How far did Kentucky fall in the new college basketball rankings after a dud in New York?
Two days after the worst night of Kentucky’s basketball season so far, the new Associated Press Top 25 poll was released.
How bad was it for the Wildcats? UK dropped a total of six spots — from No. 4 to No. 10 — following its second loss of the season.
The new rankings were posted Monday afternoon, less than 48 hours after the Cats’ 85-65 loss to Ohio State in the CBS Sports Classic in Madison Square Garden, an all-systems failure for Mark Pope’s team and the first real clunker in his tenure as Kentucky’s head coach.
The Buckeyes were coming into the game just one week removed from a 91-53 loss to Auburn — the No. 2 team in the AP rankings but the clear No. 1 according to all of the major analytics websites — but it was Ohio State that looked like the top-five team on the MSG court Saturday night.
OSU was ranked No. 21 in the first poll of the regular season but dropped out in the next one and hadn’t even received any votes in the two polls leading into Saturday’s game. The Buckeyes picked up 23 points in Monday’s poll, leaving them still unranked but 36th in the overall voting.
Kentucky started the season at No. 23 in the national rankings, and their position at No. 4 last week is the highest the Cats have been all season. A win over Ohio State would have marked the first time since the 2018-19 season — which was the last time UK advanced beyond the first week of the NCAA Tournament — that the Cats would have been ranked in the top five for four consecutive weeks.
Instead, they’ll have to claw their way back up the rankings.
Kentucky is off this week and returns to play Dec. 31 for a home game against Brown, the final nonconference opponent on the 2024-25 schedule. UK will play undefeated Florida in the SEC opener Jan. 4 in Rupp Arena.
Another unbeaten SEC team, Tennessee, remained No. 1 in the new Top 25 rankings for the third consecutive week, followed by No. 2 Auburn, No. 3 Iowa State, No. 4 Duke and No. 5 Alabama. Rounding out the top 10 were No. 6 Florida, No. 7 Kansas, No. 8 Marquette, No. 9 Oregon and No. 10 Kentucky.
UK was the only top-10 team to lose last week. The Cats will go into their extended holiday break with a 10-2 record, boasting victories over Duke and Gonzaga, with a loss at Clemson joining the defeat to Ohio State as the only blemishes.
Pope said after the game Saturday night that the team will break for Christmas for a few days — with most of the players headed home for a short holiday trip — before gathering back in Lexington on Thursday to resume practices.
A difficult SEC schedule is right around the corner for the Wildcats, who have not won the league’s regular-season crown since 2020 and haven’t even advanced to the title game of the SEC Tournament since 2018, when they won that event for the fourth consecutive time.
The latest AP poll placed 10 teams in the Top 25, with Oklahoma (12th), Texas A&M (13th), Ole Miss (16th), Mississippi State (19th) and Arkansas (23rd) joining Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, Florida and Kentucky in the national rankings. Two other teams — Georgia and Missouri — also received votes in the latest Top 25 poll.
Tennessee, Florida and Oklahoma all remain undefeated — and none will play any additional formidable foes before league play begins — while Auburn is ranked No. 1 nationally in the KenPom, Torvik and EvanMiya.com ratings. The Tigers’ lone loss came at Duke during the SEC/ACC Challenge, and they already have wins over Houston, Iowa State, North Carolina, Memphis, Ohio State and Purdue.
The latest ESPN Bracketology update projected 13 SEC teams in the 2025 NCAA Tournament field.
This story was originally published December 23, 2024 at 1:14 PM.
