The Kentucky Wildcats keep moving on up in the national rankings. They’re now in the top 10. After defeating Duke in the Champions Classic last week — the first major victory of the Mark Pope era — the Cats jumped 10 spots in the AP Top 25 college basketball poll, rising from No. 19 to No. 9 in the new rankings.
UK was No. 23 in the preseason AP poll last month, with many voters clearly taking a wait-and-see approach to a Wildcats roster that had zero returning scholarship players from last season and just one player who had ever played for Pope. The skeptics have seen some good things so far.
Kentucky is now 3-0 going into Tuesday’s home game against Lipscomb after opening the season with blowout wins over Wright State and Bucknell before the 77-72 victory over the Blue Devils in Atlanta last week. The massive jump in Monday’s poll marks Kentucky’s biggest rise in the history of the AP rankings.
The 10-spot jump this week beat the previous record — a rise of nine positions — during the 2000-01 season. The two-week jump of 14 spots is also the biggest in program history. The Cats had risen 12 spots over a two-week period twice in the past.
The first AP poll was released during the 1948-49 season.
UK will have four straight games against mid-major opposition in Rupp Arena — Lipscomb (Tuesday), Jackson State (Friday), Western Kentucky (Nov. 26) and Georgia State (Nov. 29) — before hitting the road again for tough matchups at Clemson (Dec. 3) and Gonzaga (Dec. 7 in Seattle).
The Cats have not started a season better than 7-0 since the 2014-15 campaign, when John Calipari’s nearly perfect squad ran up a 38-0 record before a loss to Wisconsin in the Final Four.
Pope’s team is making more noise in the national conversation after the big win last week.
Kansas remained No. 1 in the latest Top 25 poll, followed by No. 2 UConn , No. 3 Gonzaga, No. 4 Auburn and No. 5 Iowa State.
Rounding out the top 10 were No. 6 Purdue, No. 7 Houston, No. 8 Alabama, No. 9 Kentucky and No. 10 North Carolina. Alabama, the preseason SEC favorite and No. 2 team nationally, dropped in the rankings after an 87-78 loss at Purdue on Friday night. Duke fell six spots to No. 12 after the loss to UK.
After being picked to finish eighth in the SEC preseason media poll — as well as being the eighth SEC team listed in the preseason Top 25 rankings — Kentucky is now the third team from the league in the AP poll, behind Auburn and Alabama.
Other SEC teams in the Top 25 rankings are No. 11 Tennessee, No. 20 Arkansas, No. 21 Florida and No. 23 Texas A&M.
(UK will play Alabama and Tennessee twice this season, with only home games against Auburn, Arkansas, Florida and Texas A&M.) Ole Miss (27th), Texas (31st) and Mississippi State (34th) also received votes in Monday’s poll, and Kentucky will have road games against each of those three teams.
