Tennessee may currently be ranked No. 1 in the AP college basketball poll but that doesn’t mean everyone is ready to buy into Rick Barnes’ team as being the best in the nation.

You can count ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas among those holding off that lofty praise for the 17-1 team from Rocky Top. While Bilas does have Tennessee in his current top 3, he believes Virginia is the nation’s best team at the moment. However, he added that he believes six teams have separated themselves from the pack and mentions Tennessee being among those teams.

Bilas was a recent guest on ESPN show “Get Up!” and had this to say when asked if Tennessee was the nation’s best team.

“I think they are in a group of six teams with Duke, Virginia, Gonzaga, Michigan, and Michigan State, that can make that claim for No. 1,” Bilas answered. “If this were football and you only played 12 games and you had a week to prepare for each game, maybe we could pronounce who was the best team. But all these teams are beatable and all of them will be beaten. I don’t think this is a year where we have one team that stands out above the rest at midseason. We have six teams that are in that mix to be the best team in the end.”

If you are curious how Bilas currently ranks the nation’s best teams, here is a look at his top 10, which he published on ESPN.com Thursday:

  1. Virginia
  2. Duke
  3. Tennessee
  4. Michigan State
  5. Michigan
  6. Gonzaga
  7. Kentucky
  8. UNC
  9. Buffalo
  10. Nevada