and still lost by a 26-point margin. The defense that clamped down on the Blue Devils in the first half didn't show up this week, and it led to them dropping out of the AP Top 25 after last week's No. 21 ranking.
At least Virginia Commonwealth went 2-0 this week. The Rams are now 13-3 and remain one of the teams in the "Others Receiving Votes" category.
Winner: Butler Bulldogs
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Baylor was the obvious pick for the top winner spot for climbing to No. 1 for the first time in program history. However, no team had a more impressive week than the Butler Bulldogs—and Baylor wouldn't have jumped to No. 1 without their help.
First and foremost, Butler beat No. 1 and previously undefeated Villanova. The Bulldogs shot a perfect 15-of-15 from the free-throw line and owned the defensive glass on a night where both Kris Jenkins and Josh Hart struggled from the field. Villanova led virtually the entire way, but the Bulldogs wanted it more in crunch time, sealing the deal with a Kamar Baldwin steal and layup.
Just as impressive, though, was Butler's subsequent road win over Georgetown.
We've already noted on the previous slide how poorly Virginia Tech responded to its marquee win over Duke, but the Bulldogs didn't suffer any sort of hangover after knocking off No. 1. It wasn't pretty, and it required overtime. But Butler won what was a must-win game for the Hoyas, who are now 8-8 overall and 0-4 in the Big East.
Georgetown is now, at best, on life support for the NCAA tournament, but at what point do we start considering the case for Butler as a No. 1 seed? The puzzling losses to Indiana State and St. John's may keep that conversation from getting off the ground, but the Bulldogs are 9-0 against RPI Top 100 teams. According to WarrenNolan.com, the only other teams in that club are No. 1 Baylor, No. 2 Kansas and No. 3 Villanova.
Butler was rewarded by the AP voters, jumping from No. 18 to No. 12. But given all those quality wins, should the Bulldogs be ranked even higher?
Loser: Villanova Wildcats
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All things considered, it wasn't a bad week for Villanova. The Wildcats suffered their first loss of the season, but it was a tight road game against a ranked Butler team in which they managed to hang around with defense, despite shooting a season-worst 23.1 percent from three-point range.
They had been pushed to the limit at Hinkle Fieldhouse in each of the previous three years. They went 3-0 but didn't win any of those games by more than five points, trailing at some point in the second half of each. Butler was finally able to come up with the W this year. It happens.
Moreover, Villanova bounced back by smoking Marquette, which is arguably the fifth- or sixth-best team in the Big East. The final margin (93-81) doesn't look like much, but 'Nova led by 30 with six minutes remaining before taking its foot off the gas. A far cry from the 6-of-26 three-point shooting against Butler, the Wildcats drained 14-of-23 against the Golden Eagles and abused them in the paint.
This team is still the favorite to win the Big East and is still one of the top candidates to win the national championship. (When it's making shots, that is.) But because Villanova suffered a loss in which no other team in the Top 6 was defeated, the Wildcats fell a bit harder than they probably should have, dropping two spots to No. 3.
It's weird how these polls work, isn't it? Villanova was already No. 1 in the nation when it won a neutral-court game against Notre Dame and a road game against Creighton. Those results should have made the Wildcats even more impressive than they were in getting to the top spot, arguably earning a mulligan.
However, what matters most in these rankings is: "What have you done for me lately?" Despite arguably the best NCAA tournament resume in the country, Villanova now has work to do—and needs some help from a couple of Big 12 teams—to get back to the top spot in the eyes of the AP.
Winner: The ACC's Unbeatens
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The first 10 days or so of conference play have claimed many victims, particularly in the ACC. Duke and North Carolina already have one loss each. Louisville and Virginia have each taken two losses, despite entering conference play No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in our ACC power rankings.
But two teams are still unbeaten in ACC play, and they are racking up quality wins left and right.
Florida State was the previous week's biggest riser in the AP poll, climbing from No. 20 to No. 12 after a home win over Wake Forest and a road win over Virginia. The Seminoles are now 3-0 in the ACC after a 15-point home win over previously No. 21 Virginia Tech, and they jumped even higher in this week's poll to No. 9.
Defense and quality depth have been Florida State's two best friends to this point, and both were in the spotlight against the Hokies. The Seminoles got 35 of their 93 points from the bench, with P.J. Savoy, C.J. Walker, Jarquez Smith and Braian Angola-Rodas all providing significant contributions. The team also had 11 steals, leading to 16 points.
Notre Dame also improved to 3-0 with a pair of home wins over Louisville and Clemson. Bonzie Colson furthered his campaign for ACC POY with a pair of double-doubles, but it was perimeter play that led to the come-from-behind win against Clemson. The Fighting Irish shot 15-of-32 from beyond the arc against the Tigers—their fifth game of the season with at least 14 made triples.
This is where we find out how good they can be. The Fighting Irish jumped three spots to No. 20 in Monday's AP poll, but they will play road games against Miami, Virginia Tech and Florida State between Jan. 12-18. They have only played five games away from home, and only one—the one-point overtime win over Pitt—was a true road game.
If they can take their three-point assault somewhere other than South Bend and do so in at least two of the next three games, it'll be time to take them seriously as a Final Four threat.
Loser: Last Monday's Also-Rans
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With No. 21 Virginia Tech losing twice and both of the teams that tied for No. 25 (Indiana and USC) also suffering a loss, it should have been a good week for the teams in the "Others Receiving Votes" footnote of the AP Top 25.
However, most of those teams did little to help themselves.
Former No. 28 Clemson blew late leads against both No. 14 North Carolina and No. 23 Notre Dame. The Tigers are a good team that just can't seem to close out wins against quality opponents. They're still No. 24 in the KenPom rankings, but they lost all but four of their 23 votes from last week's AP poll.
Former No. 29 Miami also fell by the wayside with a winless week. The 'Canes only played one game, but it was a 15-point loss to a Syracuse team that had not previously beaten a KenPom Top 80 opponent. Save for freshman reserve Dejan Vasiljevic scoring 18 points on six made three-pointers, it was a nightmarish offensive performance for Miami. The rest of the team combined for 15 made field goals and 15 turnovers while shooting 2-of-8 from the free-throw line.
The biggest loser of the bunch, however, was Maryland. The Terrapins received six votes last week, good for No. 30 if the poll went that deep. The Terrapins only played one game this past week, winning on the road against Michigan. And their vote count dropped to five.
In my three years of doing AP winners and losers, that might be the strangest thing I've ever encountered, particularly once you factor in the losses suffered by all the teams that were surrounding Maryland in last week's poll.
Winner: Minnesota Golden Gophers
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Though it features a team without a single preseason vote ascending to No. 1, the most unforeseeable thing about Week 10 in the AP Top 25 is the inclusion of Minnesota.
Last year, this team was a dumpster fire inside of a train that wrecked on a track to nowhere. The Golden Gophers went 8-23—their worst winning percentage since before the NCAA tournament even existed—and suspended three players for a sexually explicit video that was posted on social media. Within two months of the season ending, there were accounting issues with head coach Richard Pitino's travel budget and a sexual assault allegation involving an incoming transfer.
In addition to that mess, they lost four of their six leading scorers, leaving them to hope that incoming guys like Amir Coffey, Akeem Springs, Reggie Lynch and Eric Curry would immediately jell and shine. Long story short, if you thought this team would finish top 10 in the Big Ten—let alone sniff the AP Top 25—you knew something no one else did.
Yet, here we are. Minnesota is 15-2, tied for first place in the Big Ten and ranked No. 24 in the country. It has a road win over Purdue and backed that surprising result up with wins over Northwestern and Ohio State this week. The Golden Gophers also scored early-season wins over Texas-Arlington, Arkansas, Arkansas State, Vanderbilt and St. John's, which sums up to one of the nation's best computer resumes.
Those aforementioned incoming guys the Golden Gophers needed to count on? They've been fantastic. Coffey had 36 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in this week's two victories. Springs had 26 points. Lynch had 22 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks. And while Curry didn't make a shot, he furthered his role as a key defender and rebounder.
The Big Ten is still Wisconsin's to lose, but it's no longer crazy to think Minnesota could earn at least a share of the conference championship for the first time since earning a No. 1 seed and reaching the Final Four in the 1997 NCAA tournament.
Loser: Kentucky Wildcats
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No team has been more dominant in the past two weeks than Kentucky.
Everyone expected Kentucky to win a weak SEC—no other team ranked better than No. 37 in the preseason AP Top 25. But even Big Blue Nation's foremost superfan Ashley Judd couldn't have thought the Wildcats would make it look this easy. They blew out Ole Miss on the road in their SEC opener before torching both Texas A&M and Arkansas in Lexington this past week.
Their average margin of victory in conference play is 30.3 points, and all three wins were by a margin of at least 23 points. They have scored at least 97 points in all three games, including their fifth game of the season with at least 100 points. Not a single starter made a three-pointer in the win over Arkansas, but it didn't stop them from blowing the game wide-open in the second half.
As a result of those blowouts, Kentucky is No. 1 on KenPom.com—and it's not even close. The Wildcats have an adjusted efficiency margin of plus-31.36. The gap between them and No. 2 West Virginia (2.45 AdjEM) is wider than the gap between the Mountaineers and No. 7 Baylor (2.44 AdjEM). They have a long way to go to catch the record mark 2014-15 Kentucky posted (36.9), but there has been no more impressive team this season.
For all their troubles, the Wildcats moved up...zero spots in this week's poll. They did pick up 47 more votes, as several pollsters inexplicably had the Wildcats in the teens in last week's ballot. But it wasn't enough to jump ahead of Gonzaga to get back into the Top Five.
Stats courtesy of KenPom.com and Sports-Reference.com.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.
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