Monday marks Week 17 of the college basketball season and the final week of February. The beginning of March and the ensuing madness is imminent, and first it brings the newest edition of the AP Top 25 men's basketball poll. With just one week until the first conference tournaments begin, we have a strong sense of which teams are legitimate contenders and which squads coasted through their easy non-conference slate.
In a first for this season, every team in the AP top 25 moved at least one spot in the rankings from last week. UConn fell off its perch at #1 after a 19-point road loss to Creighton and comes into this week at #3. Elsewhere, no team jumped or fell more than five spots, though four new teams entered the top 25.
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.
Gonzaga's historic offense
In a rare season where the Gonzaga Bulldogs find themselves on the bubble, the Zags have done their best to prove themselves worthy of an at-large bid thanks to an unprecedented offensive heater. Gonzaga currently has an adjusted offensive efficiency of 126.1 per KenPom in WCC play. Not only is that the best in the country, but that mark would also be the best of any team in the KenPom era (since the 2001-02 season).
Gonzaga's offense has only gotten better since a February 3 home loss to Saint Mary's. During the Zags' last six games, they are averaging 1.36 points per possession while not scoring less than 86 points in a game in this stretch. With 11 wins in their last 12 contests — including a crucial road victory over Kentucky — Mark Few's team enters the final week of WCC play with a return to the top 25 AP poll at #23.
A little too bullish on the Bulls
If it feels like there is an inordinate amount of mid-major teams this season with great records and a terrible strength of schedule, then you'd be correct. This year, there are seven mid-major teams with a win percentage of 80% or better, a KenPom nonconference strength of schedule that is ranked 150th in the country or worse, and essentially no shot at an at-large bid. Last year, only three schools finished the regular season fitting these criteria.
Two of these schools — Appalachian State and McNeese State — were among the “Others Receiving Votes” in the latest AP Poll, while a third — South Florida — miraculously managed to earn a spot in the top 25. The Bulls are 21-5 on the year and are atop the AAC by three full games with a 14-1 record in league play. Yet USF is 93rd in KenPom with a non-conference strength of schedule that ranks 305. The team's NET Ranking is only slightly more favorable at 95th.
South Florida is nearly 90% of the way through its regular season and has yet to even play a Quad I game. This is a team that lost at home to Maine (224th in NET) and Central Michigan (255th in NET). Yes, this team has turned the corner, winning 19 of their last 20 games — including victories over Florida State, Memphis, and FAU. But the only metric that has South Florida in the top 80 is the KPI, which still ranks USF at just 54th.
For much of the season, voters valued quality over quantity when it came to wins, as it took Auburn and Iowa State — now top-15 stalwarts — fairly long to break the top 25 despite being in the top 10 in many metrics. Wake Forest and BYU are both in the top 20 in KenPom and coming off wins against top-15 teams in the AP Poll yet find themselves outside the top 25 at the moment. That hardly makes sense.
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