Seth Davis' College Basketball Rankings: Kentucky continues to rise, San Diego State and Florida Drop Out

This is my last rankings column for the 2023-24 college basketball season. Are you going to miss me?

So let’s give this season a proper sendoff before we cast our eyes on the madness ahead. As I’ve been doing the last several weeks, I am including not only where I ranked each team last week (which is in parentheses) but also where each team is ranked in college basketball’s four main metrics — the NET, KenPom, KPI, and BartTorvik. The NET is the NCAA’s official organizing tool and blends efficiency, strength of schedule, and results. KenPom is the most respected predictive metric (hi gamblers!) and includes data from the past five seasons. KPI places strict emphasis on this season’s results and schedule. And BartTorvik is similar to KenPom but has been filtered to include only this season’s games. If you want to play this game yourself, I highly recommend using Bracketologists.com, and especially their Compare Resumes feature.

Here, then, is the correct order of the Top 25 teams in men’s college basketball, as submitted to the Associated Press on Sunday night:

1.    Houston (1)           1-1-2-1

2.    UConn (2)             3-2-4-2

3.    Purdue (3)             2-3-1-3

4.    UNC (7)                7-8-5-8

5.    Kentucky (16) 19-17-16-21

6.    Tennessee (4)        5-5-3-6

7.    Creighton (8)        11-9-12-10

8.    Arizona (6)            4-6-6-4

9.    Iowa State (5)        9-12-11-7

10.   Marquette (9)       13-13-17-11

11.   Auburn (14)           6-4-8-5

12.   Illinois (10)           15-10-19-14

13.   Duke (15)              10-7-25-9

14.   Baylor (11)            14-14-10-17

15.   S.Carolina (23)       49-47-18-40

16.   Alabama (12)         8-11-7-15

17.   BYU (17)              12-16-29-18

18.   Gonzaga (20)         16-15-46-13

19.   Saint Mary’s (21)   17-22-43-16

20.   Kansas (18)           18-18-9-12

21.   Utah State (24)       33-44-21-51

22.   Nevada (NR)         31-35-20-35

23.   Boise State (NR)    24-38-26-37

24.   Wash. State (13)     45-45-31-44

25.   Colorado (NR)       28-27-34-28

Dropped out: San Diego State (19), Florida (22), South Florida (25)

Almost Famous: Clemson, Colorado State, Dayton, Drake, Indiana State, Michigan State, Texas, Texas Tech

NOTES ON THE VOTES

* If you look at spots four through eight, you can see why I have long emphasized that a top 25 ballot is different from a projected NCAA tournament bracket. As of Sunday morning, bracketmatrix.com still has Tennessee projected as the fourth No. 1 seed, with North Carolina and Arizona close behind on the two line. Kentucky is projected as a No. 4. But I know what I saw Saturday when the Wildcats went into Knoxville and dominated Tennessee wire to wire. It’s not like the Vols didn’t see them coming. They were just powerless to stop the onslaught. Tennessee did well to fight back the last few minutes and make the final score a respectable 85-81. But the game wasn’t as close as that would indicate.

The win was no fluke, either. Since losing to Tennessee, 103-92, in Rupp Arena on Feb. 6, Kentucky has lost just twice – at home to Gonzaga by four, and at LSU by one. They have eight wins in that span, including on the road over Auburn, Mississippi State and Tennessee. They also have a decisive home win over Alabama. According to BartTorvik’s sorting tool, over the last four weeks Kentucky ranks No. 11 in adjusted efficiency margin and No. 2 in Wins Against Bubble. The overall resume tells a different story, but if we’re looking at how teams are playing in the here and now, you’d be hard-pressed to find a team who’s playing better than Kentucky.

* There’s not much movement this time of year, and while I don’t give teams full mulligans for losses, I do recognize that highly-ranked teams often lack incentives compared to unranked opponents. So Arizona and Iowa State didn’t suffer much from their losses at USC and Kansas State, respectively. The main reason they dropped a couple of spots was because they were leapfrogged by North Carolina and Kentucky, who scored impressive road wins over ranked teams. Ditto for Marquette, which would otherwise not have been penalized for losing to UConn, even at home, especially since the Golden Eagles are still playing without Tyler Kolek due to his oblique injury.

* I’ve been remarking for weeks that I was ranking Auburn and Alabama below their metrics values. It is amazing that Auburn still only has one Quad 1 win, but the Tigers also have no losses outside of Quad 1. So I bumped them up a few notches. Alabama, on the other hand, has not provided much recent evidence that it should be ranked where its metrics dictate. The Crimson Tide got walloped 105-87 at Florida (which in turn lost at Vanderbilt on Saturday), and even in defeating Arkansas at home on Saturday, Alabama trailed for the entire 40 minutes of regulation before finally escaping 92-88 in overtime.

* Another metrics darling, BYU, was on the verge of shaking its reputation as a homecourt hero, but the Cougars blew a 14-point second half lead at Iowa State on Wednesday and lost, 68-63. They did win at Kansas on Feb. 27 (the Jayhawks were without Kevin McCullar) and dominated Oklahoma State in Provo on Saturday. Despite its record and ranking, BYU does not feel like a team ready to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament, but any team that can score as explosively as this one has a chance to beat any opponent.

* The flip side of the metrics coin is South Carolina. I don’t know what the NET, KenPom and BartTorvik are seeing, but KPI seems to know something they don’t. The Gamecocks couldn’t quite knock off Tennessee at home, but they did go on the road and beat a tough Mississippi State squad that was playing for its NCAA tournament life. Talent wise, South Carolina has a lower ceiling than a lot of other ranked teams, but I don’t know of another squad that has so regularly maximized its potential. I have a hard time believeing there are 20 teams better than South Carolina, much less 40.

* Kansas remains a hot mess. The Jayhawks beat Kansas State and lost at Houston last week. Based just on that information, the Jayhawks’ ranking should not be any lower than it was last week. However, I dropped them two spots because a) they lost to Houston by 30 points and it wasn’t even that close, and b) Kevin McCullar (knee) and Hunter Dickinson (dislocated shoulder) are hurt. McCullar is not going to be at full capacity for the rest of the season. Bill Self is going to get as much practice time out of him as possible, but for the most part McCullar is only going to be available for games. There’s only so much you should allow injuries to impact rankings, but as a voter, I definitely want to account for it. It’s not impossible that between these two injury situations and Kansas’ performance on the court, Kansas will not be have a number next to its name in this space next week.

* It always feels like a gaggle of Mountain West teams moves in and out of my last few spots. Utah State wrapped up the outright regular season crown with wins over San Jose State (road) and New Mexico (home), but Nevada is the team that’s making the biggest move right now. The Wolf Pack have won 10 of their last 11 games, including road wins over Utah State, UNLV, Colorado State and Boise State, and an overtime win at home over San Diego State. Boise State won a wild overtime classic at San Diego State last Friday, which simultaneously entered the Broncos onto my ballot and knocked the Aztecs out.

* Washington State lost at home to Washington on Thursday. That game, combined with the Cougars’ poor metrics, could have knocked them out of my top 25, but they still have that sweep of Arizona working for them. I was going to rank Indiana State as my final team if the Sycamores had won the Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship, but when they fell to Drake, that opened up a spot for Colorado. The Buffaloes have quietly won six in a row, including road wins last week over Oregon and Oregon State to put them on the right side of the bubble. The win at Oregon was Colorado’s second Quad 1 win of the season, but its 7-4 record in Quad 2 gave the Buffs the slight edge over Drake, which is 3-1 in Quad 1 and 3-3 in Quad 2. Michigan State is 4-8 in Quad 1 and has zero losses outside the first two quadrants, and the Spartans broke a three-game losing streak by beating Northwestern at home on Wednesday. I might have considered putting them back in my top 25, but they lost by one at Indiana on Saturday.

* South Florida lost a tough one at Tulsa, which probably knocked the Bulls out of at-large contention. Their metrics were already really poor (78-87-52-95) and they are 1-0 in Quad 1. The biggest thing USF had going for it was a lack of bad losses, but that was a Quad 3 loss. So it’s most likely win the AAC tourney or bust for this group. I’m also guessing the Bulls will fall out of the rankings after being there the past two weeks.

* The team that intrigues me most heading into championship week is USC. The Trojans finished 8-12 in the league (14-17 overall) so they have zero shot at an at-large, but they showed in dominating Arizona Saturday night that they have a very high ceiling now that Isaiah Collier and Boogie Ellis are both fully healthy and in rhythm. USC has won three in a row and four of its last six, and is entering the post season with justifiable confidence.