Kentucky basketball is back in Top 25 rankings ahead of showdown with Florida
For the first time in more than two months, the Kentucky men’s basketball team is back in the Associated Press Top 25 rankings.
And the Wildcats will be playing for first place in the SEC standings this weekend.
Mark Pope’s team, which has won eight of its past nine games in the top-rated conference in college basketball, just cracked the national rankings Monday, coming in at No. 25 in this week’s update. The Cats beat out Alabama — the team that beat them in the SEC opener last month — for the final spot in the poll.
A lot has changed for Kentucky since that loss, and the Wildcats would likely be in for a much bigger rise if they can pull off an upset in their next matchup. UK will play at No. 14 Florida at 3 p.m. ET Saturday in a battle of the two teams currently at the top of the SEC standings.
The Gators have been surging in recent weeks, with coach Todd Golden’s team starting Monday at No. 4 nationally in the Torvik ratings and No. 7 on the KenPom list. Florida — the defending national champs and the SEC’s top-ranked team — are 8-2 in the conference, while Kentucky is at 8-3 and all alone in second place in the league standings.
The Wildcats, who were 30th in the voting for last week’s poll, won home games over Oklahoma and Tennessee but had an uphill battle to move up much due to so few teams ahead of them losing. The only two ranked teams outside the top 15 that lost last week were BYU and the Vols.
The Cougars dropped matchups with unranked Oklahoma State and then-No. 8 Houston, and they’ve now lost four consecutive games and five of their past six. BYU, which dropped six spots to No. 22 in the new rankings Monday, is now 17-6 on the season and 5-5 in the Big 12.
Tennessee, of course, lost at Kentucky on Saturday as the nation’s No. 25-ranked team and fell to 29th in the voting for Monday’s update.
At 30th in the voting last week, UK was also behind Texas A&M, Alabama, Iowa and UCF in the “others receiving votes” category. While Texas A&M and UCF each lost both of their games last week, Bama beat A&M and Auburn, and Iowa defeated Washington and Northwestern.
Alabama (16-7, 6-4 SEC), which beat UK 89-74 on Jan. 3, was still just 26th in this week’s voting, while Iowa was at No. 27.
Kentucky, which was ranked No. 9 in the preseason AP poll, had not cracked the Top 25 since the update of Dec. 1, when the Cats were 18th in the country. They lost at home to North Carolina and were then beaten by 35 points by Gonzaga that week to drop out of the rankings.
AP voters are still clearly somewhat skeptical of the competition the Cats have faced amid their recent flurry of wins. The only currently ranked team Kentucky has beaten in league play is Arkansas, which came in at No. 21 in Monday’s poll, and the Torvik numbers say Pope’s team has played only the 10th-toughest conference schedule in the SEC to this point. Those same numbers have Kentucky facing the most difficult slate in the league to close out the season.
New Top 25 at a glance
Arizona is still undefeated and remains the unanimous No. 1 team in the country going into Monday night’s matchup at No. 9 Kansas, which has won seven consecutive games.
The rest of the top five features No. 2 Michigan, No. 3 Houston, No. 4 Duke and No. 5 Iowa State, with No. 6 UConn, No. 7 Nebraska, No. 8 Illinois, No. 9 Kansas and No. 10 Michigan State rounding out the top 10.
North Carolina moved up three spots to No. 11 after its home win over Duke this past weekend. Gonzaga fell six spots to No. 12 after losing to Portland last week, falling to 23-2 on the season.
St. John’s was this week’s biggest riser — along with Houston — moving up five spots to No. 17 after beating UConn on Friday night. Rick Pitino’s team, which lost to UK on Dec. 20 in Atlanta, is now 11-1 in the Big East.
Florida, at No. 14, is the top-ranked team from the SEC, followed by No. 19 Vanderbilt, No. 21 Arkansas and No. 25 Kentucky, with Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Auburn also receiving votes for Monday’s rankings.
Louisville stayed put at No. 24 in the new poll. The Cardinals are 17-6 overall and 7-4 in the ACC.
This story was originally published February 9, 2026 at 1:20 PM.
