After a wild week, Gonzaga is the new No. 1 in this week's Associated Press Top 25 poll released Monday.
Seven of the top 10 teams in last week's poll suffered losses and, the team that benefited the most from the madness is the Zags, who remained unbeaten with another perfect run this week over Portland, San Diego and Pepperdine. With eight games left on the regular season schedule, KenPom favors Gonzaga to win in each game. There's a solid chance Mark Few's team will go into Selection Sunday undefeated and No. 1.
Looking back on the week's action, the ACC may have been the most affected by the week's results. The conference essentially cannibalized itself with Saturday's games alone, with three of its five results coming in upset fashion.
Even after North Carolina's baffling loss to Miami, the Tar Heels are still a half-game up on the rest of the league going into Monday's action with a Duke-Notre Dame matchup on tap. It's Notre Dame -- not Duke -- who is just a game back from the ACC leader before the big Monday duel with the Blue Devils. Just like everyone predicted in the preseason, right?
Across the country, the Big 12-SEC Challenge over the weekend yielded some intriguing results that played a huge impact in the rankings. For the first time since the challenge began, the Big 12 didn't take the crown. It was a straight up tie. Going into Saturday night with the SEC holding a 5-4 lead, Kentucky, considered a favorite over Kansas, fell 79-73 behind Josh Jackson's 20-point night in Rupp Arena. Now on a two-game skid, the Wildcats drop four spots to No. 8 and as Gary Parrish noted, could have cost themselves a No. 1 seed.
AP Top 25
The top 25 teams in The Associated Press' college basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Jan. 29, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote and last week's ranking:
| Record | Points | Previous | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Gonzaga (46) | 22-0 | 1594 | 3 |
| 2. Baylor (6) | 20-1 | 1504 | 5 |
| 3. Kansas (9) | 19-2 | 1503 | 2 |
| 4. Villanova (4) | 20-2 | 1479 | 1 |
| 5. Arizona | 20-2 | 1387 | 7 |
| 6. Louisville | 18-4 | 1237 | 13 |
| 7. West Virginia | 17-4 | 1101 | 18 |
| 8. Kentucky | 17-4 | 1083 | 4 |
| 9. Virginia | 16-4 | 1061 | 12 |
| 10. Wisconsin | 18-3 | 1058 | 15 |
| 11. UCLA | 19-3 | 993 | 8 |
| 12. North Carolina | 19-4 | 965 | 9 |
| 13. Oregon | 19-3 | 863 | 10 |
| 14. Cincinnati | 19-2 | 756 | 19 |
| 15. Florida State | 18-4 | 727 | 6 |
| 16. Butler | 18-4 | 717 | 11 |
| 17. Maryland | 19-2 | 518 | 22 |
| 18. Saint Mary's | 19-2 | 409 | 21 |
| 19. South Carolina | 17-4 | 384 | 23 |
| 20. Notre Dame | 17-5 | 363 | 14 |
| 21. Duke | 16-5 | 339 | 17 |
| 22. Creighton | 19-3 | 307 | 16 |
| 23. Purdue | 17-5 | 264 | 20 |
| 24. Florida | 16-5 | 213 | 25 |
| 25. Northwestern | 18-4 | 106 | - |
Others receiving votes: SMU 69, Xavier 67, Southern Cal 29, Wichita State 8, Akron 5, Middle Tennessee 5, VCU 3, Illinois State 2, New Mexico State 2, Virginia Tech 2, Iowa State 1, Utah 1.