After a relatively quiet week on the college hoops hardwoods, here’s this week’s RTC25. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Quick N’ Dirty Analysis.

• Michigan State remains a near unanimous #1. For the second consecutive week, the Spartans were a vote away from being a consensus top team in the poll. Michigan State took care of business on Saturday in a rare road date at a low-major, dispatching Northeastern by 20. Tom Izzo’s bunch would be wise not to overlook an Oakland team that holds claim to one of the 25 most efficient offenses in America, but barring a major upset by the Grizzlies on Tuesday, Sparty will almost assuredly find itself in the exact same spot in the poll next week.
• Little movement at bottom of poll…besides Georgetown. Texas A&M is the only team to re-enter the poll this week, hopping back in at #20. The team it replaced, Georgetown, had about as bad a week as any Top 25 team has had. Ever. The Hoyas dropped home games to Monmouth (by 15) and UNC-Asheville to emphatically tumble out of both the Top 25 and receiving votes category. The loss of games to teams from the Big South and MAAC, on its home floor and in the same week, would seem to be solid indication that the Hoyas won’t be reappearing in the poll anytime soon.
• Resurgent Big East Dominates Top Ten. The Big East lays claim to the most teams in the Top 10 (3), as Villanova and Butler join Xavier in the group. Doubts are likely to linger about the bona fides of all three of these teams, but little now stands in the way of the trio finishing the non-conference season with just three losses between them, as Xavier’s trip to Wake Forest is the only thing left on the non-conference schedule that even moderately resembles a test. Many will try to poke holes in the Big East between now and March, but if the only non-Big East losses for the league’s three best teams are to Oklahoma (#3), Virginia (#4) and Miami (#13), the league profile should prove sufficiently fortified.

Game of the Week. #8 Kentucky vs. #18 Louisville. Exams and the holiday season again leave a light week of college basketball ahead. The Bluegrass state rivalry rarely fails to deliver, however. Saturday’s matchup should shed more light on two teams heading in opposite directions in the poll. A Cardinals win might even place Rick Pitino’s ahead of the vaunted Wildcats heading into 2016.

Conference Call: Big 12 (5), ACC (5), Big East (4), Big Ten (3), Pac-12 (2), SEC (3), AAC (2), Atlantic 10 (1). 

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015 at 11:57 am by Walker Carey and is filed under blogpoll, feature. Tagged: duke, kentucky, top 25, xavier. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.