I wrote about it as recently as Monday morning -- how early in the season, every season I find myself rooting for the CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 to be disrupted as little as possible because, early in the season, every season the sample sizes are so small that teams don't have enough good wins to offset bad losses and still present strong resumes.
And now look what I'm dealing with.
Final: Evansville 67, Kentucky 64.
Congrats to Walter McCarty's Aces, obviously. But, man oh man, that'll do a number on the Top 25 And 1. I've never had a No. 1 team lose at home to an opponent ranked as low as 169th at KenPom like Evansville was when things tipped Tuesday. So that's a horrendous early loss for John Calipari's Wildcats. And, like I explained Monday morning, in the past I might've dropped the Wildcats out of the Top 25 And 1 completely, if only because no other school with a loss this bad is currently ranked. But, back when I handled things that way, it resulted in me having teams unranked that were still clearly, on paper and in the computers, among the best in the country -- and it looked silly. So my current approach is to blindly punish ranked teams by dropping them 10 spots for their first bad loss. If that removes them from the Top 25 And 1, it removes them. You get what you get. But what this approach ensures, without bias, is that schools in the top 16 of the Top 25 And 1 won't drop out completely strictly because of one uneven performance early in the season. And that's a good thing, I think, because history shows taking a bad loss early doesn't necessarily mean a team that was supposed to be good is bad.
So, all that said, Kentucky is No. 11 in Wednesday morning's updated Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. And the new No. 1 is Duke. Mike Krzyzewski's Blue Devils are 3-0 after Tuesday's 105-54 victory over Central Arkansas. Their next game is Friday against Georgia State. They won't play another currently ranked team until they visit Michigan State in early December.
Rk | Teams | Chg | Rcrd | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | Vernon Carey finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds in Tuesday's win over Central Arkansas. Matthew Hurt added 19 points and was 7-of-11 from the field. | 1 | 27-9 |
| 2 |  | Cassius Winston finished with 17 points and 11 assists in Sunday's win over Binghamton. Xavier Tillman added 17 points and eight rebounds. | 1 | 21-13 |
| 3 |  | Jordan Nwora scored 21 points and grabbed six rebounds in Sunday's win over Youngstown State. Steven Enoch added 17 points and 14 rebounds. | 1 | 4-28 |
| 4 |  | Devon Dotson finished with 22 points, eight rebounds and six assists in Friday's win over UNC Greensboro. Ochai Agbaji added 13 points, four rebounds, two assists and two steals. | 1 | 28-8 |
| 5 |  | Jalen Smith scored 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in Saturday's win over Rhode Island. The 6-10 center is averaging 17.5 points and 11.0 rebounds through two games. | 1 | 22-13 |
| 6 |  | Cole Anthony finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds in Friday's win over UNC Wilmington. He's averaging 27.0 points and 10.5 rebounds through two games. | 2 | 20-13 |
| 7 |  | Mamadi Diakite finished with 19 points and 13 rebounds in Sunday's win over James Madison. Virginia held the Dukes to 22.6% shooting from the field. | 2 | 25-8 |
| 8 |  | Corey Kispert finished with 20 points in Tuesday's win over North Dakota. He's averaging 19.3 points through three games. | 2 | 31-6 |
| 9 |  | Sandro Mamukelashvili finished with 17 points and five rebounds in Saturday's win over Stony Brook. Jared Rhoden added 11 points, two assists and two steals. | 2 | 17-16 |
| 10 |  | Jeremiah Robinson-Earl got 24 points and 13 rebounds in Tuesday's victory over Army. Saddiq Bey added 22 points. | 2 | 17-17 |
| 11 |  | The Wildcats missed 13 of the 17 3-pointers they attempted in Tuesday's loss to Evansville. Immanuel Quickley led UK with 16 points and nine rebounds. | 10 | 22-12 |
| 12 |  | TJ Holyfield scored 20 points in 24 minutes in Saturday's win over Bethune-Cookman. Davide Moretti added 13 points and five assists. | 1 | 16-16 |
| 13 |  | Shakur Juiston finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds in Tuesday's win over Memphis. Chandler Lawson added eight points off the bench. | 1 | 21-15 |
| 14 |  | The Tigers missed 19-of-23 3-point attempts in Tuesday's loss to Oregon. Lester Quinones led Memphis with 16 points and four assists. | 7 | 26-9 |
| 15 |  | Isaac Okoro finished with 15 points, six rebounds and six assists in Tuesday's win over South Alabama. Anfernee McLemore added 14 points off the bench. | -- | 21-13 |
| 16 |  | Marcus Evans scored 13 points in Friday's win over North Texas. The Rams won despite shooting just 37.0% from the field. | -- | 27-8 |
| 17 |  | Jordan Bowden scored 26 points in Tuesday's win over Murray State. Yves Pons added 19 points and four blocks. | -- | 25-11 |
| 18 |  | D.J. Carton came off of the bench and scored 13 points in Sunday's win over UMass Lowell. The Buckeyes shot 39.1 percent from 3-point range in the victory. | -- | 16-19 |
| 19 |  | The Gators shot 28.0% in Sunday's loss to Florida State. Kerry Blackshear, a preseason All-American, missed all five of his field-goal attempts. | -- | 16-17 |
| 20 |  | Nico Mannion finished with 23 points and nine assists in Sunday's win over Illinois. Josh Green added 20 points and five rebounds. | -- | 28-7 |
| 21 |  | Brock Miller scored 27 points in Tuesday's win over Denver. Justin Bean added eight points and 15 rebounds. | -- | 26-9 |
| 22 |  | Javonte Smart finished with 21 points, eight rebounds and five assists in Friday's win over Bowling Green. He was 8-of-8 from the free-throw line. | -- | 14-19 |
| 23 |  | Isaiah Stewart scored 16 points and blocked five shots in Tuesday's win over Mount St. Mary's. Nahziah Carter added 14 points. | -- | 16-16 |
| 24 |  | The Bears missed 42 of their 65 field goal attempts in Friday's loss to Washington. Tristan Clark was responsible for 11 of those misses. | -- | 23-11 |
| 25 |  | Courtney Ramey finished with 19 points and six rebounds in Tuesday's win over California Baptist. Andrew Jones added 11 points and five rebounds off the bench. | -- | 29-9 |
| 26 |  | Naji Marshall finished with 17 points and eight rebounds in Tuesday's OT win over Missouri. The Musketeers won despite going 3-of-21 from 3-point range. | -- | 27-10 |
