CBS Sports shakes up Top 25 and 1 after pivotal Tuesday night slate
After another chaotic Tuesday evening full of college hoops, Gary Parish has gone ahead and updated his Top 25 And 1 rankings for Wednesday.
The Game of the Night occurred in Starkville, where a red-hot Mississippi State team remained on fire for much of their home game vs. Kentucky. The teams traded one jumper after another before a truly incredible final minute ended with a Reed Sheppard game-winner. Elsewhere, Indiana knocked off Wisconsin but not without the interruption of a fire alarm, and BYU scored a massive victory AT Kansas.
Recap of some of that action plus a full breakdown of CBS Sports’ current top-26 is right below, starting with:
1. Purdue
We talked about it in each of the two matchups, but Purdue has the monkey off their back (for now) when it comes to Rutgers. The Boilermakers fending off Steve Pikiell’s feisty group in Piscataway earlier in the year and then thrashed them in West Lafayette last Thursday before following up with a win over Michigan.
Gary Parish maintains Purdue has his top team among the three obvious choice, and Joe Lunardi has said the current triumvirate of elite teams is virtually in a dead heat for the No. 1 overall seed right now. Purdue’s got games against three tourney-caliber clubs, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Illinois, to finish out the year and further add to their great resume.
2. UConn
The Huskies merely need to win at Marquette, or win two of their last three games, in order to win their first regular season conference title since 2006. UConn has won three national titles with three different coaches since then, but still hasn’t won a league crown — and they were in the AAC for a large chunk of those years as well.
What a strange fact for this consistent championship-winning program. Either way, it looks like 2024 could finally be the year for UConn to reclaim the Big East, barring a catastrophic end to the year. Although, it’s not impossible for the Huskies to drop a home game vs. a Seton Hall team they already lost to once or lose on the road vs. Marquette and Providence.
3. Houston
Like a boa constrictor, Houston just wraps itself around their opponent’s throat, lets them struggle and believe they can break free before just suffocating them to the point that their eyes pop out of their sockets like a cartoon character. This is the experience of facing Kelvin Sampson’s group, especially on defense.
The metrics are mind-boggling. Sometimes adjusted-stats websites like KenPom and the like are a little bit dangerous to trust since so much of their data relies on a schedule-adjusted rating. But for the Cougars, forget their schedule-adjusted No. 1 defense. Even the raw numbers love them. UH is No. 3 in the country in forced turnover rate, No. 2 in block rate, No. 2 in holding opponents to the lowest effective field goal percentage with a top-20 mark in 3-point defense and top-10 in 2-point. The big kicker? Houston is No. 1 in points per possession allowed by a country mile. That is as raw a measurement as there is of defense, and Houston is boat-racing the competition while playing a very difficult schedule.
4. Tennessee
A couple weeks back, we outlined on one of these updates just how easy the Volunteers had it on their schedule to close out February. Well, they took care of business, rolling off wins against four of the five bottom teams in the SEC standings: Missouri, Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Texas A&M.
But now, the road gets much more treacherous for Tennessee if they want to stave off everyone else to win the league. The Vols get Auburn at home Wednesday, then hit the road against Alabama and South Carolina before returning home to host Kentucky. With Auburn, ‘Bama and the Gamecocks still vying for first as well, those matchups loom quite large.
5. Iowa State
Iowa State catches flak for their non-conference slate, and they should, and it will hurt them on Selection Sunday, but they’ve racked up quite an impeccable resume in Big 12 play. The Cyclones have just four losses in America’s toughest league, all on the road to ranked teams.
Meanwhile, they nabbed Houston once at home, swept TCU, won other road games at Texas and Cincy, and also beat Kansas. It’s tough because their entire resume worth noting is their conference slate, but it’s darn strong. ISU is easily in contention for a 2-3 seed at this point.
6. Marquette
Uh oh, the Golden Eagles are turning up the heat offense — and they’re already a top-25 defense. After putting on a show offensively last season with a defense that ultimately wasn’t sound enough to allow a huge NCAA Tournament run, Marquette took a different path in 2024.
This group started off playing better defense than offense for much of the year, with the unit just not living up to what they had in place in 2023 scoring 2-pointers at nearly 60%. But since Jan. 15, Marquette has hit over 60% from inside the arc, 39% from 3, and are posting top-15 offensive numbers as the No. 7 overall team in Bart Torvik’s metrics since mid-January. Heating up at the right time and still with a chance to repeat as Big East champs.
7. North Carolina
Just get the Tar Heels away from Tuesdays. In conference play, North Carolina is 1-3 in Tuesday games but 13-0 in games played on all other days of the week. When you wondered how this great UNC team could lose to Georgia Tech, Clemson, and then at Syracuse in consecutive weeks, look no further than the fact they played those games on Tuesday.
After playing on three straight Tuesdays in each of those losses, Carolina played on Monday this week and didn’t have a midweek game last week, thus resulting in a three-game win streak. Next up is NC State at home on… Saturday. Call that a win. Then, the Tuesday curse gets one final test as UNC hosts a very poor Notre Dame at home next Tuesday. Win that one, lift the spell, then beat Duke that Saturday, and the Heels head into the postseason as hot as anyone.
8. Arizona
Arizona was dinged last week for losing their first home game of the season against Washington State, which snapped a six-game winning streak by the Wildcats in a Pac-12 that, frankly, hasn’t offered a whole lot of resistance nor quality win opportunities for this top-rated Wildcat squad. In fact, two of those opportunities came against Washington State in games Arizona lost.
That sweep by the Cougars over Arizona could actually prove consequential in the Pac-12 title race. The ‘Cats had a pretty comfortable lead in the league heading into last week’s matchup but Wazzu trimmed that down and is now just a half-game back from Arizona for first. Obviously, if they can catch AZ in these final two weeks, the tiebreaker favors WSU come Pac-12 Tournament time — and who could’ve imagined a Pac-12 champion Washington State squad in the final year of the league as we know it?
9. Creighton
Well, Creighton suffered the all-too-predictable Tale of Two Games last week. The Blue Jays triumphantly smashed UConn to bits in an 85-66 victory at home to snap a long Husky winning streak, but then, they entered the devil’s den to face Rick Pitino and his slick all-white suit, who captured victory over Creighton with his feisty St. John’s squad.
The defeat is a setback, but the Blue Jays are still looking primed for a top-five seed (at worst) with a strong Big East record and two terrific wins outside of it against Nebraska and Alabama. Another deep run could be in order for this veteran and star-driven group.
10. Kansas
After losing to BYU at home Tuesday for their sixth Big 12 loss, and with games at Baylor and at Houston sandwiched between a home game vs. Kansas State, it seems likely the Jayhawks drop at least one more, which would give them a seventh loss in the league — the first time a KU hoops team has suffered that many losses in Big 12 play in over 40 years. It was 1982-83 when Kansas lost 10 conference games as part of the Big 8.
Is that to say Kansas is historically bad? Not at all. In fact, with their wins outside the league, plus several terrific victories in league play, the Jayhawks are in swell position as far as the NCAA Tournament is concerned. Rather, this is the new reality of the Big 12. Like SEC football, there’s just never an off week given the competition level from top to bottom.
CBS Sports 11-26 Rankings
11. Baylor
12. Auburn
13. Dayton
14. Utah State
15. Duke
16. San Diego State
17. Illinois
18. Alabama
19. BYU
20. Kentucky
21. Washington State
22. South Carolina
23. Florida
24. Saint Mary’s
25. Oklahoma
26. Nebraska
With Tennessee near the top, plus Auburn, Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Florida rounding out the 26 to make it six teams on the list, the SEC is right with the Big 12 for most ranked teams at the moment, which would have been impossible to believe for that conference even a couple of years ago. Meanwhile, the Big 12 lands Houston, KU and ISU in the top-10, along with Baylor, BYU and Oklahoma to make it six as well. Nearly half the 26 just from those two leagues.