Kentucky still highly ranked after carnage across college basketball. Here’s the Top 25.
Kentucky lost a game last week. Welcome to the club.
The Wildcats were one of 19 teams in the Associated Press men’s basketball Top 25 to drop at least one game, and all of that chaos up and down the rankings meant not much movement for UK when the new poll was released Monday afternoon.
Kentucky is now No. 9 in the country, down one spot from last week.
The Cats (14-4, 3-2 SEC) defeated then-No. 11 Texas A&M 81-69 in Rupp Arena before losing to No. 4 Alabama 102-97 on Saturday in their first defeat at home under Mark Pope, who won his first 11 games as head coach in the building.
“We’re a good team,” said Bama coach Nate Oats after Saturday’s game. “This is not going to be a bad loss for ’em, when all is said and done. They’re a very good team.”
Kentucky was far from alone among “very good” teams in the losing column last week.
That group included Oats’ Crimson Tide, who dropped a 74-64 decision to Ole Miss at home four days before winning in Rupp Arena. In all, seven of the top 10 teams — and 11 of the top 15 — from last week’s rankings ended up losing games.
One more stat to illustrate the tough times at the top of the sport last week, as well as the gauntlet that everyone in Kentucky’s conference will face all season: nine SEC teams were ranked last week. Eight of them lost.
The Cats’ only game this week will be a road trip to Vanderbilt on Saturday, with the Commodores (15-3, 3-2 SEC) close to their first Top 25 ranking since 2015. Kentucky, which was No. 23 in the preseason AP poll, has now been ranked in the top 10 for 10 consecutive weeks, the longest such stretch for the Cats since the 2016-17 season.
New AP Top 25 rankings
The only ranked SEC team to escape the week unscathed was Auburn, which remained No. 1 in the new AP Top 25 poll that was released Monday. The Tigers began the new week as the only unbeaten team in conference play, and they earned all 62 first-place votes in Monday’s poll.
The rest of the AP top 10: No. 2 Duke, No. 3 Iowa State, No. 4 Alabama, No. 5 Florida, No. 6 Tennessee, No. 7 Houston, No. 8 Michigan State, No. 9 Kentucky and No. 10 Marquette.
Houston — ranked No. 10 last week — was the only top 10 team other than Auburn and Duke to make it through the week without a loss, but the Cougars needed a last-second layup to beat double-digit underdog UCF on Saturday afternoon. Michigan State, which had been No. 12, was the only other top-15 team without a loss last week.
Next in the new rankings: No. 11 Purdue, No. 12 Kansas, No. 13 Texas A&M, No. 14 Mississippi State, No. 15 Oregon, No. 16 Ole Miss, No. 17 Illinois, No. 18 Wisconsin, No. 19 UConn and No. 20 St. John’s.
Rounding out the Top 25 were No. 21 Michigan, No. 22 Missouri, No. 23 West Virginia, No. 24 Memphis and No. 25 Louisville.
Coach Rick Pitino and St. John’s (16-3, 7-1 Big East) begin the week atop the conference standings. The Red Storm were 26th in AP voting last week.
Louisville, which was 30th in AP voting last week, had not been ranked since January 2021, when Chris Mack was the head coach and the Cardinals ended up losing six of their final 10 games to miss the NCAA Tournament.
The Cardinals, in their first season under coach Pat Kelsey, have won eight straight games since a 93-85 loss to Kentucky in Rupp Arena on Dec. 14.
Missouri joined the Top 25 for the first time this season. The Tigers (15-3, 4-1) won at Florida and beat Arkansas on the road last week, and they join Auburn (5-0), Alabama and Ole Miss (also both 4-1) in the top four spots in the SEC standings.
The SEC now has a total of nine teams in the new Top 25, with Mizzou jumping in and the Georgia Bulldogs dropping out following losses to Tennessee and Auburn last week. Georgia entered the rankings for the first time in 14 years a week ago, a few days after a win over Kentucky in Athens.
Vanderbilt was 28th in the voting this week, followed by Georgia at 30th, putting two more SEC teams near the Top 25 cutline.
Not on the list of 11 league teams receiving AP votes: John Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks, who had another disastrous week and now sit at 0-5 in the SEC, joining South Carolina as the only winless team in league play.
The Hogs — No. 16 in the AP preseason poll — have home games against Georgia and Oklahoma this week. After that, Calipari’s new team will get a week off before a trip to Lexington on Feb. 1 for the only meeting between Arkansas and Kentucky this season. In addition to the Razorbacks, the only other SEC teams not getting a vote in Monday’s poll were LSU, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.
LSU, South Carolina and Vandy are the only SEC teams that have not been ranked this season.
This story was originally published January 20, 2025 at 1:15 PM.
