College basketball power rankings: USC No. 2, Duke breaks into the top five, Arizona still in the top 10
Two teams join the fold this week, both from the SEC: Tennessee and Kentucky
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8 min read
College basketball has lost more than 60 games in the past two weeks due to COVID postponements and cancellations, but the good news is a majority of games are still being played as scheduled for now. The next couple of weeks are destined to be rocky -- I detailed a lot of what the sport is working through in Wednesday's Court Report -- but hopefully the Christmas break won't exacerbate matters.
Most of the teams in this week's Hey Nineteen played at least one game in the past week. Some played as many as three. We are more than 90% through the nonconference inventory of college hoops' regular season, so some conference and team-by-team narratives are taking shape.
Here are the best teams as of late. Merry Christmas, readers. Stay safe, warm, and we'll see you right here again next Thursday, before we flip to 2022.
Hey Nineteen Power Rankings
Reminder: My rankings are not solely about whom I think is "best." (Our Top 25 And 1 already does that daily.) The Hey Nineteen is a weekly encapsulation of the 19 hottest, most successful and/or most interesting teams in college basketball, combining team quality with win quality but also leaving no shame for recency bias and rewarding significant winning streaks.
| 1 |  |
| Record: 11-0 | Last week: 1st. The Bears won by eight at Oregon and beat Alcorn State at home by 37 since we last spoke. The Oregon win Saturday night was impressive in how it showed Baylor can win in a slower game with high offensive efficiency on both ends. Oregon scored at a respectable 1.13 ppp clip, but Baylor got 17 points apiece from Kendall Brown and James Akinjo, plus 16 from Adam Flagler. With a win over Northwestern State on Tuesday, Baylor will finish 2021 with a 32-2 record. | |
| 2 |  |
| Record: 12-0. | Last week: 3rd. The Trojans are on COVID pause but should be back in time to play Arizona State in their Pac-12 opener a week from Thursday. KenPom.com is still dissenting with Andy Enfield's team. USC is ranked in the top 10 in both polls, sits higher here in the Hey Nineteen than anywhere else, but KenPom.com ranks this team No. 21 more than one-third of the way through the season. | |
| 3 |  |
| Record: 12-0 | Last week: 4th. Will Wade's team is one of the five undefeateds left that you see, and now it ranks No. 1 in defensive efficiency (84.3 points per 100 possessions at KenPom. I continue to be amazed at how teams shoot almost half their shots from 3-point range against LSU (it's one of the highest rates in the country) and the bombs-away effect continues to backfire, as LSU is holding opponents to 54.1 points per game. | |
| 4 |  |
| Record: 12-0 | Last week: 6th. The Cyclones are guaranteed to finish November and December undefeated, as ISU's last game of 2021 came Tuesday night against Chicago State (79-48). The Cyclones get to count their sleeps and anxiously prep for the biggest home game in years: undefeated Baylor comes to town Jan. 1. | |
| 5 |  |
| Record: 11-1. Last week: 7th. The lone ranked team in the ACC is looking like it will be a tier above all others in that league. Duke overcame its first halftime deficit of the season to win 76-65 over Virginia Tech on Wednesday night. Freshman A.J. Griffin has found his place and it's unlocking another level for this team. Paolo Banchero had a pedestrian-like 23 and 8. | |
| 6 |  |
| Record: 10-0 | Last week: 5th. The Rams are on COVID pause due to a slew of vaccinated players testing positive, which also includes coach Niko Medved. Because of this, CSU lost its chance to play Alabama on Tuesday; the Tide wound up losing to Davidson, which it scheduled because Davidson lost its game to Loyola Chicago due to COVID. Sliding doors stuff, but ultimately Colorado State could be helped by this because it's still undefeated and it scheduled the game – no loss opportunity. I dunno, this might be a weird net positive for the team in the long run. | |
| 7 |  |
| Record: 11-1 | Last week: 9th. Purdue beat Butler on Saturday, then faced Incarnate Word on Monday in a game that sort of amazingly only wound up being a 20-point win for Purdue. The Boilers were No. 3 at KenPom, Incarnate Word 354th at the time of the game, making it the largest disparity between team rankings we'll see this season. | |
| 8 |  |
| Record: 11-1 | Last week: 2nd. Every Arizona fan was taking an 11-1 nonconference record in Tommy Lloyd's first season (and in every Lloyd season going forward). Just so happens the first loss came Wednesday night at Tennessee. Bennedict Mathurin fouled out but scored 28 points. I didn't have him on my top 10 of national player of the year candidates last week, but I'd put him there now for sure. Arizona rests up before playing at UCLA on Dec. 30. | |
| 9 |  |
| Record: 10-2 | Last week: 10th. Mark Few told me nine days ago he was trying to schedule another opponent, but so far that hasn't come to be. At least Gonzaga got its scheduled game in against Texas Tech over the weekend, winning 69-55 and ensuring GU will have a shot at a No. 1 seed going forward. How good has Gonzaga been against ranked opponents? Beating No. 25 TTU means GU has won 73% of its games vs. ranked teams since March 2016, a 24-9 mark in that span and a 12-3 record in the team's last 15 games vs. AP Top 25 foes. | |
| 10 |  |
| Record: 8-1. Last week: 8th. Would have loved to have seen the Bruins play North Carolina in the CBS Sports Classic. After the way UNC got handled by Kentucky, is it possible UCLA would have been the more favorable matchup? Mick Cronin's team will go 19 days between games, should it play Arizona at home, as scheduled, on Dec. 30. | |
| 11 |  |
| Record: 11-1 | Last week: 11th. Providence's lone loss is getting worse. The Friars are looking good on this six-game winning streak, the most recent coming at UConn last Saturday. But a 58-40 no-show against what now is clearly a sub-par Virginia team is all the more vexing. Still, I'm a believer. This team will be in the NCAA Tournament. | |
| 12 |  |
| Record: 9-1. Last week: 13th. Bill Self never schedules scared. He lost a road opportunity at Colorado this week when the Buffs had players turn in positive COVID tests Tuesday morning. Kansas will be in a league good enough that it won't hurt their résumé, but I think Tad Boyle's team would have made it close. | |
| 13 |  |
| Record: 11-1. Last week: 16th. On Tuesday it was announced, again, that Bob Huggins is among the finalists in consideration for induction to the Naismith Hall of Fame. Mark me down as 2022 being the year. He's been close a lot, but WVU is going to be good enough and relevant enough that Huggins will be in the every-week conversation with the sport to nudge him over the edge. He deserves it. | |
| 14 |  |
| Record: 11-1 | Last week: 18th. The Tigers earned two top-80 KenPom wins in recent days, winning a really tough one at Saint Louis on Saturday, followed by Wednesday night's 71-58 W over Murray State. The big news is Allen Flanigan's soft return after offseason Achilles surgery. Flanigan, one of the best players in the SEC last season, played 12 minutes. | |
| 15 |  |
| Record: 9-2 | Last week: N/R. The Volunteers looked as eager on Wednesday night as I hoped they'd be. After not getting to play Memphis on Saturday and losing that game 70 minutes before tip, UT came out flexing and held Arizona to just 21 points in the first half. Tennessee showed well, even if you want to bemoan the whistle that benefitted the Vols. John Fulkerson had one of the best games of his career (24 points, 10 rebounds) on a good night for the SEC. | |
| 16 |  |
| Record: 9-1. Last week: 15th. The Pirates were on, according to my notes, the shortest pause of the season. They earned, then lost, their forfeit win over DePaul – but also lost the forfeit loss to St. John's. The Big East, like many other leagues, has decided to eradicate its forfeit policy. Now the Providence Friars await SHU for a nice league tilt Wednesday. Kevin Willard believes "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie, so he's all good by me. | |
| 17 |  |
| Record: 10-2. Last week: 19th. The Cougars only had sophomore wing Tramon Mark for seven games this season, still, the news of Mark needing season-ending shoulder surgery is going to weaken one of the best defenses in the country. He does so many little things for UH. League play begins on Tuesday with a home date against Cincinnati. | |
| 18 |  |
| Record: 11-2 | Last week: N/R. The Western Kentucky-Kentucky game that was scheduled late after losing Louisville turned into a big event for the region ($100,000 was donated to tornado relief funds) but Oscar Tshiebwe's 28 rebounds are the story. Tshiebwe broke Shaquille O'Neal's 1990 Rupp Arena record, and it was the most boards by a Division I player since 2015. Nobody's had 30 rebounds in a game in more than four decades. I don't think Tshiebwe gets there, but I love to watch him try. | |
| 19 |  |
| Record: 12-1 | Last week: 12th. Only four teams have 12 wins and the Dons are one of them. After a 2-1 week (including a win at Arizona State), they'll hold on to the final spot here but will need to win going forward to earn their keep. USF doesn't play a game against a D-I team until Jan. 1 at Saint Mary's. Someone else will slide into the 19 spot next week, or USF will be right back here if it wins over the Gaels in eight days. | |
