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A poll for a champion
This week's AP Poll features the 2025 in the top 12. At least if you believe in a 20-year trend. Plus, exclusive insights on Chris Youngblood's return for Alabama, Indiana rolls over Minnesota (and other Monday results), the Mountain West's rough start, and Rhode Island coach Archie Miller discusses his team's 9-0 start.
Mike Miller
December 10, 2024
Good morning! Monday night was such a light night of college hoops, I actually got some holiday shopping done. (Everyone’s getting a PREMIUM subscription to the Field of 68 Daily. It’s the perfect gift.)
Let’s get to Monday’s news.
1. Looking for the 2025 champ? It’s in this week’s top 12
As expected, Tennessee claimed the No. 1 spot in the latest AP poll on Monday. The Vols (8-0) got 58 of 62 first-place votes (Auburn got 3 and Iowa State got 1) for the top spot, a place they haven’t been since the 2018-19 season.
And they had plenty of SEC company.
Five other SEC programs also are in the Top 10, the first time that’s ever happened for the league. That’d be No. 2 Auburn, No. 5 Kentucky, No. 7 Alabama and No. 9 Florida. The SEC has nine teams ranked overall.
For SEC naysayers, if you use a variety of rankings and advanced metrics, the SEC “only” has seven in the Top 25. Sorry, best I can do. The league is really damn good.
Here is this week’s composite rankings.
— Trilly Donovan (@trillydonovan)
9:47 PM • Dec 9, 2024
Back to the AP Poll. For those who believe history is a good predictor of future success, take note of the top 12 teams in this week’s poll.
As John Gasaway has long noted, every single national champ over the last 20 years has been ranked in the Top 12 of the Week 6 poll. (Yes, even both of those two “Cinderella” UConn teams in 2011 and 2014.) Is it as helpful as when lists of teams that are in the top 20 of offense and defense of KenPom? Probably. But it’s still a wild stat worth surfacing.
This year’s list includes:
Tennessee
Auburn
Iowa State
Duke
Kentucky
Marquette
Alabama
Gonzaga
Florida
Kansas
Purdue
Oregon
Is there some preseason bias included in that list? Sure. If it helps, Torvik can filter out that preseason influence and just account for who’s played the best thus far. Do that, and the teams in both top 12s include: Tennessee, Auburn, Gonzaga, Duke, Kentucky, Iowa State, Alabama and Florida.
Should you bet on it? Nah. But use it a reference when March rolls around.
2. Alabama’s ‘big impact’ coming on Saturday
