Louisville Men’s Basketball is on a 3 game winning streak and are starting to look like the Final Four contender we all believed they would be. They just played 3 straight on the road and beat everyone in their path beginning with Notre Dame the Saturday before last. This past week, they defeated a game Pittsburgh team in front of a raucous Oakland Zoo and then went on the road to defeat the formerly 3rd ranked Duke Blue Devils to find themselves in a tie with Florida State for 1st place in the ACC.
With these victories, including the impressive road win at Cameron Indoor, Louisville finds itself ranked back in the top 10. The AP Top 25 Poll has Louisville at number 6 behind that Florida State team they are tied with for first. The USA TODAY Coaches Poll has the Cards back in the top 5 at number 5. UofL seems to have found its groove as they have let David Johnson take the reigns at the point and Fresh Kimble and Malik Williams are providing big time leadership. Here’s how the top 10 in each of the polls shook out this week.
AP Poll
In the AP Poll, Baylor leapfrogged Gonzaga and is the new number 1 team in college basketball. Gonzaga drops into the second spot.
There was a lot of movement due to many teams losing games this week. Kansas jumped from 6 to 3, San Diego State moved from 7th to 4th, and Florida State jumper from 9th to 5th. Louisville jumped from 11th five spots to 6th.
The rest of the top 10 has Dayton at 7, Duke at 8, Villanova at 9, and Seton Hall at 10. Dayton made the jump into the top 10 from 13 last week. Duke dropped from 3rd to 8th after two straight losses, including to Louisville at home. Nova jumped from 14th to their current spot while Seton Hall had the biggest jump of 8 spots from 18th to 10th.
Baylor got the majority of first place votes in this week’s poll with 33. However, Gonzaga was right on their hills with 31. Kansas received the other first place vote.
USA TODAY Coaches Poll
In the coaches poll, there would be no leapfrogging at the top this week as Gonzaga remains in the top spot. Baylor remained at 2.
The shakeups begin at 3 with Kansas jumping from 7th to 3rd. San Diego State jumped from 6th to 4th this week. The coaches seem to be slightly higher on Louisville than the media as the Cards jumped five spots from 10th to 5th.
Florida State at 6, Dayton at 7, Duke at 8, Michigan State at 9, and Seton Hall at 10 round out the top 10. The only big difference between the coaches and AP Polls are the placement of Michigan State in the top 10 by the coaches versus Villanova being placed in the top 10 by the media.
Gonzaga with 19 and Baylor with 13 are the only two teams that received first place votes.
Louisville will look to advance up the rankings this week as they return home to the KFC Yum! Center for two games. Wednesday they take on Georgia Tech 7 PM and then on Saturday they face a hot Clemson basketball team at 2 PM.
