With the month of January winding down, the focus is starting to shift to the conference championship pictures with an eye towards the looming NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The March Madness Tournament will begin in just over a month, so now is a good time to begin assessing the top teams in the country with a look at the best five as of right now. Here is a look at our updated college basketball power rankings for this week following Saturday’s action.
1. Villanova Wildcats (19-1)
Even when Josh Hart and Kris Jenkins struggled early on against St. John’s the Wildcats managed to pull together as a team and rally for a big win on Saturday at Madison Square Garden before adding another victory over Seton Hall a couple of days later. Hart and Jenkins remain the most important scorers on the team but their defense has been an underrated aspect of their success as well as they rank 14th in the nation with an average of 61.7 points allowed per game. Villanova has the potential to make some major noise this college basketball season and it has shown early on.
2. Kansas Jayhawks (18-1)
Frank Mason III is the type of college basketball point guard we expect to absolutely dominate once the March Madness tournament rolls around and right now he is doing exactly that for the Jayhawks. Mason has averaged 20.3 points and 5.3 assists per game while leading Kansas to a 18-1 record out of the gate. Bill Self’s team has strung together 18 straight wins since dropping its opener in Hawaii and it might be only a matter of time before the Jayhawks climb to the top of this list. They had an easy time of things on Saturday with the Texas Longhorns, taking care of business by a score of 79-67. We’ll find out a lot more about Kansas this week when they take on No. 7 West Virginia on the road on Tuesday and then visit No. 5 Kentucky next Saturday.
3. Gonzaga Bulldogs (19-0)
Some experts will have Gonzaga at No. 1 on their power rankings thanks to the fact that they are the lone unbeaten team in the country but we want to see them face some tougher competition before we anoint them the best in college basketball. A strong win over Saint Mary’s in which Nigel Williams-Goss led the way with 19 points was a strong start and right now it appears as though the Bulldogs are on cruise control. They weren’t challenged much on Saturday against a shorthanded Portland side. They won the contest by a count of 73-52, never really breaking a sweat the entire way.
4. Kentucky Wildcats (17-2)
Baylor and Creighton both deserve honorable mentions for finishing just outside of our top five list this week and they will look to keep the pressure on the Wildcats to close out the month of January. Kentucky showed its range by shooting 8-for-12 from beyond the arc in the first half of its win over Auburn and that ability to stretch the floor will be key moving forward. The Wildcats will host South Carolina before travelling to Tennessee and then come back home to host Kansas so it should make for an entertaining week of basketball.
5. UCLA Bruins (19-2)
Bryce Alford has absolutely dominated in Pac-12 play so far this season while averaging a team-high 17.7 points per game overall this season to lead one of the nation’s highest scoring teams. The Bruins rank third in the country with an average of 92.9 points per game and that has a lot to do with the fact that they lead the nation in assists per game with an average of 22.1 per contest. UCLA is firing on all cylinders right now and that is a good thing heading in to a tough stretch. They fell on Saturday at home to No. 14 Arizona, but losing to a Top 25 won’t dock them too much. More is expected of them because they are supposed to protect their home court but Arizona is a very strong team. Baylor is a team that warranted consideration for this spot as well.
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