How did the loss to No. 1 Auburn affect Kentucky’s spot in the national rankings?
Kentucky has taken a little tumble in the national rankings going into the final week of the regular season.
The UK men’s basketball team was ranked No. 19 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll, which was released Monday afternoon. The new rankings dropped 48 hours after the Wildcats were roundly beaten in Rupp Arena, suffering a 94-78 loss to Auburn, which clinched the SEC regular-season title Saturday and has now been ranked No. 1 for eight consecutive weeks. UK was No. 17 in the previous two AP polls.
Kentucky’s other game last week was an 83-82 victory at Oklahoma.
The Cats spent 10 consecutive weeks in the AP top 10 earlier this season — with a high point of No. 4 in two separate December polls — but they’ll go into the final week before tournament play much nearer their preseason ranking. UK was No. 23 in the first poll of the Mark Pope era.
Kentucky has had more than its share of hardship since then, with the latest bad news coming after Saturday’s loss to Auburn. In his postgame press conference, Pope announced that Jaxson Robinson — the team’s second-leading scorer and a top offensive threat — would miss the rest of the season with a wrist injury that will bring an end to his college basketball career.
The Cats have also been missing veteran point guard Kerr Kriisa since Dec. 7, and his return is trending toward unlikely as he continues to recover from foot surgery. Other prominent UK players — Lamont Butler and Andrew Carr, particularly — have been playing through injuries.
Still, Kentucky has built an impressive NCAA Tournament résumé amid those struggles. The Cats were still widely regarded as a 3 seed for March Madness going into Saturday’s game, and it’s unlikely they will slip much from that position between now and Selection Sunday, which is less than two weeks away.
Kentucky will host LSU on Tuesday night (7 p.m. EST on ESPN2) before heading to Missouri, which is ranked No. 15 in the new AP poll, for a noon EST Saturday game on ESPN.
New AP Top 25 rankings
The Auburn Tigers (27-2, 15-1 SEC) remained in the top spot in the AP poll for the eighth straight week following a dominant week in which they defeated Ole Miss by 30 points and then won in Rupp Arena by 16, tying the sixth-largest losing margin for Kentucky on its home court.
Duke remained No. 2 in the rankings, followed by No. 3 Houston, No. 4 Tennessee and No. 5 Florida. Rounding out the top 10 were No. 6 St. John’s, No. 7 Alabama, No. 8 Michigan State, No. 9 Texas Tech and No. 10 Iowa State.
Tennessee’s win over Alabama on Saturday officially clinched the outright SEC regular-season title for Auburn, which won that title for the second time in the past four years.
St. John’s (26-4, 17-2) clinched its first outright Big East regular-season title since 1985 over the weekend, achieving that feat in Rick Pitino’s second season as head coach.
The SEC has eight teams in this week’s Top 25, with 14 from the conference — every program other than LSU and South Carolina — still possessing a realistic shot to make the NCAA Tournament as the season enters its final week. The 2011 Big East — with 11 teams — still holds the record for NCAA Tournament qualifiers.
Joining Auburn, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama in the latest Top 25 were No. 15 Missouri, No. 19 Kentucky, No. 22 Texas A&M and No. 25 Mississippi State. Also receiving votes from the SEC were Vanderbilt (27th in the voting this week) and Ole Miss (32nd).
Louisville (23-6, 16-2 ACC) is ranked No. 14 in the new poll, up five spots from last week. The Cardinals have home games against California and Stanford to end the regular season, and they should be clear favorites in both of those matchups.
This story was originally published March 3, 2025 at 1:07 PM.
