Kentucky drops out of the top 10 for the first time in two months. Here’s the new Top 25
A week with no victories obviously hurt Kentucky’s national ranking.
The new Associated Press Top 25 poll for men’s basketball was released Monday afternoon, and the Wildcats dropped three spots, falling to No. 12 in the rankings. The slide ends a stretch of 10 consecutive weeks in the top 10, which had been UK’s longest such streak in eight years. The Cats, in their first season under head coach Mark Pope, were No. 23 in the preseason AP poll.
Kentucky (14-5, 3-3 SEC) suffered a 74-69 loss at Vanderbilt on Saturday, a game that UK led by seven points in the second half after trailing 41-27 at halftime. The Cats played without starting power forward Andrew Carr, who was sidelined with a back injury.
Pope’s team did not play a weekday game — instead getting a “bye” on the schedule — and will return to action Tuesday night in Knoxville against the No. 8 Tennessee Volunteers (17-3, 4-3). After that comes John Calipari’s return to Rupp Arena, with UK hosting Arkansas (12-8, 1-6) on Saturday night.
The Wildcats might have fallen further in Monday’s poll if not for the widespread futility directly behind them in the rankings.
Marquette, No. 10 in the previous poll, won both of its games last week. But every team positioned at 11 through 19 in the previous poll lost at least one game last week, so there weren’t many options for voters looking for a logical choice to pass up the Wildcats.
Auburn remains No. 1 in the AP poll after defeating Tennessee at home over the weekend. Duke is still No. 2, followed by Iowa State at No. 3, Alabama at No. 4 and Florida at No. 5 — the top five staying exactly the same as last week.
Houston is No. 6 in the new rankings following its win at Kansas on Saturday, with Michigan State at No. 7, then No. 8 Tennessee, No. 9 Marquette and Purdue rounding out the top 10.
Marquette, Purdue and Kansas (now No. 11) passed UK in the latest poll, despite Purdue losing to Ohio State and Kansas dropping a home game against Houston last week.
In addition to Auburn, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky, the SEC has five other teams in the latest rankings: No. 13 Texas A&M, No. 14 Mississippi State, No. 20 Missouri, No. 23 Ole Miss and No. 24 Vanderbilt.
The Commodores, who beat UK on Saturday and lost at Alabama on Tuesday night, had not been ranked since the 2015-16 season.
Rick Pitino, Louisville move up rankings
St. John’s — coached by Rick Pitino and ranked No. 20 in the last poll — won both of its games last week to move up to No. 15 in the new rankings. The Red Storm are now tied with Marquette atop the Big East standings, and those two teams are scheduled to play in New York on Feb. 4, with a meeting in Milwaukee set for the final day of the regular season.
Pitino’s former team, the Louisville Cardinals, entered the poll — for the first time in four years — at No. 25 last week and moved up four spots in Monday’s rankings to No. 21 nationally. The Cards (15-5, 8-1 ACC) won their only game last week (98-73 at SMU) and will host Wake Forest on Tuesday night before a road trip to Georgia Tech on Saturday.
U of L’s only league loss came to Duke on Dec. 8, the Cards have won nine straight games since their defeat at Rupp Arena on Dec. 14, and Pat Kelsey’s team does not have to play the Blue Devils again (or any other ranked teams) for the rest of the regular season.
Duke and Louisville are still the only two teams from the ACC that are ranked, with Clemson — the team that handed UK its first loss last month — at No. 29 in the voting this week. Kentucky defeated both Duke and Louisville in the nonconference portion of the schedule.
This story was originally published January 27, 2025 at 1:13 PM.
