NCAA Basketball: Arizona, Arkansas fall on latest top 25 power ranking
By Joey Loose
It’s the middle of January and NCAA basketball is starting to get more attention by some of those fair-weather fans and outsiders. We’re more than two months into a season already full of thrills and upsets and unusual moments. We’re also more than a few weeks into conference play, which has had its own share of surprises in virtually every single conference.
Today’s focus is on rankings, and there are a lot of teams out there worthy of inclusion in this week’s top 25. It’s that difficult time in the year where it may be hard for fans and voters alike to judge teams from different conferences. A tough stretch in a league like the A-10 or Sun Belt looks like child’s play compared to the current state of the Big 12.
We’ve done our best to identify the best teams at the current time. This is not what we expect to be the 25 best teams or even the 25 who had the best weeks, so keep that in mind as you flip through this week’s edition of the rankings. There were a great number of teams who just missed the cut, and the cut-off might have been closer than ever before. You could absolutely make the case for teams like Illinois or Saint Mary’s on winning streaks, or Indiana and Wisconsin, who have struggled more lately.
Let’s get right into the list, knowing full well that this is not a final list and represents the current state of these collegiate teams.