Written by Joe Boozell at NCAA.com
Welcome back to the top of the AP Poll, Villanova. After West Virginia dominated Baylor in Morgantown on Tuesday night, the Wildcats are the No. 1 team in college basketball once again.
For what it’s worth, Baylor losing to West Virginia on the road is perfectly understandable. No college basketball team would be expected to win at West Virginia. Had the Bears been, say, the No. 15 team in the country, their ranking likely wouldn’t have budged. But when peering down at the rest of the pack, the standard is higher. There is no margin for error.
With that said, while Baylor was expected to fall, dropping all the way to No. 6 seems like a bit much – especially with the Bears pulling out an impressive road win against Kansas State on Saturday. Specifically, slotting Baylor behind Kentucky feels like an overreaction.
The Bears have five top-30 KenPom wins on their resume; the Wildcats have one. Each team’s losses are reasonable – Kentucky fell to Louisville on the road and UCLA at home, while Baylor, as previously mentioned, took it on the chin in Morgantown. At this point, the Bears’ wins are clearly better, and they have one fewer setback. But some voters factor predictive elements into their internal calculus, so in that sense, there’s good reason to place Kentucky ahead of Baylor. Most folks who watch college basketball regularly would agree that, based on the eye test, UK is the better team.
At the end of the day, the difference between the No. 5 and No. 6 ranking in January isn’t winning you anything in March. Based on the conference it plays in, Baylor will have more chances to notch quality wins the rest of this season than Kentucky will. But falling five spots for losing to West Virginia in Morgantown might be a tad aggressive.
Elsewhere in the rankings, Notre Dame continues to rise, as it’s now ranked 15th in the nation. It can’t be overstated how good of a job Mike Brey has done in South Bend in recent years. The Fighting Irish have lost an absurd amount of talent in the past two offseasons, and they keep chugging along. The names: Jerian Grant. Pat Connaughton. Demetrius Jackson. Zach Auguste. Notre Dame has two losses on the season – they’ve come on neutral floors to Villanova and Purdue.
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