6. Oklahoma Sooners (9-0)
Oklahoma has one of the easiest starts to the season, taking on four straight sub-250 KenPom teams. But the Sooners followed that up with wins over Providence, Arizona, Louisville, and Georgia Tech picking up some quality wins in the process. Oklahoma struggled a little against Alcorn State its last time on the court, but eventually got the win 94-78. The Sooners haven’t done anything special offensively, but with how good the defense has been the offense hasn’t needed to be great. That doesn’t mean that Jalon Moore (18.2 ppg) and Jeremiah Fears (16.7 ppg) haven’t been putting up solid numbers.
Coming into the season I didn’t think Oklahoma had much of a chance to be competitive this season. I wasn’t sure who would step up offensively since the top two scorers from a year ago are no longer on the team, but it appears that Porter Moser has things figured out. The four-game stretch against P5 teams was one of the more impressive stretches this season, few teams hold up well against that type of competition. Oklahoma will have another chance this upcoming week to beat another P5 opponent, Oklahoma State. An undefeated start to the season didn’t seem likely a few weeks ago, but the Sooners have proved doubters wrong.
5. Florida Gators (8-0)
Florida has been one of the more impressive teams this season. The Gators have won every game this season by at least 13 points, no other team has been as dominant through the early portion of the season. The closest game was against Florida State on the road, but even that wasn’t a huge challenge for the Gators. The offense was never going to be a concern this season, but that couldn’t be said about the defense. Last year the defense was one of the worst in college basketball, giving up 79 points per game. This season has been a completely different story. After giving up 83 points to start the season, Florida hasn’t allowed an opponent to score more than 73 points in a game.
The win over Virginia in the SEC/ACC challenge was the Gator's best win of the season, but with the Cavaliers being down this season the win doesn’t look as good on paper. Florida is still looking for a ranked win in the early part of the season, but you couldn’t ask the Gators for anything more than what they have this year. Florida has Arizona State coming up at the end of the week, but with how well the Gators have been playing it shouldn’t be too much of a game.