I’ve never seen anything like it.
The top six teams in the AP Top 25 all lost.
No. 1 Gonzaga loses to 23 St. Mary’s, 67-57, at Moraga, Calif.
No. 2 Arizona loses to Colorado, 79-63, at Boulder.
No. 3 Auburn loses to 17 Tennessee, 67-62, in Knoxville.
No. 4. Purdue loses to Michigan State 68-65, at East Lansing.
No. 5. Kansas loses to 10 Baylor, 80-70, at Waco.
No. 6 Kentucky loses to 18 Arkansas, 75-73, at Fayetteville.
So, who’s No. 1 this week?
Probably Gonzaga, provided voters appreciate how hard it is to play in McKeon Pavilion.
And who are the No. 1 seeds?
Most likely, it will be Gonzaga, Arizona, Kansas, who lost major road games in hostile environments but Kentucky, Purdue and ninth-ranked Texas Tech, the teams deemed most likely to surpass them, all lost. Baylor, which started the day as the sixth overall seed, moved ahead of Auburn as the fourth No. 1 in Joe Lunardi’s bracket with a huge win over the Jayhawks, although that could change Monday when they play at Texas.
Watch out for seventh-ranked Duke after the 25-4 Devils impressive 97-72 blowout over Syracuse at the Carrier Dome, taking full advantage of the fact 6-11 Orange center Jessie Edwards sat out with a broken wrist. Duke’s 7-1 center Mark Williams led Duke with a career high 28 points.
A week out from conference tournament week, everything is chaos.
St. Mary’s ended Gonzaga’s 17-game winning streak, beating a No. 1 team for the first time since knocking off the Bulldogs in the 2019 WCC tournament in Vegas. Tommy Kuhse had 14 points and six rebounds for the 24-6 Gaels while Matthias Tass added 16 before the SRO crowd at McKeon Pavilion stormed the court. The Bulldogs has beaten the Gaels easily in Spokane two weeks ago and had won 34 consecutive WCC games.
The Zags looked sluggish and out of sorts against St. Mary’s. They shot just 31 percent in the first half and were outscored 17-5 over the final seven minutes before the half. Gonzaga’s All American forward Drew Timme, who was taunted by St. Mary’s fans as he practiced before the game, was smothered by defenders every time he touched the ball in the paint and the Zags’ leading scorer missed all eight shots in the first half when St. Mary’s took a 36-21 lead.
Colorado (19-10) came back from a five- point halftime deficit to shut down the Wildcats (25-3) in the second half when the Buffs held Cats’ leading scorer Bennedict Mathurin scoreless after he scored 12 points in the first 20 minutes. The Buffs held AU scoreless for two long stretches of 4:27 and 3:59.
Auburn, which spent time at No. 1 in AP and was on the 1 seed line last week, took the biggest hit among the contenders when the Tigers shot just 5-for-24 from the three- point line while Purdue lost control of the ability to control its destiny in the Big Ten when Michigan State’s Tyson Walker made a game winning three with 1.4 seconds to play as the unranked Spartans broke out after a rare 1-5 stretch.
