Kentucky basketball doesn’t move in Top 25. The bracket experts think better of the Cats
The Kentucky Wildcats stayed in the same spot in the Associated Press Top 25 men’s college basketball poll Monday.
Mark Pope’s team remains at No. 17 in the rankings after splitting two games last week.
Kentucky had dropped in the Top 25 poll in six consecutive weeks before staying at No. 17 in the latest update. The Cats were No. 6 in the first set of rankings of the new year but fell slightly in every poll after that, until Monday afternoon. UK has been ranked as highly as No. 4 nationally this season, the first under Pope, whose team was No. 23 in the preseason Top 25.
The new rankings came after a week in which the Wildcats defeated Vanderbilt 82-61 in Rupp Arena — avenging a loss to the Commodores last month in Nashville — before falling 96-83 at No. 4 Alabama on Saturday night.
Both games came with Lamont Butler, Kerr Kriisa and Jaxson Robinson — the team’s three leading point guard options — sidelined due to injury, and there’s no clear timetable for any of those players’ return.
Butler (shoulder) and Robinson (wrist) were limited participants in UK’s pregame shootaround in Tuscaloosa ahead of the Alabama game, but Kriisa — out since Dec. 7 with a foot injury — has not yet returned to practice.
The Wildcats are now 18-9 overall and 7-7 in the SEC standings, with just four games remaining in the regular season. This week will feature a road trip to Oklahoma on Wednesday (9 p.m. EST on SEC Network) before returning to Rupp for a meeting with No. 1-ranked Auburn on Saturday (1 p.m. EST on ABC).
Kentucky’s position in the Top 25 rankings doesn’t align with where most bracketologists have the Wildcats going into the final two weeks of the regular season.
The actual NCAA Tournament Selection Committee revealed its top 16 teams on Feb. 15 — following a dry run of the bracketing process using the games played up to that point — and Kentucky was ranked No. 10 overall, making the Cats the second 3 seed in the field.
Nearly all of the bracketology projections that have come out in the aftermath of UK’s loss at Alabama on Saturday night still have the Wildcats as a 3 seed. The Sunday afternoon social media update from ESPN’s Joe Lunardi projected UK as the final 3 seed in the field.
Though the Cats have nine losses — and only a .500 record in the SEC — they have some of the best victories of anyone in the country. UK has defeated Duke and Florida — both unanimously projected as 1 seeds, with a two-game sweep of Tennessee (a candidate for a 1 seed) plus a win over Texas A&M, which is generally projected as a 2 seed.
Selection Sunday is March 9, now less than three weeks away.
New AP Top 25 men’s rankings
Auburn (25-2, 13-1 SEC) was ranked No. 1 in Monday’s poll for the seventh consecutive week. Bruce Pearl’s team will host Ole Miss on Wednesday night before traveling to Lexington for this weekend’s game at Kentucky.
The Tigers only two losses this season have come to Duke and Florida, the No. 2 and 3 teams, respectively, in this week’s AP rankings. They were followed by No. 4 Houston and No. 5 Tennessee. Rounding out the top 10 were No. 6 Alabama, No. 7 St. John’s, No. 8 Michigan State, No. 9 Iowa State and No. 10 Texas Tech.
Rick Pitino’s Red Storm have now been in the top 10 for three straight weeks — after not being ranked that highly since 2000, also the last time they won an NCAA Tournament game — and the Johnnies defeated two-time defending national champion UConn 89-75 on Sunday.
Next up in the rankings: No. 11 Wisconsin, No. 12 Texas A&M, No. 13 Clemson, No. 14 Missouri and No. 15 Michigan, followed by No. 16 Maryland, No. 17 Kentucky, No. 18 Memphis, No. 19 Louisville and No. 20 Purdue.
Coach Pat Kelsey’s Cardinals (21-6) moved up six spots in the new poll.
At the bottom of the rankings: No. 21 Marquette, No. 22 Arizona, No. 23 Saint Mary’s, No. 24 Mississippi State and No. 25 BYU, which is the program Pope coached for the past five seasons before coming to Kentucky.
Kansas, the AP preseason No. 1 team, fell out of the Top 25 altogether Monday after being ranked No. 23 in the previous poll. The Jayhawks, who suffered a 91-57 loss to BYU last week, are now 18-9 on the season and were 28th in the latest AP voting.
