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Saturday’s loss was inevitable at some point this season. No team was going to run through the toughest conference undefeated. Not suprisingly, AP voters have used Saturday’s loss to drop the West Virginia Mountaineers four spots in the latest poll.
The Mountaineers rose to their highest ranking since December 1959 when a wild weekend of college basketball saw multiple Top 5 teams lose. Against the Texas Tech Red Raiders, the Mountaineers became the latest high ranked team to lose.
The Villanova Wildcats beat #10 Xavier 89-65 and St. Johns this week to remain number one. The Wildcats collected 63 of 65 number one votes. The Virginia Cavaliers, who lost to the Mountaineers in early December in Morgantown, move up to #2.
The Mountaineers opponent for tonight, the Kansas Jayhawks, move up from #12 to #10, making tonight’s game a duel of top-10 teams. The Jayhawks have not won in Morgantown since January 28, 2013.
It's a big matchup in the Big 12 as West Virginia hosts Kansas (9 ET on ESPN).
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) January 15, 2018
A loss gives 13-time defending Big 12 champion Kansas just a 21% chance to win the conference outright. pic.twitter.com/GzLaNTA81x
The top ten teams are:
- Villanova (63)
- Virginia (1)
- Purdue (1)
- Oklahoma
- Duke
- West Virginia
- Wichita State
- Texas Tech
- Michigan State
- Kansas
The Big 12 has four teams in the top ten while no other conference has more than two.
The full AP Top 25 can be found here