NCAA College Basketball 2018: AP Top 25 Poll and ESPN Power Rankings Updated

The college basketball regular season is over.

Now, conference tournaments are beginning in most leagues (some are already completed), and for the Kentucky Wildcats, it’s a chance to climb up the NCAA Tournament seed line if they can win 2-3 games in the SEC Tournament.

That’s the good news. The bad news is UK is falling in the top 25 polls following their blowout loss to the Florida Gators. While the final score indicated just a 13-point loss, it was a beatdown that saw the Cats trailing by 23 points at one point.

That led to UK falling out of the latest AP Top 25 Poll. Despite riding a four-game winning streak into Saturday, the embarrassment in Gainesville was enough for voters to drop UK out of the final regular-season poll.

Here is a look at the entire top 25:

1. Virginia Cavaliers
2. Villanova Wildcats
3. Xavier Musketeers
4. Michigan State Spartans
5. Duke Blue Devils
6. Gonzaga Bulldogs
7. Michigan Wolverines
8. Cincinnati Bearcats
9. Kansas Jayhawks
10. Purdue Boilermakers
11. Wichita State Shockers
12. North Carolina Tar Heels
13. Tennessee Volunteers
14. Texas Tech Red Raiders
15. Arizona Wildcats
16. Auburn Tigers
17. Ohio State Buckeyes
18. West Virginia Mountaineers
19. Clemson Tigers
20. Saint Mary’s Gaels
21. Houston Cougars
22. Nevada Wolf Pack
23. Florida Gators
24. Miami-Florida Hurricanes
25. Rhode Island Rams

In the latest ESPN Power Rankings, UK dropped to the No. 22 spot.

22. Kentucky Wildcats

Record: 21-10

Last week: 20

Saturday’s loss to Florida highlighted a few trends with this Kentucky team. One, Hamidou Diallo has disappeared more often than not over the past month, scoring in double figures three times since Jan. 13. He had one point against the Gators. Second, Jarred Vanderbilt and PJ Washington both had foul trouble, which meant John Calipari couldn’t use the small lineup that has brought Kentucky success recently.

Thoughts?