NCAA Men's Coaches Poll Prediction after Week 18: Kansas Drops, Kentucky Rises
Forecasting the coaches poll after college basketball week 18 is basically chaos. 14 ranked teams lost, sometimes in competitive battles with other ranked teams, and sometimes not. The entire back half of the top 25 polls could seemingly be drawn from a hat at random. But some order might yet emerge from the chaos.
Most of the coaches poll shake-ups emerge at the end. Three new teams are in the projected top 25. Meanwhile, Kentucky, after a difficult season, rallies to a spot in the projected top ten after a big win in Tennessee. Here's the general projection.
College basketball coaches poll projection after week 18
Top 25 upsets
The bottom line is that the actual majority of the top 25 took a loss. San Diego State fell entirely out of the projected field after a pair of losses. A 30-point beatdown by Houston drops Kansas to 19th. There were so many losses that Gonzaga, who didn't play all week, jumped three spots in the coaches poll projection.
Top 10 movement
Kentucky leaps into the top ten after almost all of the back half of the group took losses. North Carolina did not and jumped to fourth overall off their win at Duke. Creighton also took a major leap, based as much as anything on the failures of teams previously above them. The sport's big three — Houston, UConn, and Purdue — were the exceptions as they stayed atop the poll.
Moving in, dropping out
Three new teams entered the projected poll. Dayton, who had fallen out of the poll last week, came back in. They were joined by Texas Tech, fresh off a 2-0 week and an upset of Baylor. Nevada jumped into the group by besting Boise State, who otherwise would have gotten the 23rd spot.
Of the teams on the decline, San Diego State used a pair of losses to fall outside the top 25 from a spot at 19th. Florida had an embarrassing loss to Vanderbilt or else they might have gained ground in the poll. Meanwhile, South Florida had its loss that caused the Bulls to slide out of the poll from 24th. They'll all group together with a possible future return to the coaches poll top 25.