2015 college basketball power rankings: Kentucky is king, but Virginia watches the throne

Two events have significantly shaken up the order of these power rankings — and both have to do with my inability to get them up on the last two Mondays.

See, had I written about college basketball last Monday, with Kentucky coming off consecutive overtime games against middling SEC teams, I would’ve ranked Virginia No. 1. Writing about it today, I can’t in good conscience rank any team ahead of a team that just obliterated each its last two foes by more than four-tenths of a point per possession.

Kentucky is best when its defense is absurd and its offense is fantastic, and we saw that against Missouri, in the most lopsided win of the Wildcats’ year. But its defense is practically absurd as a baseline: This team is currently the best per-possession defense in the KenPom era by about 0.04 PPP, which doesn’t sound like much, but is practically a standard deviation.

When these ‘Cats make shots, other teams will need to be unfathomably hot to beat them. That’s the bottom line.

Record: 17-0, 5-0 ACC
Last Week: Beat Clemson and Boston College
Best Wins: N.C. State, Harvard (home), Maryland, VCU, Notre Dame (away)
Losses: Just opponents’ will to win.

The reason I was going to put Virginia ahead of Kentucky last week was balance. At the outset of the week, the Cavaliers were in the top 10 in both KenPom adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency (and No. 1 overall), and, as I said repeatedly last year, of the 19 teams that have been among the nation’s 10 best at both ends of the floor at the end of the year, seven celebrated to “One Shining Moment.”

Kentucky’s offensive explosion last week got the ‘Cats into the top 10 in offense, and their No. 1 defense is so good that even a top-20 offense might keep them on top of KenPom from here on in. But Virginia’s balance isn’t going away: The Cavs are the nation’s only team in the top five of both offense and defense.

And top-five, both-ends teams have gone 2-for-4 on winning titles in the KenPom era: 2001-02 and 2003-04 Duke both lost to championship game participants, and 2008-09 Kansas and 2012-13 Louisville won it all.

Record: 18-1, 7-0 West Coast
Last Week: Survived Pepperdine, popped Loyola Marymount
Best Wins: SMU (home), Georgia (neutral), St. John’s, BYU, UCLA (road)
Losses: Arizona (road)

Record: 16-2, 4-2 ACC
Last Week: Caned by Miami, clipped Louisville
Last Night: Plugged Pittsburgh
Best Wins: Michigan State, UConn, Stanford (neutral), Wisconsin, Louisville (away)
Losses: N.C. State (away), Miami (home)

Record: 16-2, 4-1 Big Ten
Last Week: Shucked Nebraska
Best Wins: Oklahoma, Georgetown (neutral)
Losses: Duke (home), Rutgers (away)

Record: 17-2, 4-2 Big East
Last Week: Beat Xavier and Penn
Last Night: Um. Welp.
Best Wins: Butler (home), VCU (neutral)
Losses: Seton Hall, Georgetown (away)

Record: 17-2, 5-1 ACC
Last Week: Swatted Georgia Tech and Miami
Best Wins: Michigan State (home), North Carolina (away)
Losses: Virginia (home), Providence (neutral)

If this seems like an inordinately large group of teams to write up as one, and a convenient way to not write individual team writeups, a) it is, b) that’s because all five of these teams have top-10 offenses and defenses outside the top 30, and c) no, I don’t think Notre Dame is actually the No. 7 team in the country (more like No. 9 or 10), but humor me.

But this is a year in which there is one unquestionably great team, and maybe two, and every other team appears to have significant flaws. And given that the teams on the other side of the coin from these offense-over-defense clubs have been slightly worse this year than these teams are, I’m OK with creating the Pop-a-Shot Posse and ranking it over the Pack-it-In Pack. For now, anyway.

Also, the other event mentioned above mattered here: Villanova would’ve been my No. 3 until last night, then they got blasted by Georgetown.

Record: 16-2, 4-1 Pac-12
Last Week: Buffaloed Colorado and Utah
Best Wins: Gonzaga (home), San Diego State (neutral)
Losses: UNLV, Oregon State (road)

Record: 14-3, 4-1 Pac-12
Last Week: Thumped Arizona State, thumped by Arizona
Best Wins: Wichita State (home), BYU (road)
Losses: Kansas (“neutral”), Arizona, San Diego State (away)

Hi, Pack-it-In Posse.

Arizona and Utah both boast top-10 defenses and offenses on the fringe of the top 20, and Arizona just smacked Utah by 18 at home, so the Wildcats get the edge here. But their profiles are eerily similar: Arizona had one really good win (at home against Gonzaga in overtime) before last weekend, and Utah has one really good win (at home against Wichita State in overtime) all year.

The rest of their schedules are littered with lopsided wins over lesser competition, with decent wins (Arizona beat San Diego State in a Thanksgiving tournament; Utah beat BYU on the road) few and far between, and weird losses (Arizona at UNLV and Oregon State; Utah at San Diego State in a storm of turnovers) not helping their causes.

Those largely unimpressive résumés, and the lack of great teams west of the Rockies this year, spells significant trouble come Selection Sunday -- I wish I could bet on one of these two teams getting shafted to, like, the No. 3 seed in the East, because Gonzaga’s taking the No. 1 seed in the West and the rest of the regions are going to be stuffed with ACC and Big 12 schools up top. I think these teams’ relative lack of offense is what might be painful come tourney time, though: It’s exceedingly unlikely that a team will cruise through March without any challenger getting hot, and being iffy on offense means lying on the mat after combinations rather than absorbing them.

Record: 14-4, 4-1 ACC
Last Week: Rallied in Raleigh at N.C. State, stuffed Virginia Tech
Best Wins: Louisville (home), Ohio State, Florida, Davidson (neutral)
Losses: Iowa, Notre Dame (home), Butler (neutral), Kentucky (away)

The polls don’t like the Tar Heels because they have four losses, and because those losses have been well-spaced, depriving Roy Williams’s team of imaginary momentum or narrative inertia or something.

OK, fine.

But UNC has lost those four games to teams in the KenPom top 40. Two of the L’s came in games decided by five points or fewer. One came in the Bahamas, and a day before Thanksgiving, in a bizarrely listless performance (even by Williams-at-UNC standards) that still only earned them an eight-point defeat, and against a Butler team that is good, but has been roughed up by its rugged schedule since surprising most of the college basketball pundit class that day. And one happened at Rupp, where only Mississippi has finished within single digits of Kentucky this year.

UNC’s one of four teams nationally in the top 20 of both offensive and defensive efficiency, and the other three are Nos. 1, 2, and 8 in this week’s rankings. Look past the four and see the good team, please.

Record: 17-2, 5-1 Big Ten
Last Week: Reddened Rutgers and Michigan State
Best Wins: Iowa State (neutral), Michigan State (home and away), Oklahoma State (away)
Losses: Virginia (home), Illinois (away)

Trimble had just three turnovers in 34 minutes against Michigan State, and hasn’t had more than three in a game since 2015 began, but his assist-to-turnover ratio is just 1.4:1 in that stretch. (I’d argue that his supporting cast is better than Kemba’s was, too, so I would expect more assists from Trimble.) He’s got a little ways to go before he is truly Kemba 2.0.

But being Melo 2.0 -- a freshman who becomes the fulcrum for a talented team that needed one to get over the jump -- might be good enough for a really, really good year for Maryland.

Record: XX-Y
Last Week: A lot of stuff
Last Night: THAT GAME THO
Best Wins: This is a conference!
Losses: Texas Tech has a lot of those!

Here is probably the only thing we can take for certain from that insane game at Allen Fieldhouse last night: The Big 12 is going to be a riotous crapshoot this year.

There’s no obvious best team. Kansas got its spine snapped against Kentucky earlier this year, got mopped up at Temple in late December, and just couldn’t quite hang with Iowa State’s Hilton Magic over the weekend. But Iowa State lost at Baylor, and to South Carolina. And Baylor is 2-3 in conference, and lost to Oklahoma (3-3 in conference), the best team in the league per efficiency numbers. Also, Texas and West Virginia exist, as does Oklahoma State, which sits at No. 24 in KenPom, and with a projected 9-9 record in conference play.

Seven Big 12 teams are in the KenPom top 25, and none is higher than No. 10 Oklahoma. It will be gloriously bumpy and brutal in this league this year. And I have no idea who will win out.

Record: 15-3, 5-0 Atlantic 10
Last Week: Rammed Rhode Island, Duquense
Best Wins: Northern Iowa, Davidson (home), Cincinnati (away)
Losses: Virginia (home), Villanova (neutral), Old Dominion (away)

Remember that VCU team that pressed and pressed and pressed its way to the Final Four? This one is better. And it might be Shaka Smart’s best team yet.

See, one of the best-kept secrets about Smart and VCU is that the 2010-11 Rams were actually more hot than good. VCU had been 5-6 in February and March heading into that NCAA tournament, then just unleashed a press and two weeks of hot shooting on the field and stormed to San Antonio. Every VCU team since then has ranked higher in the final KenPom rankings than those Rams did, and this year’s version, currently No. 19, is threatening to overtake last year’s No. 17 team as the best team per KenPom of the Smart era.

And as this week’s theme goes, balance is the key: This team is Smart’s first one with a decent shot at being in the top 40 in both offense and defense, and marries the turnover-churning HAVOC system that has led the nation in defensive turnover rate over the last three seasons with the shooting that fueled the 2011 Final Four run.

Record: 16-2, 6-0 Missouri Valley
Last Week: Thumped Arizona State, thumped by Arizona
Best Wins: Seton Hall (home), Alabama (away)
Losses: George Washington (neutral), Utah (away)

You probably thought this Cinderella was long gone, too.

And Wichita State’s losses are among the most “Oh, right, duh” losses of any team that hasn’t lost to Kentucky or Virginia this year: The Shockers lost at Utah by a point in overtime, and lost to George Washington in Hawaii on Christmas 48 hours after being taken to overtime by Hawaii on the same court. If they run the table in the Missouri Valley again, which is very, very doable if they win at Northern Iowa, the Shockers could earn their own high seed.

The Other Four Big 12 Teams deserve spots here ... Northern Iowa feels just about right at No. 20, where it sits in both KenPom and the AP Poll ... Louisville has badly no-showed two of its three big games this year, and is a more dramatic version of the Arizona/Utah archetype (and its best wins are over inconsistent Ohio State and Indiana squads) ... Dayton will almost certainly deserve a write-up in the top 16 at some point ... Indiana is the more dramatic version of the offense-only teams ... Either Butler is really good and just inconsistent, or its schedule is harder than we all think. ... San Diego State is just trying to win games without playing offense at this point.