More than half of the AP Top 25 took at least one loss since last week, meaning this week's edition of Power Rankings have a lot of moving parts.
One thing you'll notice as you scan through this list is just how deep the upper crust of college basketball is this season. All teams have flaws, but it's becoming clearer by the week that schools which will inevitably be seeded third, fourth or fifth in the NCAA Tournament will be capable of winning four games in the big bracket.
March is always a madhouse, but this season is cresting toward something special in terms of how deep the Final Four crop is.
As a reminder with these rankings, ⤴️ means a team is higher than where it stood last week, ⤵️ indicates a drop and 🔄 means no change from last Thursday.
Hey Nineteen: Norlander's College Hoops Power Rankings
| 1 |  |
| 🔄 Last week: No. 1 Rule No. 1 of these Power Rankings: losing close on the road as a slight underdog against a national championship contender does not mean you slip from your previous week's spot. I would still take Virginia (17-1) on a neutral court, if they had to play tonight, vs. Duke. The margin is slim, but Virginia, which subsequently thumped Wake Forest on Tuesday, will hold its No. 1 claim here for the third straight week. The Wahoos still rate as No. 1 in multiple predictive metrics. | |
| 2 |  |
| ⤴️ Last week: No. 7 The Blue Devils' shorthanded home win over UVA, followed by a 79-64 victory at Pitt on Tuesday, have me giving this team the benefit of the doubt without Tre Jones around. But Duke (16-2) is far from infallible. It's not just the losses. I detailed here a glaring issue for Mike Krzyzewski's squad. | |
| 3 |  |
| 🔄 Last week: No. 3 That OT win over Vanderbilt was impressive not just because Grant Williams made all 23 of his foul shots. Tennessee, like every team, is due to have some clunkers. This wasn't exactly that, but even the best teams in college hoops are forced into close games on the road against inferior opponents. Losses happen; it's OK. UT (17-1) could have folded, but it didn't. Did it get a little help from the officials? Sure, Vandy fans have something of a case. But the better team won, and Tennessee unflappable. | |
| 4 |  |
| ⤴️ Last week: No. 5 The 17-2 Spartans are the best team in the Big Ten, have been playing like that for at least two weeks and are finally getting their due with their highest spot yet in the Power Rankings. Cassius Winston is bordering on First Team All-American status. MSU, Duke and Virginia are the only teams with top-10 offensive and defensive efficiencies at KenPom. It's not coincidence they're all in the top four here. | |
| 5 |  |
| ⤵️ Last week: No. 4 The Zags slip one spot this week through no fault of their own. Michigan State's play warranted a jump. The 18-2 Bulldogs should continue to cruise. This is the most efficient offense in college basketball, scoring 1.24 points per possession. Only one game in the upcoming week, and it's Thursday night against 11-9 Santa Clara, which has one win in its last 28 meetings vs. GU. | |
| 6 |  |
| ⤵️ Last week: No. 2 After a 1-1 week, including a fingernail escape at home over a wishy-washy Minnesota squad, the 18-1 Wolverines take a few steps back here. To John Beilein's own admission, the team is not playing that well and hasn't been for a few games. Still a top-tier team, obviously, but the foul shooting and regression for Iggy Brazdeikis are hovering concerns. | |
| 7 |  |
| ⤵️ Last week: No. 6 The Jayhawks are 6-3 since Dec. 22 with a point differential in that span of just +3.2. The Jayhawks are making a habit of winning close games, which is a positive sign, but any long-term extraction on those patterns will tell you a regression is inevitable. When will we hear if Silvio De Sousa is eligible, and if he is cleared, is that what KU needs to truly separate from the rest of the Big 12? | |
| 8 |  |
| ⤴️ Last week: No. 13 I never sold all my Kentucky (15-3) stock, and I'm glad I didn't. Tyler Herro is now playing like the shooting guard UK fans thought he would be back when he went off in the Bahamas in offseason exhibition play. It's more than just him, though. Ashton Hagans is an elite guard, Immanuel Quickley has become more of a factor and Keldon Johnson is still one of the five best freshmen in college basketball. And that's not even getting to the veterans on the team. Now Kansas rolls in on Saturday. Biggest game of the weekend. | |
| 9 |  |
| ⤴️ Last week: No. 10 The Wolf Pack (19-1) match the team below them for most wins in college hoops. On Wednesday, Eric Musselman won his 100th career game. But it's time to give Jordan Caroline his due. He's, in all truth, been one of the best 15 players across the past three seasons when you take into account his consistency and production. Caroline is averaging 18.7 points, 9.7 rebounds and shoots 43.5 percent from 3. He is tussling with Caleb Martin for team MVP, and I love how both guys are making it work. | |
| 10 |  |
| ⤴️ Last week: No. 14 This is one of the best defensive teams in college basketball and is capable of making the Final Four. I mean, do I have to start talking and writing and tweeting about this daily to get the message out? Almost everyone is sleeping on how good the 19-1 Cougars are. Galen Robinson and Corey Davis might be the best on-ball defensive backcourt in America. | |
| 11 |  |
| 🔄 Last week: No. 11 It's important to remember this is the fifth-youngest team in the country. So it loses by 14 on Monday at Michigan State which, as you can see above, I rate on another level. Still a lot of talent and plenty of upside in College Park. Not knocking the Terps (16-4) down just yet. | |
| 12 |  |
| ⤵️ Last week: No. 9 I will not bail on the Bulls. A two-point loss on the road came Tuesday night against Northern Illinois. First reflex might be to think it's a dossier dinger, but it shouldn't be. NIU ranks in the top 120 in KenPom. Guess what: that was only a Quad 2 loss. The Bulls sit at 17-2 and would comfortably be in as an at-large if the NCAAs were seeded tonight. | |
| 13 |  |
| ⤵️ Last week: No. 8 Here's how good Texas Tech's defense is: The Red Raiders (15-4) have lost three straight games by an average of 9.3 points and are still allowing fewer points per 100 possessions (82.2) than any team in college basketball. That's incredible. Arkansas on Saturday is the get-right game. | |
| 14 |  |
| ⤴️ Last week: No. 18 Villanova (15-4) has been sauntering its way back up the rankings and metrics by doing what Jay Wright told me this team would do again this season: utilize the 3 to an extreme. Nova's getting 51.8 percent of its shots from beyond the arc, which ranks No. 4 in college basketball. Fortunately, the Wildcats have been finding a groove. They're making 40 percent of their triples in Big East play. | |
| 15 |  |
| 🔄 Last week: No. 15 The Golden Eagles represent just how strong and deep the second tier of national title contenders is in college basketball. They're 15th here, yet own a 17-3 record and have one loss since Nov. 22. I feel like college basketball isn't getting enough credit this season for how deep it is. | |
| 16 |  |
| ⤴️ Last week: unranked The vacillating Tar Heels (15-4) hop back into the mix after a week away. UNC ranks No. 8 in the Massey Composite and is No. 9 in the NET. With Nassir Little having the best game of his UNC career earlier this week in the 103-82 win over ranked Virginia Tech, it's a reminder of how destructive Roy Williams' offense can be. If Little and Coby White start clicking with the vets, then yes, UNC is one of the 7-10 best teams in the sport. | |
| 17 |  |
| ⤵️ Last week: No. 12 There's no shortage of Hokie skeptics out there. Buzz Williams' team has a healthy 15-3 record, yet it's 4-3 against the seven toughest opponents it's faced and now has two 20-plus-point defeats at Virginia and UNC. Penn State is 7-12, and it beat VT, too. Still, I maintain this is one of the five best teams in the ACC and will land as such come March. | |
| 18 |  |
| ⤴️ Last week: unranked Bruce Weber's 15-4 Wildcats have looked top-10 good over the past two weeks. Welcome them to the Power Rankings. They're here because Dean Wade is healthy and his return to the lineup has sparked an uptick in defense. K-State's been a bell curve this season: it started the year No. 15 in KenPom, dipped all the way to 50th, and is now at 35 and climbing. | |
| 19 |  |
| ⤴️ Last week: unranked Another team making its Power Rankings debut. LSU (15-3) has one loss in the last 60 days. It came by six on the road at Houston, which you see has been earning its due here for weeks. Until this season, the Bayou Bengals had won 15 of their first 18 games only twice in the past 38 years (1999-00 and 2008-09). | |
Dropped out: Iowa State, Oklahoma, Auburn.
