Monday marks Week 16 of the college basketball season, and it brings the newest edition of the AP Top 25 men's basketball poll. With just two weeks remaining until the first conference tournaments begin, and have a strong sense of which teams are legitimate contenders and which squads coasted through their easy non-conference slate.

No team jumped more than Kentucky, which rose five spots in the latest rankings, but a few teams experienced major drops. South Carolina fell nine spots to 20th after a two-loss week, BYU dropped six places to 25th after an ugly road loss to Oklahoma State, while Wisconsin (losers of five of six) and Indiana State both exited the rankings altogether following upset losses.

While the AP Poll is by no means the be-all and end-all for determining how good a college basketball team is, it is an important capsule for determining who is playing the best basketball at any given week. Here are two big takeaways from the latest AP Top 25 men's college basketball poll.

Florida Atlantic basketball, UAB basketball, Owls, Blazers, Dusty May, Dusty May with FAU basketball arena in the background

AAC is wide-open

For the first time this season, last season's Cinderella is not ranked in the AP Top 25 poll. The Florida Atlantic Owls dropped out of the top 25 this week after a 90-86 loss to American Athletics Conference leaders South Florida. The Owls trailed by 25 points with 8:35 left in the game and nearly made an improbable comeback — cutting the lead to as little as one — but could not get the win on the road. That wild game summarized the topsy-turvy nature of FAU's season. Dusty May's team has wins over Arizona, Butler, and Texas A&M but has also lost to Bryant and Florida Gulf Coast.

The loss puts Florida Atlantic in third place in the AAC a full two games behind South Florida. While no American Athletic team is in the AP Top 25 Poll, USF received the most votes of any school in the conference. The Bulls are 12-1 in AAC play and 19-5 on the year having won 17 of their last 18 games. South Florida has three Quad II wins during that stretch and its victory over FAU gives the team its first QI triumph of the season. Despite the squad's recent success, the metrics look less favorably on the Bulls. USF is 92nd in the NET Rankings and 100th in KenPom having played the easiest schedule in the AAC this year.

Other American Athletic contenders include Charlotte (17-8, 11-2) which has won 11 of its last 12 and boasts a win over FAU, as well as SMU (19-7, 10-3) which is the only AAC team aside from Florida Atlantic to be in the top 40 in the NET (34th) and KenPom (39th). For now, FAU is the only at-large contender, but any team in the top half of the conference will believe it has a shot at winning the league's auto-bid.

Cougars on the prowl

The Pac-12 is far from what it once was, as only two teams have better than 50-50 odds at an at-large bid this year per Bart Torvik's Tourneycast. One of those teams is Arizona, and the other, surprisingly, is Washington State. Picked to finish 10th in the league, the Cougars are currently 20-6 and just half a game back in the Pac-12 at 11-4. This is the first time since the end of the 2007-08 season that WSU has been ranked (#21), coinciding with the school's last appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

The Cougars own Quad I wins over Boise State, Oregon, and Washington, plus an ever-impressive victory against #4 Arizona. Kyle Smith's team travels to Tuscon this week on the back of a seven-game winning streak as they look to secure the season sweep against the Wildcats. A loss is unlikely to knock WSU out of the AP Top 25 Poll, but a win will all but secure Washington State its first March Madness berth since 2008.