NCAA Basketball Rankings: North Carolina Remains At No. 25 In ESPN/USA Today Poll

The coaches and the beat writers must be on the same page, because today’s Associated Press top 25 mirrors the USA Today poll very closely. As with the coaches, the AP decided that despite two disappointing losses to Minnesota and Vanderbilt, the preseason hype and talent were still too much to drop North Carolina from the top 25 completely, throwing them the bone of the 25th overall ranking. For their wins this weekend however, previously unranked Minnesota and Texas join the party at No. 15 and 20, respectively

At the top of the poll, there’s not much change. Ohio State inched up to No. 3 ahead of Kansas State, while its victim from last week, Florida, plummeted from its top 10 ranking all the way down to No. 16. Duke and Michigan State remain atop the poll after dispatching their opponents in the first week of play.

The full rankings:

1 Duke

2 Michigan State

3 Ohio State

4 Kansas State

5 Pittsburgh

6 Kansas

7 Villanova

8 Kentucky

9 Syracuse

10 Purdue

11 Missouri

12 Baylor

13 Washington

14 Memphis

15 Minnesota

16 Florida

16 Georgetown

18 San Diego State

19 Illinois

20 Texas

21 Temple

22 Gonzaga

23 Brigham Young

24 Tennessee

25 North Carolina

After two losses to Minnesota and Vanderbilt, two teams not ranked in the Top 25 last week, you’d think that North Carolina would tumble all the way out of the Top 25 of the latest NCAA Basketball Rankings. The Tar Heels were No. 8 in the ESPN/USA Today men’s basketball coaches poll last week, but when something like that happens to a team this early in the season, it seems only fair to drop them entirely from the rankings.

Here are the complete rankings, with last week’s ranking in parenthesis.