Kansas Basketball Surges in AP Poll After Previously Being Unranked

The fourth edition of the college basketball AP Poll came out Monday afternoon, and the Kansas Jayhawks were back among the ranked teams despite previously being unranked.

Last week, Bill Self and his team looked strong after a three-game stretch in the Players Era Festival in which they went 3-0. Now, KU sits at No. 21 nationally, with a chance to jump even higher after this week's game against No. 5 UConn.

Week 4 College Basketball AP Top 25

1. Purdue (40)
2. Arizona (6)
3. Michigan (15)
4. Duke
5. UConn
6. Louisville
7. Michigan State
8. Houston
9. BYU
10. Iowa State
11. Gonzaga
12. Alabama
13. Tennessee
14. Illinois
15. Florida
16. North Carolina
17. Vanderbilt
18. Kentucky
19. Texas Tech
20. Auburn
21. Kansas
22. Indiana
23. St. John's
24. USC
25. Arkansas

Five Big 12 teams are ranked above Kansas, including Arizona (No. 2), Houston (No. 8), BYU (No. 9), Iowa State (No. 10), and Texas Tech (No. 19). The Jayhawks' past opponents include Duke (No. 4) and North Carolina (No. 16).

Other outlets, like Gary Parrish of CBS Sports, have KU at No. 14 in their latest rankings. Many others have placed KU inside the top 20.

While some fans were expecting a higher ranking for the Jayhawks following their win over previously undefeated and No. 13 Tennessee, the voters aren't putting too much stock into KU's victories just yet.

Kansas On SI's Take

In all honesty, I expected a slightly bigger jump for Kansas, somewhere in the 15–17 range. That obviously wasn't the case.

But in retrospect, it kind of makes sense why voters put them at No. 21. They had KU at No. 19 in the preseason and don't want to admit they might have underrated them early on.

This is just further proof that scheduling easier opponents gives you a better chance of being ranked highly. If KU had lined up eight cupcake mid-major opponents to start the year, they likely never would have dropped out of the top 25 in the first place and might even be hovering around the top 15 right now.

Still, the Jayhawks will be more battle-tested and have more quality wins than most schools by the time conference play rolls around. Rankings just don't mean all that much at this point in the season anyway.

It isn't surprising that the Jayhawks are ranked where they are right now due to their losses against UNC and Duke. But they certainly have a chance to rise over the next few weeks, especially if they knock off UConn in Allen Fieldhouse.