NCAA Basketball: Top 25 features upsets galore
By Doug Winkey
A huge week of upsets means another bunch of shifts in the NCAA basketball top 25.
I’ll be honest, the top 25 is turning into a crapshoot as the year goes on and contests remain tight. Just this past week saw 13 of the 25 teams in the AP poll go down. That sort of chaos is fun but makes ranking teams that much harder as things slide around.
The mid-majors of America were still strong this week. The Conference USA, the MAC and the MVC all remain in or on the fringe of the rankings. Otherwise, the most impressive conference performance came from the SEC, who went even in the Big 12/SEC Challenge for the first time.
We have just a little over a month left of the regular season and many conference races are still up in the air. Of the power conferences, only the ACC has more than one game separating first and second. The Big Ten and Big 12 are the tightest races as both conference have ties for first place. The mid-major ranks are slightly less competive but only the MAC’s Akron and Belmont of the Ohio Valley have more than a ttwo-game lead over their conference competition.
This has been one of the craziest seasons in recent memory and the top 25 should hopefully reflect just how healthy college basketball is across the country.