CBS Sports updates Top 25 and 1 with new No. 1 after Tuesday night upsets

No. 1 went down on Tuesday night, which means a bit of a shakeup in Gary Parish’s Top 25 and 1 rankings for college hoops, which he has now updated for Wednesday over on CBS Sports.

The late-night window was not kind to the top-ranked teams on Tuesday. Previously-sixth-ranked Baylor made their first trip to new Big 12 contender BYU where the Cougars picked up a huge 78-71 win. Then, No. 1 UConn finally fell in Big East play as their 14-game winning streak was snapped on the road vs. Creighton. And Texas Tech also scored a big home win over TCU.

Now, take a look at the full updated CBS Sports Top 25 and 1 right here:

1. Purdue

Purdue also fell in their most recent game at Ohio State as the Buckeyes rallied to score the massive win following the ouster of head coach Chris Holtmann. But coming up next is a game against a Rutgers program that has haunted Matt Painter like the Ghost of Christmas Past.

You could make the argument Purdue has its toughest test of the regular season at home against Rutgers, even though they already beat these guys once. However, current Boilermaker seniors have yet to experience a year without a Rutgers loss, since Purdue fell in their trips to Piscataway in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Rutgers didn’t even host Purdue during the 2023 season but they still went into West Lafayette and beat a then-top-ranked Purdue team to kick-start the new year. Now, the Scarlet Knights have a chance at five straight seasons with a regular season win over Purdue.

2. UConn

Dan Hurley joked last season after winning the title that Big East play was the only time during the season UConn really had much trouble. This season, those struggles were corrected as the Huskies dropped their first game at Seton Hall before running off 14 straight victories.

Now, they’ve just lost to a very strong Creighton team, and badly, too, at 85-66. But there’s really not much to worry about there. There was no way UConn would simply win out in league play and the Blue Jays are really starting to click, as they often seem to, in mid-February.

3. Houston

The Cougars just keep buzzing along. This week, they avenged their first-ever Big 12 loss from January by hosting Iowa State and putting a lid on the Cyclone offense in the first half. Ultimately, the Cougars gained a large enough early on to hold on throughout the night to end up with a 73-65 victory over the AP’s No. 6 team in the country.

Since their loss to Kansas, Houston has really gotten the job done on both ends of the court, and are shooting an average of 10 more shots per game from the field than their opponent in the last four games, and with a similar level of free throws. With basically 10 extra shot attempts, or possessions, in each game, the math is working heavily in Houston’s favor.

4. Arizona

Arizona experienced some confusing slip-ups in January but hit February at a full sprint, having now rolled off six straight victories, including at Colorado and at Utah for a nice pair of quad one additions to the resume. Of course, they were also named a No. 1 seed at the mid-February top-16 reveal from the committee.

During this win streak, dating back to just before the end of January, Arizona is Bart Torvik’s No. 2 team in the country with a top-10 offense and top-20 defense, trailing only UConn. With a very friendly end to their schedule, Arizona is looking primed for a Pac-12 title and one-seed in the Big Dance.

5. Tennessee

The Volunteers are just about done playing teams without NCAA Tournament aspirations. Texas A&M is squarely on the bubble and travels to Knoxville next. But then, it’s a gauntlet of a four-game closer for Rick Barnes and company: home for Auburn, on the road vs. Alabama and South Carolina, then home for Kentucky.

There are four teams other than Tennessee ranked in the 25 Top And 1 — and that’s all of them right there in a row for the Volunteers. Good thing they packed their resume air-tight with 1-3 seed quality before this brutal run to close out.

6. Iowa State

Thanks to Baylor’s disappointment in Provo, the Cyclones actually moved up a spot for Gary Parish, and that’s mainly because they didn’t get punished too hard for a loss on the road vs. a top-five team. Plus, it’s not like the Cyclones were blown out or anything.

For ISU, the strength of this team remains in the defense and rebounding. They couldn’t buy a bucket for an entire half vs. Houston and still remained competitive and in the ball game throughout. Sort of like San Diego State, they just have this old and wily core of guys down low with seniors Robert Jones, Tre King and Hason Ward who really set the tone. Not the stars, but indispensable parts of the machine in Ames.

7. Marquette

The Golden Eagles saw a month of winning end on Saturday when UConn absolutely creamed them 81-53 to eliminate what hopes Marquette still had at the Big East championship. However, Shaka Smart’s team is still on the rise and looking like the contenders they were in 2023.

For a while, that wasn’t the case, as Marquette’s offense struggled to start the season as the team opened up conference play at just 2-3 and had an 11-5 record on Jan. 11. Fast forward several weeks and the Eagles are now 19-6 on the year and have Bart Torvik’s No. 10 offense since that Jan. 10 loss to Butler. Meanwhile, the defense is vastly improved compared to last season, which was their Achilles’ heel.

8. North Carolina

North Carolina currently holds a three-game losing streak on Tuesday nights. So this week, to avoid No. 4, the Tar Heels simply didn’t play on Tuesday and only have one more game all year on that wretched day of the week, a home matchup vs. Notre Dame, which should be their easiest one remaining.

Tuesday or not, this North Carolina team has now taken its lumps in ACC play, following a 9-0 start with a 3-3 mark the last couple of weeks. The key for that run was great defense, and digging into the numbers, it appears the 3-point defense has been the catalyst for success vs. failure. In the nine-game streak, UNC foes shot more than 20 3-pointers per game but made just 20.1% of them. But in the last six games, opponents shot even more 3s and made a much higher 33.8% of them.

9. Creighton

Welcome back to the top-10, Creighton! The Blue Jays have been ranked in the top-10 at some point in five of the last eight seasons, and got there in Gary Parish’s latest update thanks to blasting his previous No. 1 team, UConn, by nearly 20 points on Tuesday evening.

Creighton is certainly back to looking like the top-10 team everyone expected them to be prior to the season returning three star pieces off a 2023 team that made an Elite Eight run. Frankly, it’s those stars that drive the bus. The Blue Jays will go as far as Trey Alexander, Baylor Scheierman and Ryan Kalkbrenner take them. After last season, there’s no reason to think that place can’t be Phoenix.

10. Kansas

The Jayhawks are in the thick of it, tired and bruised up, but still with five more Big 12 games and March to come. An off week couldn’t come at a better time as KU has six days in between Saturday matchups vs. Oklahoma and Texas to rest up and get healthy

Particularly, Bill Self needs star player Kevin McCullar to recover as best as possible. The potential All-American missed time over the last couple weeks but did return in the win over the Sooners. However, he simply wasn’t himself, and Self knows that a healthy McCullar is the team’s best shot at a run in March.

11-25 CBS Sports rankings

11. Baylor
12. Duke
13. Dayton
14. Auburn
15. Alabama
16. Illinois
17. Colorado State
18. Washington State
19. Utah State
20. San Diego State
21. BYU
22. South Carolina
23. Florida
24. Kentucky
25. Wisconsin
26. Saint Mary’s

BYU has leapt all the way back into the Top 25 And 1 after a stint outside of it. Elsewhere, there’s Utah State who also jumped back in the mix and falls in at No. 19 after beating a surging San Diego State squad.