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College basketball rankings: Purdue reclaims top spot in Top 25 And 1 after impressive win over Arizona – CBS Sports
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Purdue is back at No. 1 in Sunday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings after beating previous No. 1 Arizona, 92-84, in Indianapolis on Saturday. Before you ask, yes, I sincerely believe the Boilermakers should also be No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 and USA Today Coaches polls when they update Monday even though Kansas was No. 2 in both last week and did not lose since the morning those ballots were cast.
It’s just a résumé argument.
Simply put, through 42 days of this season, nobody will wake up Monday with a better body of work than what Purdue has so far created. The Boilermakers are 10-1 with four victories over top-10 KenPom teams — specifically wins over Arizona (No. 4), Marquette (No. 6), Tennessee (No. 7) and Alabama (No. 9). Beyond that, the Boilermakers also own wins over Gonzaga and Xavier, meaning they have a total of six top-50 KenPom wins with the lone loss coming in overtime in a true road game against Northwestern.
Kansas is great.
But KU can’t match that.
The Jayhawks are also 10-1 but have two fewer wins over top-10 KenPom teams, and three fewer wins over top-50 KenPom teams, than Purdue — plus, broadly speaking, worse computer numbers, if that matters to you. KU’s lone loss is a 13-point neutral-court decision to Marquette; that’s arguably better than the four-point OT loss that Purdue took at Northwestern, especially considering Northwestern subsequently lost to Chicago State. But the Boilermakers’ best counter to that argument is that they beat the same Marquette team that beat Kansas to win the same Maui Invitational in which Kansas finished third.
Bottom line, Purdue has better wins than Kansas, zero losses in regulation, and a victory over the only team that’s beaten Kansas to date. From my perspective, that should give the edge between those two schools to Purdue, which is why Matt Painter’s program will be No. 1 in the Top 25 And 1 at least until after they resume play Thursday with a non-league game against Jacksonville.
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