College Basketball Rankings 2016-17: Bleacher Report's Week 17 Top 25

Can you see it? Look around the corner, that's March waiting to rise up and unleash its Madness. Don't be scared, it's best not to resist.

We're inching ever closer to the NCAA tournament, with selection of the 68-team field under two weeks away. The regular season is entering its final week before conference tourneys take center stage and get us prepared for the craziness that will no doubt unfold during March Madness.

Can you tell we're excited about all that? But let's not get ahead of ourselves; there's still a little bit of regular basketball left to be played, though this past week showed that even the ordinary can be extraordinary.

There are no longer any unbeaten teams after Gonzaga fell to BYU on Saturday night, the third straight season the Bulldogs have lost at home to the Cougars. That was just one of a slew of noteworthy results over the past week as 10 teams ranked in the previous Bleacher Report Top 25 lost at least once, including the top two squads.

That means there was plenty of shakeup in the poll, as you can see below:

Rank	Team	Record	Last Week
1	Kansas	26-3	3
2	Gonzaga	29-1	1
3	Oregon	26-4	5
4	North Carolina	25-5	4
5 (tie)	UCLA	26-3	8
5 (tie)	Villanova	27-3	2
7	Kentucky	24-5	11
8	Arizona	26-4	7
9	Louisville	23-6	6
10	SMU	25-4	14
11	Florida	23-6	13
12	West Virginia	23-6	15
13	Baylor	23-6	10
14	Duke	22-7	9
15	Butler	23-6	Not ranked
16	Purdue	23-6	12
17	Cincinnati	25-4	16
18	Saint Mary's	26-3	17
19	Iowa State	19-9	Not ranked
20 (tie)	Notre Dame	22-7	19
20 (tie)	Oklahoma State	20-9	22 (tie)
22	Wichita State	27-4	22 (tie)
23	Florida State	23-6	24
24	Dayton	23-5	25
25 (tie)	Miami (Florida)	20-8	Not ranked
25 (tie)	Michigan	19-10	Not ranked

Others Receiving Votes: Minnesota, Wisconsin

Moving Up: Butler Bulldogs and Iowa State Cyclones

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Butler and Iowa State can finish no better than second place in their respective leagues, but each is playing like a team that can win a conference tournament and be a dangerous foe in the NCAA tourney.

The Bulldogs completed a monster week by winning 88-79 at Xavier on Sunday, improving to 12-5 in the Big East with a 6-3 mark on the road. That record includes a 74-66 victory earlier in the week at four-time Big East regular-season champ Villanova, the Bulldogs' second win over the Wildcats this season.

Butler has four wins this year over teams that were ranked in the top 10 when they played, including a victory over Arizona in November, and it's also beaten Cincinnati. This is looking like the Bulldogs' best team since the one that made consecutive NCAA title games in 2010 and '11.

Iowa State's week was only slightly less impressive, pulling off narrow wins at Texas Tech and at home against Baylor to run its win streak to five. The Cyclones are tied with West Virginia for second in the Big 12 and visit Morgantown in the regular-season finale Friday.

Moving Down: Duke Blue Devils and Wisconsin Badgers

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Duke and Wisconsin are forever linked, thanks to their matchup in the 2015 NCAA title game, a 68-63 Duke victory. Both teams have the talent to make another final, but for that to happen, it will require reversing some troubling recent play.

The Blue Devils were a nearly unanimous preseason No. 1 team but head into the final week of conference play with their second two-game losing streak of the season. Losses at Syracuse and Miami (Florida), in which Duke shot a combined 35.4 percent, dropped it to 10-6 in the ACC to tie for fifth place with Miami.

Why is being fifth significant? Because it means having to play an extra contest to make the ACC title game as opposed to the top four seeds, who get a double bye into the quarterfinals. Duke is only a game out of being tied for second, though, so this final week is significant, because it plays two of the four teams ahead of it in the standings in Florida State and regular-season champion North Carolina.

Wisconsin looked like it was going to run away with the Big Ten regular-season title after starting 10-1, but since then, the Badgers have dropped four of five, including a pair of games this past week. The Badgers fell by 10 at Ohio State on Thursday and then lost 84-74 at Michigan State on Sunday.

Ironically, Wisconsin's only win during the recent skid was against Maryland, the only ranked opponent it's faced since early January.

The Badgers trail Purdue by a game for first in the Big Ten with a week to go. To win the league, they would need to win their final two games against Iowa and Minnesota and have Purdue—who own the tiebreaker via a head-to-head win over Wisconsin—lose to both Indiana and Northwestern.

On The Radar: Minnesota Golden Gophers

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Around this time last season, the only drama related to Minnesota was whether it would go winless in the Big Ten Conference. The Golden Gophers finished 2-16 in the league and 8-23 overall for their worst record since the 1930s.

Now the Gophers are the hottest team in the conference, riding a seven-game win streak into the final week of the regular season. They have their most Big Ten victories in 12 years, and a win Thursday against Nebraska will get them to 11 conference wins for the first time since going 16-2 en route to a Final Four appearance in 1997.

Minnesota is tied for third place in the Big Ten and a lock to make its first NCAA tournament since 2013, the year before Richard Pitino took over.

Worth Noting: Conference tournaments beginning

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They don't include many teams in our rankings, but the first batch of conference tournaments get underway this week, and they are just as important in setting the NCAA tourney field as those from the power leagues. If you're looking to find some potential bracket-busting sleepers, this is where to start.

The Atlantic Sun gets things going Monday, followed by the Big South and Patriot tourneys Tuesday. The America East, Northeast and Ohio Valley begin Wednesday, with the Ohio Valley title game Saturday providing the first automatic bid to the 68-team NCAA tournament.

Those leagues are all of the one-bid variety, and they may or may not produce a potential Cinderella. There's a little more clarity with the Metro Atlantic and Missouri Valley conference tourneys that get started Monday.

The MAAC features Monmouth, which, before dominating its league with an 18-2 record, won at Memphis and went to overtime at South Carolina in a loss. The MVC is highlighted by a tie for first place between Wichita State and Illinois State, who each went 17-1 in league play and are on a collision course to meet in the tourney final.

What To Watch For This Week

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—No. 4 North Carolina at Virginia (7 p.m. ET Monday on ESPN)

—No. 12 West Virginia at No. 13 Baylor (7 p.m. ET Monday on ESPNU)

—No. 23 Florida State at No. 14 Duke (7 p.m. ET Tuesday on ESPN)

—No. 21 Oklahoma State at No. 19 Iowa State (9 p.m. ET Tuesday on ESPN2)

—VCU at No. 24 Dayton (8 p.m. ET Wednesday on CBS Sports Network)

—No. 19 Iowa State at No. 12 West Virginia (7 p.m. ET Friday on ESPN2)

—No. 20 Notre Dame at No. 9 Louisville (2 p.m. ET Saturday on CBS)

—No. 1 Kansas at No. 21 Oklahoma State (6 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN)

—No. 14 Duke at No. 4 North Carolina (8:15 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN)

The majority of college basketball's top leagues have yet to determine their regular-season champions, with the ACC and Big 12 being notable exceptions. Kansas clinched its 13th straight Big 12 crown more than a week ago, while North Carolina wrapped up its second straight ACC title with two games left to play.

But even with the top seeds in their respective conference tournaments already wrapped up, there's still plenty to play for this week. Getting No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament requires continued winning, with Kansas and North Carolina each having notable challenges during the final frame.

UNC opens the week trying to win at Virginia for the first time since 2012 and then finishes up with archrival Duke, hoping to avenge its 86-78 loss in Durham on Feb. 9. Kansas completes the regular season with games against the Oklahoma schools, playing its final home game against the struggling Sooners before visiting an Oklahoma State team it only beat by seven at home in mid-January.

Plenty of games this week will directly impact who wins various regular-season league titles, but none more so than Wednesday's clash between Dayton and VCU. Dayton has a one-game lead on the Rams with two to go, but VCU won the first meeting 73-68 in late January.

Voters in the poll are C.J. Moore, Brian Pedersen and Kerry Miller. Our experts participate in weekly voting for B/R's Top 25. Once a vote is cast for a specific team, it's assigned a value—25 points for the No. 1 team in the rankings, 24 points for the second spot and so on. The point totals are then added up to create the Top 25. 

All statistics courtesy of Sports-Reference.com, unless otherwise noted. All recruiting information courtesy of Scout.com, unless otherwise noted.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.