Luke DeCock’s AP Top 25 basketball poll ballot: Week 9
News & Observer sports columnist Luke DeCock is serving as an Associated Press Top 25 basketball poll voter for the 2021-22 NCAA basketball season. This is his AP ballot for January 10, 2022.
Congratulations to Baylor, the official Team of the Pandemic. Since what was then called the novel coronavirus shut down college basketball in March 2020, the Bears are 43-2 with one national title and sit in pole position to win another.
You can’t credit continuity (the Bears are 238th in the country, per Ken Pomeroy’s database) or veteran savvy (there are 213 more experienced teams) but for whatever reason, no one has navigated the pandemic -- on the court, anyway -- better than Baylor.
Southern Cal is the nation’s other undefeated team, and the Trojans have a decent enough chance to keep things that way until they play Arizona next month. There are three Pac-12 teams in my top five, and no one saw that coming.
Miami is one of five new teams on this ballot this week after winning at Duke, and may crack the actual poll itself, but the Hurricanes still have some work to do on the NCAA tournament front. Still, even without the Hurricanes at this point, the ACC is now tracking for as many as five bids -- Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest -- which is certainly an improvement from where things stood a week ago.
THIS SEASON’S BALLOTS
Preseason | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8
THIS WEEK’S TOP 25 BASKETBALL BALLOT
1. Baylor (Last week: 1)
2. Gonzaga (3)
3. UCLA (4)
4. Arizona (7)
5. USC (8)
6. Michigan State (9)
7. Auburn (11)
8. LSU (12)
9. Kansas (5)
10. Houston (13)
11. Duke (2)
12. Purdue (6)
13. Illinois (17)
14. Xavier (18)
15. Villanova (20)
16. Wisconsin (21)
17. Alabama (15)
18. Ohio State (10)
19. Tennessee (16)
20. Seton Hall (NR)
21. West Virginia (NR)
22. Loyola Chicago (NR)
23. Miami (NR)
24. BYU (NR)
25. Kentucky (23)
OUT Colorado State (14), Texas (19), Providence (22), San Francisco (24), Iowa State (25)
This story was originally published January 10, 2022 at 8:41 AM.
