College basketball has a new No. 1 for the third time this season. After Kentucky fell at home to UCLA on Saturday, Villanova has ascended to the top spot in the polls. Jay Wright’s team is 8-0 and coming off blowout wins over Penn and St. Joseph’s.
NCAA basketball rankings 2016: Villanova is the third No. 1 team of the young season
The defending champs are back on top of the latest AP Poll.
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Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
Villanova has one signature win thus far, a three-point road victory over Purdue on Nov. 14. There’s a strong case for Baylor as the top-ranked team in the country after the Bears continued a surging start with a win over No. 7 Xavier on Saturday. Baylor had already defeated Oregon, Michigan State, and Louisville during its unbeaten start this season. The Bears check in at No. 4 in this week’s poll.
UCLA is also moving on up, all the way to No. 2 after its big win at Rupp Arena. The Bruins might have college basketball’s most explosive offense, with freshman star Lonzo Ball orchestrating an attack that has shooting everywhere around capable big men Thomas Welsh and Ike Anigbogu.
Other notable rankings this week: Duke at No. 5 after the debut of freshmen Jayson Tatum and Marques Bolden, Kentucky at No. 6 after losing to UCLA, and Indiana at No. 9 after a big home win over North Carolina.
Here’s the entirety of this week’s AP Poll, with first place votes in parenthesis:
- Villanova (57)
- UCLA (2)
- Kansas
- Baylor (6)
- Duke
- Kentucky
- North Carolina
- Gonzaga
- Indiana
- Creighton
- Louisville
- St. Mary’s
- Xavier
- Virginia
- West Virginia
- Butler
- Wisconsin
- Purdue
- South Carolina
- Arizona
- Florida
- Cincinnati
- Notre Dame
- Oregon
- Iowa State
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