Winners and Losers of AP College Basketball Top 25 Poll in Week 16

For a third consecutive week, the top three teams in the Associated Press Top 25 remain the same. No. 1 Gonzaga, No. 2 Villanova and No. 3 Kansas remain the teams to beat and clear favorites to become No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament.

At the other end of the spectrum, teams like Virginia, Florida State and South Carolina are collecting losses in bunches. The Cavaliers and Seminoles are still in the Top 25, but the Gamecocks are now long gone, replaced by Wichita State.

There weren't any seismic shifts in the poll, though. Notre Dame jumped four spots from No. 25 to No. 21, which was the biggest upward move. Baylor and Wisconsin each dropped five spots to No. 9 and No. 16, respectively. But compared to some recent weeks in which teams are moving a dozen or more spots, this was nothing.

But there were still plenty of winners and losers to be found.

Winner: Wichita State Shockers

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Wichita State is finally ranked.

Wichita State in the AP Top 25 doesn't seem like news. From October 2013 through November 2015, the Shockers were ranked in the Top 16 for 41 consecutive weeks. In each of the past five seasons, they spent at least five weeks with a little number to the left of their name on the national scoreboards.

But this is unbelievably their first week in this season's Top 25, finally making their late-February debut at No. 25.

To be fair, Wichita State has spent most of the year facing lackluster competition. In addition to one win against D-II Southern Nazarene, 22 of Wichita State's 25 wins have come against teams with an RPI rank of 120 or worse.

Since the mid-January loss to Illinois State, though, the Shockers have been obliterating the competition. They have won 10 in a row by an average margin of 23.2 points—including the 86-45 revenge blowout of Illinois State. Oddly enough, the only game during this run that wasn't decided by at least a 15-point margin was the eight-point win over the worst team in the Missouri Valley (Drake).

That dominance was on display this week in beatdowns of Southern Illinois (87-68) and Northern Iowa (73-44).

As has been the case for Wichita State throughout 2016-17, it wasn't one or two players putting on a show, but rather a teamwide assault. No Shocker scored more than 14 points in either win, but there were at least 10 Shockers who scored two or more points in each game. Also typical for this team this season, the Shockers owned the glass. They were plus-17 in rebounding margin against the Salukis and plus-25 against the Panthers.

It took longer than usual for them to get into the AP Top 25, but if you're only going to spend a few weeks as a ranked team, better to do so in February than November.

Loser: South Carolina Gamecocks

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Three losses in four games means bye-bye Gamecocks.

One of the big reasons Wichita State was finally able to creep into the AP Top 25 was the continued meltdown of South Carolina.

The Gamecocks were fortunate last Monday to only drop from No. 19 to No. 21 for losing to Alabama and barely getting past Mississippi State. Once one of the stingiest defenses in the country, South Carolina struggled to slow down two of the least efficient offenses in the SEC.

It turns out that was only the beginning of the downfall, though.

This week, South Carolina gave up 83 points in a 69-possession home loss to Arkansas before also allowing Vanderbilt to average better than one point per possession in the process of falling to 1-3 in the last four games.

In both games, the opposing backcourts tore the Gamecocks to shreds. Jaylen Barford, Dusty Hannahs and Daryl Macon combined for 56 points for the Razorbacks before Riley LaChance, Nolan Cressler and Matthew Fisher-Davis did the majority of the damage for the Commodores. Despite recording at least 10 steals in nine games this season, the Gamecocks combined for just nine in the two losses.

Even more disturbing than the recent lack of defense is that Sindarius Thornwell's heroics haven't been enough. It'd be one thing if the star was struggling, but Thornwell has been the KenPom.com MVP in each of the last four games, averaging 30.0 points per contest—otherwise read as 40 percent of all points South Carolina has scored.

The Gamecocks used to be Thornwell or bust, but now they're just bursting at the seams. They are no longer in the AP Top 25 and might be one or two more losses away from falling onto the NCAA tournament bubble.

Winner: Pac-12

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The Pac-12 now has three teams in the Top Six.

For all the fuss about the ACC trying to replicate the Big East's 11 NCAA tournament bids from 2011, the Pac-12 is quietly making a run at an equally impressive thing the Big East accomplished in 2009—three of the four No. 1 seeds.

There's almost no chance it will actually happen. Not with Gonzaga, Villanova, Kansas, Baylor and several teams from the ACC vying for spots on the top line. However, with help from Baylor's two losses this week, the Pac-12 is inching closer to having three teams in the top four of the AP Top 25—which hasn't happened since the Big Ten had No. 1 Indiana, No. 3 Michigan and No. 4 Ohio State in Week 4 of the 2012-13 season.

Former No. 5 Arizona took care of business on its road trip against the Washington schools, beating the Cougars by 19 points before an eight-point win over the Huskies. Seven-foot Finnish freshman phenom Lauri Markkanen has been renowned for his ability to make it rain from downtown, but he put on a show despite shooting just 1-of-6 from three-point range. Markkanen entered the week with just two double-doubles in 26 games, but he had 19 points and 11 rebounds against Wazzu before dropping 26 and 13 in front of the NBA scouts who came to see him and Markelle Fultz.

Former No. 6 UCLA annihilated USC in its only game of the week. The Bruins made an NBA-like 42 field goals in the game, shooting 32-of-58 (55.2 percent) from inside the arc and 10-of-20 (50.0 percent) beyond it. Thomas Welsh had 16 points and 16 rebounds while Lonzo Ball (15 points, eight assists, eight rebounds) flirted with a triple-double, per usual.

And former No. 7 Oregon swept Utah and Colorado by a combined margin of 46 points. Save for freshman Payton Pritchard, every regular in the Ducks rotation scored at least 14 points in one of those games, including star forward Dillon Brooks, who led all players in scoring in each game—20 against the Utes, 23 against the Buffaloes. The Ducks have bounced back nicely from their collapse against UCLA, winning each of the past three games by a double-digit margin.

Each of those Pac-12 teams moved up one spot this week into the Top Six, which means the rematch between the Bruins and Wildcats will be a battle of No. 4 vs. No. 5. It'll be the fourth time in five weeks with a Top Five showdown.

Loser: Baylor Bears

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This week, Baylor was spelled with two L's.

Baylor has one of the best tournament resumes in the country. The Bears went 13-0 against one of the toughest nonconference schedules. They have eight RPI Top 50 wins and 14 RPI Top 100 wins and probably deserve to be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament—if you can overlook the fact that they are three games out of first place in their conference and have suffered four losses in the past six games.

Whether it hurts their tournament seeding remains to be seen, but that latter factoid is taking its toll on Baylor's spot in the AP poll. The Bears were No. 4 prior to consecutive losses to Texas Tech and Kansas this week, but now they're down to No. 9.

After falling behind the Red Raiders 11-0, they battled back to take a halftime lead and appeared to be in control midway through the second half. However, Texas Tech went on a 16-2 run in a span of fewer than four minutes to turn a six-point deficit into an eight-point lead. A bubble team in desperate need of a marquee win, Texas Tech held on for the upset.

The Bears endured a similar second-half letdown against Kansas when the Jayhawks scored 11 unanswered points in under three minutes, flipping a six-point deficit into a five-point lead. The Jayhawks also closed the game on an 8-0 run, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in the process of effectively locking up another Big 12 title.

Maybe this is karma coming back to Baylor after it erased a 25-5 deficit against Louisville earlier this season, but that's now four consecutive losses in which the Bears were on the wrong end of a scoring drought. In their back-to-back losses to Kansas and Kansas State in early February, the Jayhawks went on a 14-0 run early in the second half, and the Wildcats blew the game open with a 15-0 run late in the first half.

They've shown resiliency to recover from most of those cold spells, and perhaps they'll do the same during this cold stretch of the season. Whatever they do in the next seven days, though, will be as a team barely hanging on to a spot in the AP Top 10.

Winner: Tobacco Road

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North Carolina obliterated the competition this week.

Two of the most iconic programs in college basketball are Duke and North Carolina, and those two rivals separated by eight miles on Tobacco Road each had an impressive week.

Let's start with the Blue Devils, since they're the ones everyone has been talking about nonstop for the past nine months.

Duke extended its winning streak to seven games on the road against Virginia and at home against Wake Forest. Super frosh Jayson Tatum was the star against the Cavaliers, scoring a career-high 28 points to jump-start the offense after a stagnant first half. Against the Demon Deacons, though, it was a teamwide attack with six Blue Devils scoring in double figures.

This season hasn't gone according to plan for Duke; however, it has resurfaced as arguably the favorite to win the national championship. Positioning in the AP poll doesn't reflect that yet, but the Blue Devils are on the rise, climbing two spots to No. 10.

But Duke still has to go through North Carolina to win the ACC regular-season title, which won't be easy with the Tar Heels peaking in the past week.

At full strength, this team has been almost unbeatable. It got Theo Pinson back for the game against Duke two weeks ago but didn't have Isaiah Hicks for that one because of a hamstring injury. With both of those pivotal starters available this week, the Heels smoked both N.C. State and Virginia by a 24-point margin.

Blowing out the Wolfpack is nothing special, but what the Tar Heels did to the Cavaliers was downright jaw-dropping. Virginia didn't help itself out by missing its first 17 three-point attempts in the game, but UNC dominated the glass and had no problem moving the ball and scoring against Virginia's great defense.

North Carolina jumped two spots to No. 8 in advance of the possibly-ACC-title-deciding showdown with Louisville this Wednesday.

Loser: Other ACC Contenders

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Virginia has lost five of its last seven games.

While Duke and North Carolina are on the rise, two former contenders to win the ACC took major strides in the opposite direction.

Virginia's slide is directly connected to the success on Tobacco Road, as the Cavaliers lost to both the Blue Devils and Tar Heels in the past seven days. They did relatively well on defense against two of the most efficient offenses in the country, holding Duke and North Carolina to a combined 130 points on 119 possessions.

For some reason, though—less than two weeks after scoring 71 points in a 61-possession game against Louisville's elite defense—Virginia has forgotten how to score. Devon Hall, Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy combined for zero points on 18 field-goal attempts against North Carolina. They fared a bit better against Duke but still struggled to put the ball in the hoop.

Despite the quality of the competition, Virginia dropped four spots to No. 18 after its fifth loss in the last seven games.

Things haven't been going much better for Florida State, which has lost four of its last seven overall and five of its last six away from home.

The Seminoles only played one game this week, but they clearly didn't use that extra time to prepare for Pittsburgh. Sheldon Jeter (29 points on 14 field-goal attempts with eight rebounds) crushed them from start to finish, but the weirdest line of the game belonged to Florida State's Dwayne Bacon, who was held scoreless on just four field-goal attempts.

He must have been sick or something because Bacon had scored at least 11 points and taken at least 10 shots in 18 consecutive games. Whatever the cause of his no-show, though, it was another disappointing loss for a Seminoles team that suffered back-to-back losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse at the end of January.

Florida State is likely headed for a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament, where I'll have no clue whether to pick it to lose to the No. 14 seed or reach the Final Four. But we have a few weeks left to try to figure that out. For now, the 'Noles have dropped two spots to No. 19 in the AP Top 25.

Winner: Saint Mary's Gaels

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Despite a stale finish at BYU, Saint Mary's was one of the biggest leapers.

It was an uneventful week for Saint Mary's, but that's precisely what the Gaels are looking for the rest of the way. Closing the season with games against Loyola Marymount, BYU, Pepperdine and Santa Clara, the only way they could make national news would be by suffering a loss.

Thus far, they have avoided that fate. Jock Landale had 16 points and 11 rebounds in a blowout win over Loyola Marymount. And despite scoring just one point in the final seven minutes against BYU, the Gaels still won by a 13-point margin. Per usual, they shot well from three (20-of-47), defended the arc admirably (8-of-29) and limited ball movement by the opposition (19 assists on 42 made field goals) in the two victories.

All other things being equal, it was a week that shouldn't have changed anything about how we view this team.

However, the No. 22 Gaels benefited from the carnage around them. As mentioned on the previous slide, No. 14 Virginia and No. 17 Florida State went a combined 0-3. No. 20 Creighton lost to Seton Hall. No. 21 South Carolina lost twice. Even No. 23 Maryland lost to Wisconsin, eliminating the Terrapins' chances of leapfrogging Saint Mary's for their earlier win over Northwestern.

All told, the vote total for Saint Mary's nearly doubled, increasing from 269 to 375 as it climbed two spots to No. 20. More importantly, the Gaels are one more week away from effectively locking up a bid. Get by Pepperdine and Santa Clara to finish the regular season at 26-3, and they should be in the clear, no matter what happens in the WCC tournament.

Loser: Kansas Jayhawks

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Kansas beat West Virginia and Baylor and didn't gain any traction?

No team in the country had a more impressive week than Kansas. In fact, it might have been the best week any team has had all season.

The Jayhawks rallied from a late 14-point deficit for a marquee home win over West Virginia. Five days later, they went into Waco and emerged with a road win over Baylor, opening up a three-game lead in the Big 12 standings with just four games remaining.

Now No. 1 in RPI with seven RPI Top 50 wins and 16 RPI Top 100 wins, they would need to crash and burn in these final two weeks in order to play their way off the top line for the NCAA tournament.

But while Saint Mary's was rewarded for the losses of other teams, Kansas was unable to gain any ground in this week's AP poll due to the lack of losses of higher-ranked teams.

The Jayhawks were almost unanimously No. 3 on ballots last week, according to College Poll Tracker. One voter had them at No. 2; three voters had them at No. 4. Everyone else put the Jayhawks at No. 3, behind both Gonzaga and Villanova. This amounted to 1,493 points. Unfortunately for Kansas, Gonzaga won its two games this week by a combined margin of 56 points, while Villanova won a pair of road games by a combined 35 points.

A few voters had the gumption to move the Jayhawks up. Jon Nyatawa even gave them a first-place vote. But their vote count only increased by 10 to 1,503. They're still well behind both the Bulldogs and Wildcats and are clearly going to need one of them to suffer a loss in order to climb any higher in the poll.

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.