For the first time in more than two years, UK basketball is a top-five team in America
The Kentucky Wildcats moved up in the college basketball rankings again this week.
Mark Pope’s team is now No. 4 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.
The Cats jumped four spots from their No. 8 ranking last week and have now climbed a total of 19 places from their No. 23 position in the AP preseason poll. Pope’s team is off to a 7-0 start, with a neutral-site victory over Duke, six blowout wins in Rupp Arena and a difficult week ahead.
This is the first time that the Wildcats have been ranked in the top five nationally since the first poll of the 2022-23 season, when UK started out as the No. 4-ranked team and then dropped out of the Top 25 altogether before rallying late in the campaign to get a 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Kansas remained No. 1 in the latest AP rankings, followed by No. 2 Auburn, No. 3 Tennessee, No. 4 Kentucky and No. 5 Marquette. Rounding out the top 10 were No. 6 Iowa State, No. 7 Gonzaga, No. 8 Purdue, No. 9 Duke and No. 10 Alabama.
The Jayhawks received 35 first-place votes Monday, with the other 26 going to Auburn, which now has victories over Houston, Iowa State, North Carolina and Memphis — all teams ranked in the current top 20 — and a road game at ninth-ranked Duke on Wednesday night.
Kentucky’s rise in the rankings this week was helped along by the losses of several teams ahead of them in the previous poll.
UConn, Gonzaga, Iowa State and Houston — the Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 6 teams in last week’s rankings, respectively — all lost in neutral-site showcases.
The two-time defending national champion Huskies had the worst week of anyone, dropping all three games they played — to Memphis, Colorado and Dayton, all unranked teams at the time — and finishing last in the eight-team Maui Invitational. As a result, UConn tumbled 23 spots to the No. 25 ranking.
Gonzaga fell to unranked West Virginia in the Bahamas and dropped four spots to No. 7.
Iowa State had a much more respectable loss — 83-81 to Auburn in Maui — and fell just one spot to No. 6.
Houston also lost to a top-10 team from the SEC — suffering an 85-80 overtime defeat at the hands of Alabama in Las Vegas — before losing to San Diego State and falling 11 spots, to No. 17 in the new rankings.
Meanwhile, UK stayed home for Thanksgiving, beat Western Kentucky and Georgia State by comfortable margins in Rupp Arena, and improved its record to 7-0 going into the toughest week of its season so far.
The Wildcats will play at Clemson — a projected NCAA Tournament team — in the SEC/ACC Challenge on Tuesday (9:30 p.m. on ESPN). They’ll then travel to Seattle for a game against seventh-ranked Gonzaga on Saturday (10 p.m. on ESPN2).
Other Top 25 rankings notes
A total of six teams entered the rankings this week, led by Oregon (8-0) at No. 12. The Ducks earned wins over Texas A&M, San Diego State and Alabama last week. The other poll newcomers were No. 16 Memphis, No. 18 Pittsburgh, No. 19 Illinois, No. 21 Oklahoma and No. 24 San Diego State.
Falling out of the poll were Indiana, Arkansas, Creighton, Xavier, Arizona and Mississippi State. John Calipari’s Razorbacks (5-2) were No. 19 in the rankings last week and have now lost to the only major-conference teams they’ve faced this season (Baylor and Illinois).
With Arkansas and Mississippi State dropping out of the Top 25 and Oklahoma jumping in, the SEC now has a total of eight teams in the rankings: Auburn (2nd), Tennessee (3rd), Kentucky (4th), Alabama (10th), Florida (13th), Oklahoma (21st), Texas A&M (22nd) and Ole Miss (23rd).
Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi State and Georgia also received votes in the latest poll. That leaves LSU, Missouri, South Carolina and Vanderbilt as the only SEC teams that did not get any support in the most recent rankings.
Louisville was 35th in the voting. The Cardinals, who announced Monday that key player Kasean Pryor will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL, have home games against Ole Miss and Duke this week.
Kentucky’s next opponent, Clemson, was 37th in the latest voting.
This story was originally published December 2, 2024 at 1:05 PM.
