Top 25: Two Huge Victories Vault Jayhawks into Top 5.
Death, Taxes and a rebound in February for the Kansas Jayhawks under Bill Self. Those three things are certain, to the point that many fans were not concerned after seeing losses in three weeks that slowly had Kansas slipping down the top 10 of the polls.
But two dominant double-digit victories, first over Oklahoma State on Tuesday and then Houston on Saturday, provided the huge bounceback they needed, and the national pollsters took notice. Kansas rose to fourth in both the AP Top 25 poll and the Coaches Top 25 Poll.
UConn stayed at first in each poll for the fourth straight week, with Purdue and North Carolina staying at second and third, respectively. Houston slipped to fifth, with Tennessee slipping just a single spot to sixth after the win over Kentucky on Saturday mostly negated any worries from the loss to South Carolina earlier in the week. Seventh and eighth went to Marquette and Arizona in each poll.
The Big 12 took the biggest hit in this week's updates, as the parity across the conference led to two teams falling out of the bottom of the poll. Oklahoma was 23rd in the AP Poll and 24th in the Coaches Poll last week, while TCU was 25th in both polls. Both dropped out after their losses this week, although they are both still receiving votes in both polls.
Rounding out the Big 12 representation are the Baylor Bears (#13 AP/#13 Coaches), Iowa State (#14/#14), BYU (#21/#19) and Texas Tech (#23/#23). Other than Oklahoma and TCU, the Texas Longhorns are the only other team from the conference receiving votes.
The biggest movements came from a pair of SEC teams, as South Carolina had two wins to vault up 11 spots to #15 in the AP Poll and 6 spots to #20 in the Coaches Poll. Alabama moved up to #16 in both polls, which was an 8 spot jump in the AP Poll and a 6 spot jump in the Coaches Poll. Texas Tech tumbled 8 spots in each poll, while Kentucky lost 7 places in each.
There are only three marquee games on the schedule, where two ranked teams are playing each other. All of them come between two Big 12 teams, which is yet another sign of how great this conference is:
- #23 Texas Tech looks to get back on track as they head down to Waco to take on #13 Baylor after Scott Drew's first career ejection. The game is Tuesday at 8pm Central on ESPN.
- #16 Alabama heads to #12 Auburn at 6pm on Wednesday. The game will be on ESPN2
- Saturday sees Kansas hosting College Gameday before Baylor comes to town for the only ranked-on-ranked matchup of the weekend. The game tips at 5pm on ESPN.
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