College Basketball AP Top 25: Alabama, Kentucky drop in new poll after losses
Published:
The college basketball season ramped up last week with multiple big-time non-conference matchups. Unfortunately, some of the SEC’s projected best teams — Kentucky (96-88 at Louisville) and Alabama (87-80 versus Purdue) — picked up their first loss of the year in those battles. They weren’t severely punished in the AP poll for those results, though.
In Monday’s Week 3 AP poll, both Alabama (No. 11) and Kentucky (No. 12) slipped 3 spots from their Week 2 placement. This movement leaves Florida (No. 10) as the SEC’s highest-ranked basketball team in mid-November.
Overall, there are 6 SEC teams in this week’s AP poll. A seventh squad (Vanderbilt) would be ranked No. 28 in the country — based on the “others receiving votes” points — if the poll included that many schools.
- Purdue
- Houston
- UConn
- Arizona
- Duke
- Louisville
- Michigan
- Illinois
- BYU
- Florida
- Alabama
- Kentucky
- Gonzaga
- St. John’s
- Texas Tech
- Iowa State
- Michigan State
- North Carolina
- UCLA
- Tennessee
- Arkansas
- Auburn
- Wisconsin
- Kansas
- NC State
Tennessee is the lone undefeated SEC team in the AP poll. The other ranked schools’ lone losses — Arizona, Purdue, Louisville, Michigan State and Houston, respectively — are not bad defeats by any means. However, they have left the conference lacking a marquee non-conference win. Kentucky has a chance to change that when it faces the Spartans in the Champions Classic on Tuesday evening (6:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). Alabama could do the same against Illinois on Wednesday night (9:00 p.m. ET, FS1).
