Conference championship tournament play is about to wrap up in the NCAA, and Selection Sunday is also on the horizon. And with that, the Associated Press has released its final Top 25 Poll to determine some of the likely seeding for the tournament.
We here at TopBet have our own take on the top 25 schools, which varies from the AP’s own rankings ever so slightly except for the latter portion of the list.
And for an in-depth look at the top 10 teams listed below, head over to our last installment of our Power Rankings feature right after this.
TopBet’s Final Top 25 Rankings for the 2015-16 NCAA Men’s College Basketball Regular Season
As you’ll notice below, there’s hardly any significant shake-ups between our rankings and the AP’s own poll. The four teams situated atop the list are pretty much the four elite programs entering the tournament even by popular opinion.
Although, a case could be made that the Xavier Musketeers, who have a better overall record than Virginia and Oklahoma before them, deserve a higher spot. However, the team unexpectedly lost its penultimate regular-season contest against Seton Hall before narrowly beating another mediocre conference rival in Creighton in the season finale.
Then again, the Musketeers just handily routed Marquette in the quarterfinal round of the Big East Tournament this Thursday. That sizzling start bodes well for Xavier as they make their push for the conference title and a high seed at March Madness.
Meanwhile and at the bottom of our rankings, two often overlooked mid-major schools from in SMU (American) and Saint Mary’s (WCC) made our cut. Unfortunately for the SMU Mustangs, their season has already come to an end given their NCAA-imposed ban from the the Big Dance due to academic fraud.
As for the Saint Mary’s Gaels, they suffered a brutal 10-point loss to Gonzaga on Tuesday and lucked out on winning the West Coast Conference title. Nevertheless, the Gaels could find themselves with a tourney berth on Selection Sunday given that they’re still the WCC’s regular-season champs with a respectable 40th place in the RPI rankings. They also technically rank 28th in the AP Top 25 after receiving 33 points from the committee, and also finished 23rd in the USA Today Coaches Poll with 117 points.
