OK, so it wasn’t, like, the most scintillating of opening weeks for college basketball, but we’ve got plenty to chew on this week. And that will only serve as an appetizer for the feast that’s coming our way over Thanksgiving. Needless to say, there weren’t a whole lot of changes to make to my preseason top 25, but there were a few losses that shook up the bottom tier. I’ll be publishing my AP ballot with explainers every Monday throughout the season. You can see below where things ended up after Week 1. Meet ya in the comments section, everyone. Please be kind!
| Ranking | Team | Last week |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | |
2 | 2 | |
3 | 3 | |
4 | 4 | |
5 | 5 | |
6 | 6 | |
7 | 7 | |
8 | 8 | |
9 | 9 | |
10 | 10 | |
11 | 11 | |
12 | 12 | |
13 | 13 | |
14 | 15 | |
15 | 16 | |
16 | 19 | |
17 | 20 | |
18 | 21 | |
19 | 22 | |
20 | 23 | |
21 | 24 | |
22 | 25 | |
23 | NR | |
24 | NR | |
25 | NR |
Dropped out: Oregon (14), Tennessee (16), Villanova (18)
Almost famous: Florida, Illinois, Miami, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, UAB, UConn, Virginia Tech, Xavier
Notes on the votes
• I was able to watch video of almost all the teams in my top 25, and I have to say that based on the eye test alone, Houston could very well be the best of the bunch. Northern Colorado and Saint Joseph’s are not great teams by any means, but they’re ranked No. 209 and No. 175 on KenPom, respectively, so they’re not awful. Yet, the Cougars made them look like JV squads. The most compelling thing about Houston is that 6-2 senior guard Marcus Sasser looks like he has returned to form after missing the final three months of last season with a toe injury. He was 4 of 8 from 3 against Northern Colorado, and many of those makes came from deep range. That will stretch the defense and open up a lot of lanes for Houston’s vaunted offensive rebounding. Speaking of which, freshman forward Jarace Walker looks as good as advertised. He had 23 points against Saint Joseph’s and grabbed 20 rebounds (nine offensive) in the two wins. Throw in the veteran point guard Jamal Shead, the Glue Guy turned leading scorer J’Wan Roberts, and the defense-and-rebounding-first culture instilled by Kelvin Sampson, and you have a perfect template for winning in March. Color me impressed — so far.
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• As for the top of the poll, I am holding open to the possibility that someone else will be ranked No. 1 even if North Carolina doesn’t lose. Apparently, Hubert Davis doesn’t have quite the same masochistic tendencies as Roy Williams did when it comes to scheduling, because the Tar Heels will play two more easy home games this week before heading to Portland for the Phil Knight Invitational. Meanwhile, Mark Few’s Zags will play at Texas on Wednesday and against Kentucky in Spokane on Sunday. If they win both those games, don’t be surprised to see them vault to my top spot next week. Gonzaga is also going to Portland for the Phil Knight Legacy, the other eight-team tournament going on in that city, so a lot is going to shake out over the next two weeks.
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• The best part about UCLA’s 2-0 start is that the Bruins didn’t need heavy contributions from their freshmen. One of those recruits, 6-10 forward Adem Bona, didn’t play the first game because he was serving an NCAA suspension. He and 6-5 guard Amari Bailey will only get better, but in the meantime it’s hard to imagine a guy having a better opening week than Jaylen Clark. The 6-5 junior guard battled injuries last season, but now he’s emerging as arguably the best two-way player in America. Clark snared 11 steals in wins over Sacramento State and Long Beach State — one-third of his total from all last season — and he is leading the Bruins in scoring at 16.5 points per game. UCLA heads to Las Vegas this weekend to play Illinois and then Baylor or Virginia in its second game.
• Given all the light scheduling, I felt the three ranked teams that lost should drop out. Two of them have significant injury issues. Oregon will be without 6-4 senior guard Jermaine Couisnard, a transfer from South Carolina and projected starter, for a while because he recently underwent knee surgery. Brennan Rigsby, a juco transfer, also sat out the Ducks’ loss at home to UC Irvine on Friday. Still, that was some hurtin’ the Anteaters put on Oregon. UC Irvine raced out to a 27-point lead and coasted to win by 13.
Villanova also started the season without 6-4 senior guard Justin Moore (Achilles tendon) and 6-7 freshman forward Cam Whitmore (thumb), but even so it was pretty shocking to see the Wildcats lose to a Temple squad that was coming off a home loss to Wagner. Moore has a couple of months to go before he will come back, but Villanova is hoping Whitmore will return by early December at the latest.
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Tennessee lost in Nashville on Sunday to a Colorado squad that had lost its previous game at Grambling State. Starting center Uros Plavsic went out in the first half with an ankle injury and didn’t return, but that’s not the reason the Volunteers lost. Rather, it was because of a truly horrendous offensive performance in which Tennessee made just 26.4 percent of its shots and went 10 of 37 from 3-point range. The loss was quite a surprise given that the Vols looked dominant in their opener against Tennessee Tech and beat Gonzaga by 19 points in their scrimmage on Oct. 29. Tennessee has just one game this week — at home against Florida Gulf Coast (which won at USC) — so I’m guessing this group will be spending a lot of time in practice getting shots up.
• With three spots open for new teams, Virginia was a pretty easy choice at No. 23. The Cavaliers are ranked No. 5 at KenPom.com, and this looks like it could be a vintage Tony Bennett team. Virginia returns all five starters from last season, and 6-4 freshman guard Isaac McKneely scored 18 points in 51 minutes across his first two games. The road is about to get a lot tougher for the Cavs, as seven of their next nine games are against top-100 KenPom teams. That includes this weekend in Las Vegas, where they will play Baylor and then either Illinois or UCLA.
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• As you can see, I’m going in hard on Saint Louis. The biggest question for the Billikens was how well senior guard Javonte Perkins would play after he missed all of last season with a torn ACL. Perkins answered that emphatically by averaging 18.0 points on 50 percent 3-point shooting during wins over Murray State and Evansville. Perkins and 6-5 sophomore Gibson Jimerson are lethal floor spacers, and they have the great fortune to be playing alongside one of the country’s preeminent table setters, junior point guard Yuri Collins. He had 27 assists in the team’s first two games. Saint Louis plays Memphis and Maryland this week, and then travels to Auburn on Nov. 27. So the Billikens have plenty of chances to prove themselves worthy of my confidence.
• Since there was no obvious choice for No. 25, I looked for a mid-major team to fill that slot and decided it would be the winner of Sunday night’s Saint Mary’s-North Texas game. I thought it would be a close contest, but the Gaels sprinted out to a 31-4 lead and never looked back. They also beat two solid mid-majors in Oral Roberts and Vermont. Randy Bennett lost three of his top five scorers from the team that reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament, but this program long ago proved its ability to reload, and it looks like the Gaels have done just that.
(Top photo of Houston’s Jarace Walker: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)