College basketball rankings: Why Kansas is No. 1 ahead of Auburn in the updated Top 25 And 1
Kansas is No. 1 in Monday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings for the 29th consecutive day to start this season, which is apparently confusing for some given that I noted on Friday’s Eye On College Basketball Podcast that Auburn currently has the sport’s best body of work.
“Then why do you have Kansas No. 1?”
Fair question.
Let me explain: I’ve had Kansas No. 1 in the Top 25 And 1 since April 19 — right after the Jayhawks added Wisconsin transfer AJ Storr to the roster. I kept them there throughout the entire rest of the preseason. And, four weeks into this season, KU has simply given me no reason to drop them from the top spot while starting 7-0 with victories over Duke, Michigan State and North Carolina.
“But I thought you said Auburn has the sport’s best resume?”
I did!
Now let me tell you how I can say that and do this, please: At some point, we’ll reach a day in the season when all of the great teams will have nice wins and a loss or two, and that’s when I’ll turn to ranking schools largely based on little more than their bodies of work in an attempt to replicate how the selection committee might be viewing things on any given morning.
But we’re not there yet.
My quickest explanation is that if I think, or anybody else thinks, a school is entering the season as the sport’s best team, there’s no great reason to move off of that opinion until something happens that compels you to do so. And, through the first four weeks of this season, nothing has compelled me to move undefeated Kansas from No. 1 — and I write that with an immense amount of respect for what Auburn has accomplished while also starting 7-0 with wins over Houston, Iowa State, Memphis and North Carolina. It’s just that the team I thought would be the best since April is also still undefeated.
So Bruce Pearl’s Tigers remain No. 2 in the Top 25 And 1.
And if that explanation doesn’t make sense to you, try this one: The Celtics are the favorite to win the NBA title at +230, according to FanDuel Sportsbook. So, for the sake of this conversation, let’s call Boston the NBA’s best team. Now imagine if Boston got dropped into college basketball for some reason. Needless to say, I would’ve ranked the Celtics No. 1 in the Top 25 And 1 heading into the season, mostly because I just think college wings would really struggle with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Now imagine if the Celtics opened the season with the same first seven games as Kansas and won them all by the same margins.
You know what that would mean?
It would mean that the Auburn Tigers, right now, would have a better body of work than the Boston Celtics based on the first seven games that each team has played — but would anybody question why, under these hypothetical circumstances, I’d keep Boston ahead of Auburn?
Of course not.
And that’s all I’m doing here.
To be clear, no, I’m not comparing the Kansas Jayhawks to the Boston Celtics. That’s silly, obviously. All I’m doing is emphasizing that, one month into this season, it’s not a contradiction to acknowledge Auburn has the sport’s best resume while standing by a belief that the also-undefeated team I thought would be the sport’s best team — in this case, Kansas — is still the sport’s best team.
(If you don’t understand that, stay confused. I give up.)
The good news is that this will all work itself out in time — perhaps as early as Wednesday when both Kansas and Auburn play theoretical tough road games. The Jayhawks are at Creighton. The Tigers are at Duke. If one of them wins while the other loses, this Kansas-Auburn mini-debate will cease to exist. And if both happen to lose, which is definitely possible, then we’ll have a really interesting discussion Thursday morning about who should be No. 1.
