With only seven more weeks of AP Top-25 poll rankings, each announcement matters a little more. Whether it’s beneficial for player’s mental health or not, each team tunes in every Monday afternoon, hoping to hear their school’s name high atop the list.
In Week 14, we have had a plethora of surprising moves in the AP Top-25 poll. New faces like Arizona and Maryland have joined the bunch, undervalued school’s like Texas Tech have leapfrogged their competition and big market universities like Kansas and Iowa State have started to slip.
This week of college basketball was filled with exciting moments but if you missed it all, don’t worry! Here are the need to knows from Week 14.
Biggest Winners of Week 14
In the most current version of the AP poll, four teams jumped six plus spots, proving that the college basketball season still has a lot of shuffling left to do before March Madness. The biggest jump though belongs to the Texas Tech Red Raiders; they moved up nine spots which is the biggest move the poll has seen since Week 6.
The No. 13 Red Raider’s jump in rank is thanks to a hard fought road victory versus the No. 6 Houston Cougars. Despite losing their leading scorer and rebounder, JT Toppin, in the first four minutes of the game due to a egregiously bad ejection call, Texas Tech rallied to defeat the cougars 82-81 in OT.
Texas Tech has gotten hot late, their emergence into the AP Top-25 poll has come swiftly but deservingly. The Red Raiders are on a six game win streak taking down formidable opponents like Arizona, Cincinnati and now Houston during the streak.
Both the Maryland Terrapins and the Arizona Wildcats picked up big enough wins to earn them a spot in the AP Top-25 poll here in Week 14. Both have been on the brink of the poll for many weeks but this week they have been given a seat at the adult’s table. Maryland sits at No. 18 and the Wildcats just behind them at No. 20.
Although they had a shaky midseason, Maryland has easily handled two teams in the top 20 in the span of three games and now have picked up four W’s in a row. Their latest victory, a road win vs No. 17 Wisconsin is what made them jump up six spots in Week 14.
On the other hand, Arizona has been hot for awhile now. The Wildcats have won 11 of their last 12 and recently knocked off the No. 3 Iowa State Cyclones at home. The game and crowd were both electric and Arizona managed to pull away late in OT after senior guard Caleb Love made a half court buzzer beater to tie it up at the end of regulation.
That loss would send Iowa State into a three game losing streak and to the No. 8 spot in the AP poll, their lowest rank all season.
Biggest Droppers of Week 14
The Mississippi State Bulldogs, the Kansas Jayhawks and the Oregon Ducks take the cake for the biggest losers of Week 14.
Mississippi State didn’t win a game all week, they took back to back losses to No. 4 Alabama and No. 20 Missouri. The Bulldogs fell from No. 14 to No. 22 in Week 14.
Oregon’s week was even worse: they’ve lost three straight to unranked teams and have fallen from rank No. 13 to unranked in just two weeks. Losing three straight to unranked opponents is hard to come back from but the Ducks face two teams in the AP Top-25 poll next, so they might be able to climb back into the poll.
The Kansas Jayhawks have flat out failed to live up to the pedigree of their university here in the 2024-2025 college basketball season. In Week 14 they picked up their sixth loss of the season to an unranked Baylor, and it was a bad looking loss too.
Kansas controlled most of the game, they held a 10+ point lead for a lot of it. But the Jayhawks never put Baylor away and then collapsed with less than five minutes to go. After Baylor crawled back into the game to tie it at 63, the Bears went on a 18-7 run over the last 4:32 to end the game.
Baylor would win 81-70 and send Kansas down five spots to No. 16 in Week 14’s AP Top-25 poll.
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