Cats still No. 2 in polls

The UK men’s basketball team (26-1, 11-1 Southeastern Conference) didn’t win pretty last week, but they won two road games in hostile environments and that’s good enough to keep them at No. 2 in the Associated Press top 25 and earn four first-place votes.

The Cats defeated Mississippi State 81-75 in an overtime thriller in Starkville, Miss. The Cats trailed by seven with three minutes to play, but stormed back to get the win. The Cats then gutted out another game in Nashville, Tenn., against Vanderbilt to the tune of 58-56. Vanderbilt junior center A.J. Ogilvy missed a running jumper after UK head coach John Calipari called a timeout with 2.5 seconds remaining. Calipari would later say it was one of the dumbest timeouts he has ever called in his career.

The Kansas Jayhawks (26-1) also held serve this past week, defeating Texas A&M and Colorado, to remain the top ranked team in the land.

Purdue (23-3) moved up one spot to No. 3 this week after Villanova (22-4) lost to Pittsburgh on Sunday, 70-65.

Syracuse (25-2) and Duke (23-4) each moved up one spot to Nos. 4 and 5, respectively. The Orange only played one game last week, a 75-71 win over Georgetown.

Kansas State continued the trend of moving up one spot. The Wildcats are No. 6 this week. Villanova’s 5-point loss to Pittsburgh dropped them to No. 7. West Virginia remained at No. 8 this week, and Ohio State (21-7) stayed at No. 9. New Mexico (25-3) checks into the top 10 this week at the 10 spot.

Vanderbilt (20-6, 9-3 SEC) and Tennessee (20-6, 8-4 SEC) remained as the only two other teams in addition to UK to make the top 25 from the SEC. Vanderbilt actually moved up one spot (how many times can I say that in one post?) to No. 16 after being ranked No. 17 last week. Tennessee also – you guessed it – moved up one spot to No. 19 after wins over Georgia and South Carolina last week.

UK is also No. 2 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll.