NCAA Basketball: 3 thoughts on AP Top 25 poll (Week 2)

1. Who else but Duke?

It takes a monumental performance to unseat a top-ranked team that didn’t lose a game in the previous week.

But after just 40 minutes – heck, after 20 minutes – everyone in the country was in agreement: the Duke Blue Devils are the team to beat in college basketball.

The star-studded freshman class wasted little time molding themselves into a frightening behemoth, crushing Kentucky by 34 points in their first game of the year.

Last week, they garnered four first-place votes. This week, they multiplied their first-place total by 12.

Duke now owns the record for most first-place placements in AP poll history.

Barring some sort of chaos-inducing loss at the hands of Eastern Michigan, they should extend that record for another week.

The Kansas Jayhawks shouldn’t take their one-spot freefall as a personal insult. Their win over Michigan State didn’t demonstrate the dominance expected of the Jayhawks this season and they had no other opportunity to prove themselves during opening week.

Going forward, they lack the marquee games in the non-conference schedule that would catapult them over the Blue Devils barring a Duke upset.

College basketball fans should accustom themselves to seeing R.J. Barrett and Zion Williamson reign over the rankings for the foreseeable future.