Kentucky climbs, Arizona plummets in new AP Top 25 poll
Bolstered by three increasingly impressive home wins and Arizona’s three embarrassing losses last week, Kentucky men’s basketball moved up one spot to No. 7 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 released Monday.
The Cats defeated Troy by eight points, Fort Wayne by 19 points and Illinois-Chicago by 34 points in games dubbed part of the Adolph Rupp Classic event last week.
While those games didn’t draw much national attention, they did provide a young team some confidence-boosting wins ahead of some more difficult games on the schedule, including UCLA on Dec. 23 and No. 17 Louisville on Dec. 29.
And those wins contrast against Arizona’s disastrous week at the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas. Arizona went into the week ranked No. 2 in the country and is now out of the Top 25 after three consecutive losses. That made them the first team to go from No. 2 to unranked in a week since Louisville in 1986-87 after a similar November tournament flop.
Duke, which rallied to defeat No. 6 Florida late Sunday night in the PK80 Invitational, solidified its hold on No. 1. The Blue Devils (8-0) received all 65 first-place votes and have been No. 1 since preseason.
Kansas, which handed Kentucky its only loss on a neutral court in Chicago two weeks ago, moved up to No. 2, followed by Michigan State, Villanova and Notre Dame.
The AP Top 25
The top 25 teams in The Associated Press’ men’s college basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Nov. 26, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote and last week’s ranking:
Record | Pts | Pvs | |
1. Duke (65) | 8-0 | 1,625 | 1 |
2. Kansas | 5-0 | 1,531 | 3 |
3. Michigan St. | 5-1 | 1,481 | 4 |
4. Villanova | 6-0 | 1,435 | 5 |
5. Notre Dame | 6-0 | 1,297 | 13 |
6. Florida | 5-1 | 1,272 | 7 |
7. Kentucky | 6-1 | 1,179 | 8 |
8. Wichita St. | 4-1 | 1,134 | 6 |
9. Texas A&M | 6-0 | 1,130 | 16 |
10. Miami | 5-0 | 1,001 | 11 |
11. Cincinnati | 6-0 | 972 | 12 |
12. Minnesota | 7-0 | 929 | 14 |
13. North Carolina | 5-1 | 922 | 9 |
14. Southern Cal | 4-1 | 681 | 10 |
15. Gonzaga | 5-1 | 666 | 17 |
16. Baylor | 5-0 | 576 | 22 |
17. Louisville | 4-0 | 568 | 19 |
18. Virginia | 6-0 | 510 | - |
19. West Virginia | 6-1 | 418 | 23 |
20. Arizona St. | 6-0 | 383 | - |
21. Xavier | 5-1 | 370 | 15 |
22. Texas Tech | 6-0 | 247 | - |
23. TCU | 6-0 | 133 | - |
24. Alabama | 5-1 | 128 | 25 |
25. Creighton | 5-1 | 124 | - |
Others receiving votes: Seton Hall 87, Nevada 61, UCLA 56, Purdue 56, Arizona 34, Washington St. 25, Texas 22, Arkansas 17, Tennessee 14, Providence 9, Northwestern 8, Rhode Island 6, Saint Mary’s (Cal) 5, Georgia 5, Oklahoma 3, UNLV 2, Vermont 1, Texas Arlington 1, Maryland 1.
This story was originally published November 27, 2017 at 12:29 PM with the headline "Kentucky climbs, Arizona plummets in new AP Top 25 poll."