I mentioned last week with their win over Kansas that if Baylor could knock of Oklahoma State, I would see them with a better overall resume than Gonzaga and move them into the top spot. I am a man of my word and for the first time, there is a new number on team in my rankings.

Gonzaga is still the best overall team in my mind, and if the two teams faced off next week (yes, please), I still think I would pick the Zags in a close one. However, I try to rank based on resumes and Baylor continues to stay undefeated and rack up big wins while paying in a much more competitive conference.

There was a little bit of other movement in the top-10 as Big Ten teams continue to knock each other off and teams like Kansas and Tennessee found themselves on quite the down week with mutliple losses in a row.

It’s approaching the point in the year where the top 10 to 15 teams seem solidly ranked in the top-25 somewhere but it is getting difficult to determine what teams after that are worthy of holding down the last few spots in my rankings, especially since I try to keep resume in mind above anything else.

I have a new system for tracking teams and will use it to base a lot of my decisions. As the year goes on, I find that a lot of people get sucked into the most recent games and put a little too much weight on recent results sometimes. Because of this, and because I generally like objective data as much as possible, I’m going to use these metrics in my post as well as the basis for my thought process.

I use KenPom as my starting point and keep track of the top-50 overall teams and a few in others as I see fit. A key win in my rankings is defined as a top-50 win at home, a top-75 win on a neutral court, or a top-100 win on the road. I will try to record all losses for now, but will also denote bad losses in italics when necessary and those are just the opposite of the good wins. For instance, if a team loses to a team not in the top-50 at home, then it’s a “bad” loss. Same for a loss to a team outside of the top-100 anywhere.

1. Baylor (14-0)

Key Wins:

Losses:

2. Gonzaga (15-0)

Key Wins:

** at homeLosses:**

3. Villanova (10-1)

Key Wins:

Losses:

4. Michigan (13-1)

Key Wins:

Losses:

5. Texas (11-2)

Key Wins:

Losses:

6. Alabama (13-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

7. Iowa (12-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

8. Houston (13-1)

Key Wins:

Losses:

9. Ohio State (12-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

10. Illinois (10-5)

Key Wins:

Losses:

11. Texas Tech (11-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

12. West Virginia (10-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

13. Virginia (10-2)

Key Wins:

Losses:

14. Wisconsin (12-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

15. Creighton (11-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

16. Missouri (10-2)

Key Wins:

Losses:

17. Kansas (10-5)

Key Wins:

Losses:

18. Tennessee (10-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

19. Florida State (9-2)

Key Wins:

Losses:

20. Oklahoma (9-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

21. UCLA (12-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

22. Oklahoma State (9-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

23. Colorado (12-4)

Key Wins:

Losses:

24. USC (12-3)

Key Wins:

Losses:

25. Purdue (11-6)

Key Wins:

Key Wins:

Also Under Consideration (Alphabetical)

Arizona, Arkansas, BYU, Connecticut, Duke, Florida, Indiana, Louisville, Loyola Chicago, LSU, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Penn State, Rutgers, Saint Louis, San Diego State, Seton Hall, Stanford, Syracuse, Utah State, Virginia Tech, Xavier