The two-time defending national champs are rising up the rankings again. After Purdue took down previous No. 2 Alabama 87-78 on Friday night in West Lafayette, UConn took the Crimson Tide’s place at No. 2 in the latest AP Top 25 unveiled Monday.

Dan Hurley’s Huskies have handled three low-major opponents (Sacred Heart, New Hampshire and Le Moyne) with little drama so far, and they have one more tune-up against East Texas A&M on Tuesday night before heading to the Maui Invitational, where they will open against Memphis.

No. 6 Purdue, meanwhile, joins Kentucky in vaulting from the teens into the top 10 after a big nonconference win. The Wildcats jumped 10 spots from No. 19 to No. 9 after a thrilling win over Duke last Tuesday at the Champions Classic.

Here’s the second men’s basketball AP Top 25 of the 2024-25 season, along with C.J. Moore’s ballot and analysis of the new rankings.

How far should Alabama and Arizona fall?

Alabama dropped from No. 2 to No. 8 and Arizona from No. 9 to No. 17 after the two preseason top-10 teams took road losses at traditionally difficult places to win. I tried not to penalize either team too much because I still believe in both and most coaches will tell you that a team’s first road game is always difficult. When a team loses on the road or on a neutral court early, it’s best to avoid dramatic drops unless you think that team is really flawed. Here are a few examples from recent years:

• Last season, the computers were high on Alabama — No. 5 in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin after a 4-0 start — but the highest Alabama got in the AP poll in November was No. 17. After a loss on a neutral court to Ohio State, Alabama fell out of the rankings. The Crimson Tide finished No. 14 at KenPom and made the Final Four.
• Last season after Purdue lost its first road game on the road, to Northwestern in overtime, the Boilermakers went from No. 1 to No. 4, despite staying No. 2 at KenPom. There were three clear best teams a year ago: UConn, Purdue and Houston. In hindsight, the Boilermakers shouldn’t have ever dropped below No. 3, which is lowest they got at KenPom.
• In November 2022, Gonzaga lost at Texas and then to Purdue in a neutral-site game, dropping from No. 2 to No. 14 in two weeks. The Zags went to the Elite Eight and finished No. 8 on KenPom.

In 2020-21, Illinois lost a neutral-court game to eventual national champion Baylor and a road game at Missouri and went from No. 5 to No. 13 in the span of two weeks. The Illini ended up a No. 1 seed and finished No. 4 at KenPom.

C.J. Moore’s arrivals and departures

After quality wins over the weekend, Texas A&M made it back into my Top 25 following a one-week absence and Wisconsin joined for the first time. I felt like I didn’t follow my own advice above, overreacting by bumping the Aggies when they lost on the road without Zhuric Phelps, arguably one of their best two players. (It was hard to predict how the SMU transfer would fit, but it turns out the answer is very well. He’s leading the Aggies in scoring, and they have a top-10 offense in the country since his debut.)

This meant that two teams had to get bounced from my Top 25, and one that may have felt undeserving was Arkansas (now at No. 20), which didn’t lose last week. My reasoning: I was low on Arkansas to begin the season and then started to rethink my stance after the Razorbacks crushed Kansas in a charity exhibition. But Kansas was without two starters that day— Hunter Dickinson and Rylan Griffen — and Arkansas hasn’t exactly earned the ranking in its three games thus far, a neutral-court loss to Baylor and two margins of victory in the teens at home against Lipscomb and Troy.

New AP No. 25 Illinois was the other team I considered dropping from my ballot, and the tiebreaker was the computer rankings. Illinois is No. 25 at KenPom, No. 22 at Torvik and No. 32 at Evan Miya. Arkansas is No. 31, No. 38 and No. 34 at those three places. The Razorbacks have potential, but they’re not playing at the level of a ranked team so far.

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The Purdue predicament

The other team I struggled making a decision on this week was Purdue, now up to No. 6. The Boilers are No. 12/15/15 at the three computer rankings mentioned above and had one of the most impressive wins of the weekend over my previous No. 1 Alabama. Purdue played brilliantly in that game, and I ended up moving them up only one spot to No. 11. Had the game been on a neutral floor or on the road, I would have bumped Purdue higher. Some voters prefer to simply rank the team who won the head-to-head matchup one spot above the other — as I did with Kentucky over Duke — but I still like Alabama more long-term.

After watching all of Kentucky’s games so far, I think the Wildcats are much better than I thought they would be. Matt Painter’s team looks slightly better than where I had it pegged in the preseason (No. 14). Hence, I kept the Boilermakers just outside the top 10. With a road game at Marquette and then a matchup against either BYU or Ole Miss in San Diego over the next two weeks — the Cougars and Rebels are are right on the fringe of my Top 25 right now — Purdue will have an opportunity to jump into the top 10 soon.

(Photo: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)