After all the analyzing, speculating and guesstimating, I finally have some games to consider while assembling my top 25. Not only do we have games, but we also know a lot more about who is and isn’t playing. That includes all the fifth-year seniors who gained eligibility through the courts. Those decisions may or may not be short-lived, but for the time being, I am going to rank these teams assuming they will be constructed as they are currently throughout the season.
It was a decent first week of games, but we are going to start picking things up as we head into the big Thanksgiving week. It’s also a little early to go deep on computer rankings. Team ratings on KenPom, for example, mostly include data from last season, although that is still considered the best predictive site.
Here, then, is the (correct) order of the top 25 teams in men’s college basketball, as sent to the Associated Press on Sunday night. Numbers in parentheses indicate where the team was ranked on my preseason ballot.
DROPPED OUT: Iowa State (13), Ohio State (21)
ALMOST FAMOUS: Texas Tech, Nebraska, Texas A&M, Marquette, Baylor, Saint Louis
Notes on the votes
• You can talk about the competition all you want, but for Illinois to beat FDU by 75 points and Penn by 42 indicates that we could be looking at an historically great offense here. The fact that the Illini did that without their best player, 6-foot-9 sophomore wing David Mirkovic, who is still out following foot surgery and an appendectomy, gives further evidence that Illinois could very well belong on the top tier with Duke and Florida. We’ll find out even more about this team when it plays at Texas Tech on Tuesday and at Duke on Nov. 17. I doubt Mirkovic will play in either of those, but when he does come back, look out.
• Kansas’ elevation has nothing to do with the Jayhawks’ easy wins over Fordham and Middle Tennessee and everything to do with the three fifth-year seniors they added in Tre White, Melvin Council Jr. and Trey Kaufman-Renn. Maybe it’s risky for Bill Self to add those guys, but clearly he saw a need for it. And that’s on top of having the likely top pick in the next NBA Draft in Tyran Stokes. We’ll see if the Jayhawks are worthy of my confidence when they face Kentucky at the Champions Classic Tuesday night.
• UConn moved up five spots due to its convincing win over Michigan in Boston. Dan Hurley did not take any five-in-five cases, and it’s easy to see why. Silas Demary might be the best point guard in the country, and transfers Nik Khamenia (Duke) and Na’jai Hines (Seton Hall) have fit in seamlessly. In some ways I feel like the Huskies are ahead of where they were at the start of last season.
• Virginia had one of the most impressive wins of the week on Sunday when it buried Arkansas 91-72. The Cavs aren’t the most glamorous team, but they did not lose a player to the transfer portal and have a dynamic duo in sophomores Chance Mallory and Thijs De Ridder. Virginia has a quiet couple of weeks until it heads to The Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis.
• Louisville got bumped down a couple of spots only because other teams leapfrogged. But I’m higher on this team than previously because Seth Trimble is eligible, and also because the Cardinals have a budding superstar in freshman forward Obinna Ekezie, who is coming off the bench. The Cardinals are also No. 19 on KenPom, which makes me wonder if I have them a little overrated. But I see what I see. The Cardinals have all week to prepare for their game at Memphis on Sunday. Then they have a brutal four-game stretch later this month against Texas Tech, Texas, Michigan and Kentucky.
• UCLA also had a terrific win on opening night when the Bruins held off Arizona 84-75 in Las Vegas. Their much-ballyhooed recruit, Nikola Kusturica, had a quiet first night, but he was plenty loud while lighting up North Florida for 29 points on Friday. As you will no doubt hear eleventy jillion times the next few months, Kusturica is too young to enter the draft, so we could be looking at a really fun two years for him in Westwood. The Bruins have a pretty soft nonconference schedule so they could rise up the rankings while other teams lose.
• I still think Arizona is a good team, but the Wildcats’ loss to UCLA underscored just how important it is that they get fifth-year senior R.J. Godfrey eligible. The Clemson transfer would go a long way towards helping Arizona with its lack of physicality in the paint alongside Mo Krivas. Godfrey is trying every which way to get on the court, including a recent lawsuit where he names Arizona’s Board of Regents as the defendant. This is one case where the school wouldn’t mind losing, but for the time being I’m not optimistic that Godfrey will play for the Wildcats this season.
• I wasn’t able to move St. John’s up more than one spot because very few ranked teams lost last week, but keep in mind that they did not have Quinn Ellis when I did my last rankings. Ellis is a 6-foot-5 senior from England who at the time was still awaiting clearance from the NCAA. Now that he got it, it’s apparent that he is one of the best point guards in the country. He has 18 assists and 2 turnovers in the Red Storm’s first two games. This team does not have many challenging nonconference games aside from Arizona (home) and Alabama (in Birmingham) next month.
• Vanderbilt looked dominant while eviscerating Wake Forest on Thursday. Last year the Commodores were consistently high in the computer rankings, and they are No. 7 on KenPom. That bodes well for their future, but we’ll find out more when they host Memphis on Tuesday.
• Speaking of Memphis, the Tigers entered my top 25 by virtue of their slim wins over Iowa State in South Dakota and VCU at home. This is a huge week for Penny Hardaway’s squad as they play at Vanderbilt on Tuesday and host Louisville on Sunday. But this program had bad vibes coming into the season, so to get off to a good start like this is exactly what the Tigers needed.
• Gonzaga got a nice opening night win over Purdue but the bloom came off when the Boilermakers were upset by Valparaiso in double overtime at home. The Bulldogs have two fifth-year seniors who got eligible in Xaivian Lee and Javon Bennett, but they are still trying to get Chauncey Wiggins cleared. Their next game is Saturday at home against LSU.
• BYU also entered my rankings after knocking off Ohio State last Monday. The Cougars got 35 points in that one from point guard Robert Wright III. The Cougars will compete in the Maui Invitational over Thanksgiving but otherwise have a pretty quiet stretch until Big 12 play starts in January.
• I probably overreacted by dropping Iowa State and Ohio State out of my rankings based on those losses, but now that we finally have on-court evidence of where everyone stands, it’s hard to rank teams ahead of squads they lost to on neutral courts. There will be plenty of opportunity for me to overreact again and re-enter the team in the rankings as we get more data.
Meet your guide
