Luke DeCock’s AP Top 25 basketball poll ballot: Week 15
Back after another Monday off and Gonzaga has taken over -- and retains the No. 1 spot -- in the interim. There’s a pretty good case to be made for Arizona and Kansas as well, with Auburn and Baylor right behind, but the Zags looked like the country’s best team to start the season and they’ve got a pretty good shot to finish it that way.
Yes, it’s the West Coast Conference, but that’s no one-bid league this year. Gonzaga has to play the two toughest games on its conference schedule -- at San Francisco, at St. Mary’s -- to close things out. And just for comparison’s sake, those two games are tougher, analytically speaking, than any Duke will play in the ACC this winter.
It’ll be a race on Selection Sunday: The WCC should get Gonzaga, St. Mary’s, USF and maybe even BYU into the NCAA tournament field; the ACC will be lucky to get all of Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina and Notre Dame in.
The Mountain West might get four, too, although they could all be double-digit seeds: Boise State makes the ballot this week while Colorado State and Wyoming fall off. (San Diego State is the fourth candidate.)
THIS SEASON’S BALLOTS
Preseason | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 12 | Week 13
THIS WEEK’S TOP 25 BASKETBALL BALLOT
1. Gonzaga (Last week: 1)
2. Arizona (2)
3. Kansas (5)
4. Auburn (3)
5. Baylor (4)
6. Kentucky (6)
7. Villanova (7)
8. Purdue (9)
9. Duke (10)
10. Texas Tech (11)
11. Houston (12)
12. UCLA (14)
13. Tennessee (8)
14. Wisconsin (17)
15. Providence (13)
16. Illinois (15)
17. Ohio State (16)
18. Murray State (19)
19. USC (22)
20. St. Mary’s (24)
21. LSU (21)
22. Arkansas (NR)
23. Connecticut (NR)
24. Alabama (23)
25. Boise State (NR)
OUT Michigan State (18), Wyoming (20), Colorado State (25)
This story was originally published February 21, 2022 at 7:54 AM with the headline "Luke DeCock’s AP Top 25 basketball poll ballot: Week 15."
