Winners and Losers of AP College Basketball Top 25 Poll in Week 12
As the reigning national champions enter their second consecutive (and seventh overall) week at No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25, it's about time we entertain the notion that the Villanova Wildcats are one of the closest things to a men's college basketball dynasty since UCLA in the 1970s.
Kentucky had one heck of a four-year stretch from 1994 to 1998, going 132-16 with two national championships and a third appearance in the title game. That power then shifted to Duke for four years, as the Blue Devils went 132-15 from 1998 to 2002, finishing four consecutive seasons at No. 1 in the AP poll.
But Villanova is approaching that territory of sustained dominance, now holding a 116-14 record since November 2013 and likely to win the Big East regular-season title by a multiple-game margin for the fourth straight year.
Elsewhere, West Virginia, Creighton, Florida and UCLA had disappointing showings and served as biggest losers in the AP poll. Plenty benefited from their collective demise, as a dozen teams moved up either one or two spots this week. The only squad that really made a positive statement, though, was Arizona. More on the Wildcats shortly, as they were the biggest winners of the week, by far.
Read on for the rest of Week 12's AP winners and losers.
Winner: Arizona Wildcats
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A few days after Creighton lost its most important piece, Maurice Watson Jr., for the rest of the season to a torn ACL, Arizona got one of its studs on the court for the first time all year.
Two days after ESPN's Jeff Goodman reported that a failed performance-enhancing drug test was the reason Allonzo Trier had missed the team's first 19 games, the mystery drug had cleared his system and he was reinstated Friday night in advance of Saturday's showdown with UCLA.
In addition to the lack of PEDs, there were no traces of rust in Trier's game, either. He had 12 points, seven rebounds and four assists and was one of the many athletic wings the Bruins couldn't defend.
"Now, with another versatile player available, the Wildcats deserve to be considered at least a Final Four contender and a certainty to be in the mix for their first national title since 1997," wrote Bleacher Report's Brian Pedersen.
Trier is arguably the biggest story of the weekend, but have you seen what Lauri Markkanen is up to? Over the last four games, the 7'0" freshman from Finland has averaged 23.3 points and 7.3 rebounds while shooting 16-of-22 (72.7 percent) from three-point range. On the season, he's draining 50 percent from beyond the arc while averaging 4.8 attempts per game.
Thanks to his long-range stroke, the Wildcats are soaring in the polls. For sweeping the road trip through USC and UCLA, Arizona climbed seven spots to No. 7.
Loser: Unlucky No. 7
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There has been a weird three-week stretch of ties in the AP poll, which is kind of cool from an odds perspective. But the problem is, those ties have resulted in terrible luck for the ensuing seven days.
Indiana and USC tied for No. 25 in Week 9 only to each suffer a home loss. Kansas State and USC shared No. 25 duties in Week 10 and promptly went a combined 1-3 for the week, with USC eking out a win over Colorado, which is 0-7 in Pac-12 play.
This week, the curse of the tie was particularly potent. For Creighton and West Virginia, No. 7 was anything but lucky.
Not three hours after the AP poll was published, Creighton's Maurice Watson Jr. tore his ACL and was lost for the season. The Bluejays won that road game against Xavier, but they subsequently gave up 102 points to Marquette in a home loss that could be an ominous harbinger.
Freshman Davion Mintz did a heck of a job with 17 points and eight assists in Watson's stead, but Creighton drops nine spots to No. 16 as it begins its quest to figure things out without its leader.
At least Creighton has an excuse for its loss. What's West Virginia's explanation for losing a home game to Oklahoma and a road tilt to Kansas State?
In both contests, "Press Virginia" committed more turnovers than it forced and was abused on the defensive glass. Neither the Sooners nor the Wildcats shot well from three-point range (30.3 percent combined) or the free-throw line (61.5 percent).
However, by avoiding turnovers and taking advantage of West Virginia's apathy in boxing out, they pulled off back-to-back upsets of a team that spent several weeks at No. 2 on KenPom.com earlier this month.
The Mountaineers dropped 11 spots to No. 18, and frankly, it could have been worse. They weren't even on my ballot for the B/R Top 25.
Winner: Oregon Ducks
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Well, it only took two months and 16 consecutive wins, but Oregon is back in the AP Top 10, climbing one spot to No. 10 this week.
The Ducks aren't just scraping by during this winning streak, either. They have won nine of their last 10 games by a margin of at least 12 points, including winning each of the last six by at least 17. Dating back to Thanksgiving, they are averaging 83.9 points per game and have only allowed one of their last 14 opponents to score more than 67 points: the 89-87 marquee, buzzer-beating win over UCLA.
They continued their trend of suffocating teams with defense this week. The Ducks recorded a combined 16 blocks and 16 steals against California and Stanford, winning the pair of games by 40 points, despite getting just 13 minutes from Dillon Brooks due to a sprained left foot.
The issue with Oregon's national perception is the vast majority of its opponents have been nothing special. Moreover, 12 of their last 14 games came at home. (The two exceptions were the road tilts against Washington and Washington State, which are two of the worst major-conference teams in the country.)
Thus, despite winning their last 12 games by an average margin of 22.7 points, they have gained no ground on KenPom.com, hovering between No. 19 and No. 25 since the beginning of December.
Dominant as the wins have been, because they haven't come against quality opponents, the only way the Ducks been able to move up in the AP poll is by hoping higher-ranked teams lose. Fortunately for Oregon, plenty of squads have obliged, as this marks the fourth consecutive week the Ducks have climbed.
Now that they're near the top of the polls, it's time to defend that ranking. Oregon has the Utah-Colorado road trip this week and the UCLA-USC road trip in the first full week of February with home games against the Arizona schools sandwiched in between. If the Ducks can push their winning streak to 22 games against that slate, they'll enter Valentine's Day with a lot of No. 1 seed love in the world of bracketology.
Loser: Florida Gators
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Because of their stellar computer profile, the Florida Gators have been one of the most befuddling teams in college basketball this season.
When we last posted a projected bracket on Jan. 13, the Gators were No. 2 in strength of schedule, No. 3 in RPI and No. 12 on KenPom.com. But aside from a couple of neutral-court wins against Seton Hall and Miami, the best thing they had done this season was avoid looking bad in losses to Gonzaga, Duke and Florida State.
However, consistently looking good against quality opponents is more than the vast majority of teams have done, so it was enough for Florida to keep climbing in the polls, even though we've been waiting for a signature win.
Instead, the Gators picked up what could end up being their signature losses this week.
First, they scored 53 points against South Carolina in the most offensively unwatchable game involving two ranked teams in probably a decade. Florida hasn't been renowned for its three-point shooting in recent years, but it went 0-of-17 from beyond the arc while shooting 53.6 percent from the free-throw line. South Carolina is an elite defensive team, but that was the first sign the Gators are nowhere near as good as their resume.
And the second sign was the home loss to what is still a sub-.500 Vanderbilt team. KeVaughn Allen scored a season-high 29 points, but no one else bothered to show up on offense for the Gators.
It isn't in danger of slipping onto the NCAA tournament bubble just yet, but Florida might need to pick up a win over Kentucky at some point in February if it wants to remain in the AP Top 25. The Gators were No. 19 a week ago and held on for dear life to No. 25, narrowly edging Kansas State, SMU and Northwestern.
Winner: The Big Ten
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Before the season began, the Big Ten was supposed to be the one conference that might be able to challenge the ACC for national supremacy. The league had four teams (Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan State and Purdue) in the preseason AP Top 15, with Maryland lurking at No. 25.
But aside from Indiana's temporary surge following wins over Kansas and North Carolina, it has been almost all downhill from there.
Wisconsin entered the week as the league's highest-ranked team (No. 17), but the Badgers also entered this weekend with a 0-3 record against the RPI Top 50. Purdue looks solid most nights and has a legitimate National Player of the Year candidate in Caleb Swanigan, but losses to Minnesota and Iowa leave something to be desired. Maryland has a great record (17-2), but the Terps have a middling-at-best computer profile. Indiana has six losses. Michigan State has eight.
It seems like 80 percent of the conference is on the bubble. As a result, the Big Ten needed its best teams to have a solid week to strengthen the perception of the conference.
Mission accomplished.
Wisconsin had a pair of tight games against Michigan and Minnesota, but the overtime victory over the Golden Gophers finally gave the Badgers an RPI Top 50 win. Purdue also went 2-0, smashing Illinois and Penn State by a combined margin of 48 points behind two more double-doubles from Swanigan. And both Maryland (at Iowa) and Northwestern (at Ohio State) won their only games of the week.
The Badgers (No. 15), Boilermakers (No. 20) and Terrapins (No. 22) climbed a combined six spots this week. Meanwhile, the Wildcats inched ever closer to what would be their second week in the AP Top 25 since 1969. They're now in "third place" among the others receiving votes.
This isn't the four-team combination anyone expected to find sitting atop the Big Ten standings this year, but the league's chances of sending more than six representatives to the NCAA tournament will improve if this quartet can continue its dominance.
Loser: Florida State Seminoles
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The Seminoles went 2-0 at home against ranked opponents this week and climbed four spots to No. 6 in the AP Top 25—the program's highest ranking since Bobby Sura led it to No. 6 in February 1993.
That should make Florida State one of the biggest winners, right? How is it a loser?
Well, the 'Noles are 9-1 against the RPI Top 50 with an incredible seven wins against the RPI Top 25. No other team has more than four RPI Top 25 wins. Loathe the archaic RPI formula all you want, but it's ridiculous how much better than everyone else Florida State is faring against the RPI Top 50.
(If you prefer KenPom's rankings, the Seminoles have five Top 20 wins, seven Top 40 victories and nine Top 75 wins. However, it's a lot tougher to confirm whether they're best in the nation in those categories, as KenPom doesn't have handy-dandy sortable statistics for records against various ranges of teams.)
In a six-game stretch against ranked opponents that was destined to make or break their season, the Seminoles went 5-1, winning at Virginia while scoring home victories over Duke, Virginia Tech, Notre Dame and Louisville—the latter two coming this past week.
Given what they've done to get into a tie for first place in what is widely regarded as the best conference in the country, the Seminoles deserve even better than a No. 6 ranking. Great as Villanova and Kansas are, it's a bit shocking the Seminoles didn't receive a single first-place vote.
Regardless of their AP ranking, though, the Seminoles clearly mean business this year.
Don't sleep on Jonathan Isaac's ability to jump up to become a top-three draft pick in June, either. He has recorded double-doubles in three consecutive games, scoring 56 points on 27 field-goal attempts while putting in serious work on the defensive end.
Winner: SMU Mustangs
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American Athletic Conference play has been almost unwatchable this season. Part of that is because the bottom 40 percent of the league has been terrible, but it's also because Cincinnati and SMU are so good that no other games matter—similar to Gonzaga and Saint Mary's in the West Coast Conference.
And at long last, the AP voters are taking notice of how dominant the Mustangs have been over the better part of the past two months. They didn't quite break into this week's Top 25, but their vote count more than quadrupled from eight to 33.
Playing at home this week against Connecticut and Houston, SMU won both games by a margin of at least 20 points. Former Duke transfer Semi Ojeleye has been the Mustangs' star this season, and he had another solid week, scoring at least 17 points in a game for the 11th and 12th times. But Shake Milton was on fire against the Huskies and Cougars, finishing with 50 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds.
The Mustangs have now held 14 consecutive opponents to 66 points or fewer. Snail-like pace of play has a lot to do with that, but they have allowed just 91.1 points per 100 possessions during that stretch. In addition to good rebounding—the Mustangs are 28th in the nation in total boards—their ability to defend without fouling has been huge. Connecticut and Houston combined to attempt just 16 free throws against SMU this week.
Circle Feb. 12 on your calendar, as that will be when SMU seeks revenge on Cincinnati for the 66-64 loss two weeks ago. Unless one of those teams gets upset by the likes of UCF or Tulsa, they'll both be ranked for round No. 2.
Loser: UCLA Bruins
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Compared to most weeks during the conference portion of the season, it was an uneventful seven days on the upset front. Eight ranked teams suffered a combined 10 losses, and six of those losses came against other ranked teams. Outside of West Virginia and Florida, there weren't many squads that disappointed the AP voters.
But in one of those ranked vs. ranked showdowns, the UCLA Bruins looked nothing like the dominant force so many have wanted to believe they are.
Playing at home against Arizona, they were solid on offense. They weren't quite as potent as usual from three-point range (10-of-31), but thanks to only committing six turnovers, they still averaged 116.4 points per 100 possessions. They were at 119.7 over the previous six games, but after factoring in the caliber of some of those opponents compared to Arizona, you could argue UCLA was even more impressive on offense than usual in getting to 85 points against the Wildcats.
The 96 points the Bruins gave up, however, popped the bubble that people buying UCLA as a title favorite had been living inside.
UCLA has been bad on defense since the year began, giving up 80 points to Pacific in the season opener—which is still the only time all year that Pacific has scored at least 80 against a D-I opponent. Through 21 games, UCLA has only limited three opponents to fewer than 90 points per 100 possessions; six times the Bruins allowed at least 110 points per 100 possessions, including a season-worst 131.5 in the loss to Arizona.
To be fair, Duke was terrible on defense at this point in its 2015 championship season. The Blue Devils shut down a few awful teams, but in nine games played against KenPom Top 50 squads through the end of January, they were allowing 108.0 points per 100 possessions. Out of nowhere in the NCAA tournament, that young, offensive juggernaut figured out how to defend. So, if UCLA were to turn things around, it wouldn't be unprecedented.
It isn't expected, though, and that's why the AP voters saw fit to drop the Bruins five spots to No. 8 for losing to a title contender.
Stats are courtesy of WarrenNolan.com, 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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