2015 college basketball power rankings: Kentucky is No. 1, a boulder rolling downhill

Record: 24-0, 11-0 SEC
Last Week: Put down Georgia, wore down Florida
Last Night: Edged LSU, 71-69
Best Wins: North Carolina, Texas (home), Kansas (neutral), Louisville (road)

Kentucky now has better than a 50-50 chance of finishing the regular season undefeated — if you trust KenPom and probability, anyway. KenPom gives the Wildcats at least an 83-percent chance of winning each of their final seven games, and a 61.9-percent chance of an unbeaten record. This last four-day stretch, with back-to-back road games at talented Florida and LSU teams whose inconsistencies this year prevented either squad from rising up to threaten mighty Big Blue, was always going to be Kentucky’s hardest stretch in conference play, and now it’s over, with wins in the book.

And there’s nothing to suggest that Kentucky is going to really be challenged in this SEC going forward, even beyond advanced stats that make this team out to be one of the greatest defenses in modern college basketball, and a great offense to boot. The three road games left are at Tennessee (which just lost to lowly Mississippi State on Rocky Top), lowly Mississippi State, and Georgia, and though that Georgia game is certainly the trickiest date left for the ‘Cats, it’s not like Stegeman Magic is Hilton Magic. Kentucky’s home games are all either revenge games — against South Carolina, Arkansas, and Florida, vanquishers of last year’s Wildcats — or against Auburn.

We can say, at this point, that Kentucky should go undefeated until the postseason, not just that it might, and that it seems more likely than not. (Add the SEC Tournament, and Kentucky’s chances of making it to the Big Dance blemish-less are probably only slightly worse than a coin flip.) And though it’s only been a year since the last undefeated NCAA Tournament participant, we should remember to praise these ‘Cats for what they’ve done even before the madness descends.

Record: 24-1, 12-0 West Coast
Last Week: Broke Santa Clara, shed San Francisco
Best Wins: SMU (home), Georgia (neutral), St. John’s, BYU, UCLA (road)
Losses: Arizona (road)

Since Virginia’s taken a half-step back after running up against the teeth of a beastly ACC, it’s been fair to wonder which team is No. 2 behind Kentucky this season. One way to evaluate the contenders might be the “Can They Beat Kentucky? Test.” I think Gonzaga might pass it.

To beat the ‘Cats, you’re going to need bigs who can at least prevent allowing Kentucky’s tree lines to dominate, as LSU’s Jarell Martin and Jordan Mickey did, and Gonzaga has those in Prezemek Karnowski and Domantas Sabonis, two of the best bigs on the offensive end in the country. It would help to have shooters, like Florida’s Michael Frazier II or Mississippi’s Stefan Moody, who can get hot and pressure the Wildcats from the arc, and both Kevin Pangos and erstwhile Wildcat Kyle Wiltjer are certainly capable of that. It probably requires not losing the game at the line against Kentucky’s cadre of foul magnets, and Gonzaga’s 80th in free throw rate allowed — not great, but certainly passable.

Compare ‘Zaga to the other contenders, too, and it’s tough to say another team is as well-equipped as this bunch of Bulldogs. And they’re just going to keep winning in the West Coast Conference, probably, and steam along to a No. 2 seed in the West that makes them terrifying for whatever team ends up No. 1 out there.

If Gonzaga’s once-and-for-all shattering of its own glass slipper comes at the expense of the ultimate belle of the ball, it’ll be hysterical.

Record: 21-1, 10-1 ACC
Last Week: Heeled North Carolina, carded Louisville
Best Wins: N.C. State, Harvard (home), Maryland, VCU, Notre Dame (road)
Losses: Duke (home)

Record: 22-2, 10-1 Big Ten
Last Week: Shelled Indiana, declawed Northwestern
Last Night: Husked Nebraska
Best Wins: Iowa (home), Oklahoma, Georgetown (neutral)
Losses: Duke (home), Rutgers (road)

Record: 21-3, 8-3 ACC
Last Week: Stung Georgia Tech, preyed on Notre Dame
Monday Night: Escaped Florida State, 73-70
Best Wins: Michigan State, UConn, Stanford (neutral), Wisconsin, Louisville (road)
Losses: N.C. State (road), Miami (home)

Virginia’s been the nation’s second-best team behind Kentucky since practically the opening tip of the season, and there’s no question about that. But these are power rankings, and Virginia just lost its most important offensive player, Justin Anderson, for at least a month. And Virginia lost to Duke with him.

So why is Virginia ahead of both Wisconsin and Duke here — and why is Wisconsin ahead of Duke? Consistency.

Kentucky’s slid ahead of Virginia in offensive efficiency, and joined the Cavaliers in The Top Ten at Both Ends Club — but the key word there is “joined.” Virginia’s probably going to slide out of the top 10 in offensive efficiency without Anderson, at least temporarily, but this team is, at its peak, an elite one for all 88 feet of the court.

Wisconsin and Duke have no hope of having top-10 defenses, on the other hand, and that’s hurt both teams. Wisconsin got lit up team by an inferior just the once, though, at Rutgers, and while Duke did immolate the Badgers in the Kohl Center, it also went down in flames at N.C. State and against Miami and in Raleigh. And Duke’s problem — perimeter defense — is both simple and a bit insoluble, the sort of thing that becomes fatal in March.

Duke has moments, like its Saturday annihilation of Notre Dame, when it looks better than any other team in the country, Kentucky included — but it prefaces them or follows them with things like a close-for-no-good-reason win at Florida State. Wisconsin has fewer such moments, but fewer puzzling struggles. Virginia’s just really, really good. And being able to point to consistent really, really good-ness — like consecutive wins over North Carolina and Louisville, say — is better than having to hoping for six straight great moments when it comes to picking a horse for the NCAA Tournament.

Record: 20-3, 8-2 Pac-12
Last Week: Got vengeance on Oregon State, shocked by Arizona State
Best Wins: Gonzaga (home), San Diego State (neutral), Stanford (road)
Losses: UNLV, Oregon State, Arizona State (road)

Arizona’s defense used to be its Achilles’ heel under Sean Miller. Prior to 2013-14, Arizona had gone 10-23 under Miller when allowing at least 1.10 points per possession — and 33 such games over four seasons is kind of a lot, especially for a program that aspires to be elite.

The last two years have brought a turnaround: Arizona had the nation’s top defense in 2013-14, and has the No. 7 one right now. Arizona allowed 1.10 PPP just twice last year, and has done so twice this season — most recently in its weekend loss to Arizona State — and has gone 3-1 in those games. It’s not the defense’s problem, mostly, if Arizona’s struggling or goes down, and we can be more comfortable thinking of a game like that Arizona State one (or its loss to Oregon State earlier this year, in which the Beavers scored 1.06 PPP) as an outlier.

And so we have to turn to things like Arizona’s propensity for offensive brownouts for worries. Against the Sun Devils, Arizona recorded its seventh effective field goal percentage under 50 percent this year, and fell to 3-4 when under that threshold, and additionally recorded just a 19.7 percent free throw rate — a bad number for the team ranked No. 11 nationally in the stat, or one that gets almost a quarter of its points at the line and doesn’t convert free throws efficiently thanks to its 68.8-percent mark from the stripe.

These concerns existed late last year, when the Wildcats had no scorer like Stanley Johnson and Brandon Ashley, though they didn’t really matter: Arizona eventually got bounced by Wisconsin in the 2014 NCAA Tournament not because it played poorly on offense, but because Wisconsin was better at both ends on that day. And concerns about bad shooting days are much preferable to concerns about defensive holes. But we have to nitpick the job Miller’s done somehow, right?

Record: 18-4, 8-2 Pac-12
Last Week: Crushed Colorado
Best Wins: Wichita State (home), BYU (road)
Losses: Kansas (in Kansas City), Arizona, San Diego State, UCLA (road)

Record: 21-2, 8-2 Big East
Last Week: Clipped Marquette, rocked Georgetown
Best Wins: Butler, Georgetown, Xavier (home), VCU (neutral)
Losses: Seton Hall, Georgetown (road)

I watched Utah lose to UCLA two weeks ago, and came away from that game pretty unimpressed by the Utes. Without Jakob Poeltl, who sat for stretches of that game while recovering from injuries, they were porous inside, and relatively average nights from Delon Wright and Brandon Taylor doomed them. Since then, Utah has gotten back a healthier version of Poeltl, and beaten its last two foes by 28 points and 0.43 PPP each.

Villanova lost to Georgetown in ugly fashion on Jan. 19. Since then, the Wildcats are 4-0, with all four wins coming by at least 13 points, and have outscored their foes by about a quarter of a point per possession.

Sometimes, good teams just have blips.

Record: 20-4, 9-2 Big 12
Last Week: Stormed past Iowa State, lassoed by Oklahoma State
Last Night: Raided Texas Tech
Best Wins: Florida, Oklahoma (home), Utah (in Kansas City), Michigan State (neutral), Texas (road)
Losses: Kentucky (neutral), Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Temple (road)

Record: 17-7, 8-4 Big 12
Last Week: Gummed up West Virginia, squashed TCU
Monday Night: Squalled Iowa State
Best Wins: Baylor, Iowa State, Oklahoma State (home), Oklahoma State, Texas (road), Butler (neutral)
Losses: Kansas State (home), Baylor, Creighton, Kansas, West Virginia (away), Washington, Wisconsin (neutral)

Kansas can point to its loss to Temple as a blip if it wants, but the Jayhawks have their boring brilliance in the Big 12 to point to, too, and its Saturday loss on the road to Oklahoma State isn’t likely to do much to change the chances of Bill Self finishing a decade’s worth of conference dominance. If Kansas holds serve at home (doable) and wins at West Virginia (harder) and Kansas State (doable), its regular-season finale at Oklahoma will probably only be for the outright Big 12 title.

But if Kansas does lose somewhere along the way to that game, Oklahoma could be regicide-minded on that day. Lon Kruger’s Sooners have been lights-out of late, mopping up four of their last five foes by double digits, and the fifth by nine points, and have been great at home all year; KenPom projects them as favorites from here on out, despite a final week including a trip to Iowa State and that home date with Kansas, because of a smothering half-court defense.

And there’s a really good chance that Oklahoma will at least enter that final week within striking distance of Kansas: Its lone game against one of the Big 12’s other six top-25 KenPom teams between now and March is a home date with Texas.

Record: 18-6, 8-3 ACC
Last Week: Fell to Virginia, soared past Boston College
Monday Night: Outran Syracuse
Best Wins: Louisville (home), Ohio State, Florida, Davidson (neutral)
Losses: Iowa, Notre Dame, Virginia (home), Butler (neutral), Kentucky, Louisville (road)

Record: 19-4, 7-3 ACC
Last Week: Quelled Miami, quelled by Virginia
Best Wins: North Carolina, Ohio State (home), Indiana (neutral)
Losses: Duke, Kentucky (home), North Carolina, Virginia (road)

North Carolina radio host Joe Ovies tweeted this trenchant observation about the ACC — and college sports, really — on Tuesday, while Kentucky was struggling to put away LSU last night:

He also followed up with some more thoughtful remarks on Wednesday morning, but I think the initial claim is worth thinking about: Is it possible that, while Kentucky is clearly the best team in the country, it would finish third in the ACC?

Nah.

Kentucky’s already beaten Louisville (pretty soundly, too), and Louisville has proven itself both better than the “bad” ACC teams and inferior to the Virginia-Duke-North Carolina triumvirate in its first season of play. Kentucky also beat North Carolina, and, again, did so pretty soundly.

Virginia would probably give Kentucky a run for its money, but it’s hard to say that anything other than potentially screwy ACC scheduling (which has been favorable to Virginia the last two years) would make a Virginia sweep of the ‘Cats possible. And Duke might knock off Kentucky at least once, but its inconsistencies would be just as painful with Kentucky in the conference.

As a thought experiment, Ovies has a point: If a Paul Finebaum for college basketball existed, the ACC having four of the top 20 or so teams in the country (and maybe five, depending on your thoughts on Notre Dame) and Virginia on top would be used to justify so many “Virginia is the real best team in the country” arguments. Thankfully, Dick Vitale doesn’t have a radio show, and his tweets aren’t as snappy as the ones sent by the intern who tweets from Finebaum’s account, so we’ll never know that world.

Record: 18-6, 7-4 Big Ten
Last Week: Boiled by Purdue, reddened Rutgers
Best Wins: ...Maryland?
Losses: Iowa (home), Indiana, Iowa, Louisville, Purdue (away), North Carolina (road)

Look: The back end of the top 16 this year, past about No. 12 or so, is admittedly murky, and I’m using the next three spots in an even more cavalier way, so don’t take Ohio State at this spot to mean that I think Ohio State’s the No. 13 team in America. Maryland is Ohio State’s best win. I’m probably overrating the Buckeyes here.

But do take this ranking it to mean that I think no one wants to see D’Angelo Russell right now.

Russell was sort of the forgotten man on some fantastic teams at Montverde Academy, a private school powerhouse in Florida that has helped mint five-stars Joel Embiid, Dakari Johnson, and Kasey Hill in recent years. (Embiid transferred before the end of his high school career, but just go with me.) He was the lefty sniper who inherited the role of Hill’s sidekick two years ago from Michael Frazier II, and while he impressed in nationally televised games with his smooth stroke and playmaking, he never got the hype of his bigger-name teammates.

Whoops.

Russell’s third nationally in Offensive Rating among players who use 28 percent of possessions or more, the true go-to guys on their teams, and one of three players above the 120.0 threshold; the other two, Corey Hawkins of UC Davis and Tyler Haws of BYU, are going against significantly lesser competition on a nightly basis, even if this is a down Big 10. Russell also scores in bunches, makes threes at a 43-percent clip, has a 2-to-1 turnover ratio as a freshman point guard. Most amusingly, he defends without fouling even better than Aaron Craft did, committing 2.4 fouls per 40 minutes to Craft’s 2.8 fouls per 40 in 2013-14.

There is a infinitesimal chance that Russell, currently the No. 2 pick in the latest DraftExpress mock for 2015, comes back to Ohio State, and so the Buckeyes must do as much as they can to ride him while they have him. And that ride may not extend deep into March: This team that can still lose to teams like Purdue with Russell.

But no matter what, it’s gonna be fun.

Record: 18-6, 6-5 Big 12
Last Week: Crushed TCU, stopped West Virginia
Monday Night: Cowboyed by Oklahoma State
Best Wins: Iowa State, Oklahoma, Texas (home)
Losses: Kansas, Oklahoma State (home), Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State (road), Illinois (neutral)

Can’t win the Big 12, or big games. Coached by a stooge who does more with less. Forever inferior to superior programs. All those complaints about Baylor get aired out pretty regularly, but Scott Drew’s job with this 2014-15 Baylor team may just put some of them to bed for good.

Baylor lost Cory Jefferson, its most complete player, Isaiah Austin, its most talented player, and Brady Heslip, one of the most lethal shooters in the country, from last year’s Sweet 16 team. It is better this year, arguably, even though its offense is essentially letting Rico Gathers do what his surname says when it comes to offensive boards and going from there and its defense lacks a rim protector of Austin’s caliber. Baylor has lost twice to Oklahoma State, yes, but its other three Big 12 losses are either at Oklahoma or by a single possession.

The Big 12 hierarchy has cleared up a bit with Iowa State losing, Oklahoma rising, Oklahoma State getting beset by injuries, and Texas struggling to find consistency. Baylor’s squarely on the upper end of it despite having a guy who makes 44 percent of his twos and 60 percent of his free throws as its best player.

This overachieving team makes complaining about why Baylor feel like a thing of the past. (No, Baylor’s probably not the No. 14 team in the country, but the same caveats from the Ohio State writeup apply.)

Record: 22-2, 11-1 Missouri Valley
Last Week: Popped Pittsburgh
Best Wins: Wichita State (home), Iowa (neutral)
Losses: Duke, Kentucky (home), North Carolina (road)

Record: 21-3, 11-1 Missouri Valley
Last Week: Bore down on Missouri State, took care of Drake
Best Wins:
Losses: George Washington (neutral), Utah (road)

It’s easy to know what Wichita State is: A slightly inferior version of the team that went undefeated last year and went down swinging in a Round of 32 deathmatch with Kentucky. The Shockers are very good again, but not great, and will probably go as far as Fred VanVleet permits.

It’s harder to make sense of just what Northern Iowa is.

The Panthers beat Iowa before Christmas, one game after staying with VCU into double overtime in Richmond. That loss came three days after a win over Denver in Denver, so the Panthers played one game at altitude and then a game and a quarter against the nation’s most hectic defense three days later and thousands of miles away, and nearly beat it. They beat Stephen F. Austin in Nacodoches. And they thumped Wichita State at home: A 19-7 run gave the Panthers a 13-point lead at halftime, and it never got closer after the break.

The Panthers are The Seth Tuttle Show, and yet there is no great player on a great team who did what Tuttle does lately. His KenPom player comparisons include names of recent years like Georgetown-turned-Towson forward Jerelle Benimon, Long Island big man Julian Boyd, Davidson forward De’Mon Brooks ... and Cody Zeller, who has gifts well beyond Tuttle’s. He draws contact and files to the foul line, where he converts at a fine but not outstanding clip, at a time when the game is drifting toward the three-point line. He’s a solidly built small forward with surprising post moves or an undersized power forward with a great handle. He’s Adam Morrison, but tougher, or Doug McDermott without much inclination for stepping back and firing threes, but he’s a better defender than both.

He leads a team that doesn’t give him a ton of help, but he’s already led it past its greatest challenge until the last day of February, when the Panthers make their trip to Wichita. Maybe, by then, enough people will be watching The Seth Tuttle Show, and Northern Iowa, to categorize both.

Oklahoma State appears to be this week’s fourth-best Big 12 team. ... Butler gets Villanova at Hinkle on Saturday. ... Notre Dame will be seeing Duke threes drop until Easter. ... Mississippi could have a 10-game winning streak on its hands if it can beat Florida on the road on Thursday. ... I have no idea who should be Nos. 21-25 this week, so I’m absolutely copping out here.