If you’re staring at the latest NCAA AP Top 25 and wondering how on earth your team dropped three spots after a double-digit win, welcome to the club. It happens every single week. Honestly, it’s basically a tradition at this point.
The poll is a strange beast.
It’s part science, part gut feeling, and a whole lot of regional bias that people love to argue about on Twitter (or X, or whatever we’re calling it this month). Right now, as we hit the meat of the 2025-26 college basketball season, the drama is peaking. Arizona is sitting pretty at the top with a perfect 16-0 record, looking like an absolute juggernaut. But then you’ve got teams like Vanderbilt jumping into the top ten for the first time in over a decade.
It’s chaotic. It’s subjective. And that’s exactly why we can't stop checking it every Monday afternoon.
The Reality of Being Number One
Being the top dog in the NCAA AP Top 25 isn't just about bragging rights. It’s a giant target on your back. Arizona learned that the hard way last week when they almost slipped, but they managed to keep their hold on the #1 spot by taking 60 of the 61 first-place votes. Iowa State is breathing down their neck at #2, also undefeated.
Can they stay there?
History says probably not. In the 78-year history of the poll, things change fast. Just look at Michigan. They were #2, lost one game to Wisconsin, and "boom"—they're down to #4. In the eyes of the 60-odd sportswriters who vote on this thing, one bad night is all it takes to lose your "elite" status.
How the Sauce is Actually Made
People think there’s some complex supercomputer crunching these numbers in a basement in Bristol. Nope. It’s actually 62 sportswriters and broadcasters from across the country. They each submit a list of their top 25 teams.
A first-place vote gets 25 points.
A second-place vote gets 24.
And so on, down to 1 point for 25th place.
It sounds simple, but it’s incredibly messy. These voters are often beat reporters. Imagine a guy who spent all Saturday night covering a quadruple-overtime game in East Lansing. He gets home at 3:00 AM, grabs a coffee, and has to submit his ballot by Sunday morning. Does he really know if a mid-major like Utah State (currently #23) is better than a struggling blue blood like Alabama at #18? Maybe. Maybe not.
That’s where the "eye test" comes in, and that’s where the fans start screaming.
Why the NCAA AP Top 25 Still Matters for March
You’ll hear people say, "The polls don't matter; only the NET rankings and the Selection Committee matter."
They're kinda right, but also totally wrong.
The NCAA AP Top 25 sets the narrative. It creates the "vibe" around a team. When the Selection Committee meets in that hotel in Grapevine, Texas, they aren't robots. They’ve been seeing these rankings all season. If a team has been top 10 for three months, it’s much harder to give them a 4-seed than a team that just surged late.
Look at Nebraska right now. They are #8 in the poll, matching a program high from 1966. If they stay in the top 10 of the AP poll, the committee is going to find it very difficult to ignore them for a high seed, regardless of what the "quadrant wins" say.
The Mid-Major Struggle
The poll has always been a bit of a gated community. If you aren't in a Power 4 conference (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC), you have to work twice as hard to get noticed. Gonzaga is the exception—they’re parked at #9 right now—but for a team like Utah State, every loss is a potential exit ticket from the rankings.
Voters tend to forgive a loss by Duke (currently #6) much faster than they forgive a loss by a Mountain West school. It’s not necessarily fair, but it’s the reality of how human voting works. We trust the names we know.
Football vs. Basketball: A Different Kind of Pressure
While we’re talking hoops, we can't ignore what just happened on the gridiron. The 2025 college football season wrapped up with Indiana—yes, Indiana—at the top of the NCAA AP Top 25. It was a season that broke everyone’s brain.
In football, the AP poll used to be the only thing that mattered. Now, it lives in the shadow of the College Football Playoff rankings. But even then, the AP poll is the one that gives us the "Preseason Top 25," which sets the expectations for the whole year. If you start the season unranked, your path to the playoff is a steep uphill climb.
The 2026 Landscape
As we look at the current basketball rankings, the Big 12 is absolutely flexin'.
- Arizona (#1)
- Iowa State (#2)
- Houston (#7)
- BYU (#11)
- Texas Tech (#15)
Five teams in the top 15? That’s insane. It means that almost every Tuesday and Saturday, two ranked teams are beating the life out of each other. This is why the NCAA AP Top 25 is so volatile. You can be a great team, lose to another great team on the road, and the voters will still drop you because they simply have to move someone else up.
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What Most People Get Wrong About the Poll
One of the biggest misconceptions is that the poll is a "power ranking" of who would win today. It's not. Most voters treat it as a "resume ranking."
They look at who you beat and where you played. If you’re Florida (back in the poll at #19) and you’ve got a couple of solid SEC wins, you get the benefit of the doubt. If you’re a team like Seton Hall, who just cracked the rankings at #25 for the first time since 2022, you’re basically on probation. One slip-up and you’re gone.
Also, the "Others Receiving Votes" section is actually the most interesting part of the list. That’s where the "bubble" teams live. Teams like Kansas and SMU just fell out, but they’re lingering right there in the shadows, waiting for someone in the bottom five to trip up.
Actionable Insights for the Savvy Fan
If you want to use the NCAA AP Top 25 to actually understand the season (or win your bracket), don't just look at the number.
- Watch the "Points" not just the "Rank": Sometimes the gap between #5 and #6 is huge, and sometimes it's two points. That tells you how much consensus there actually is.
- Track the "First Place Votes": If one team is hoarding them (like Arizona is now), it means the writers think there’s a clear tier break. If they’re split among four teams, the season is wide open.
- Ignore the Preseason Poll by January: Preseason rankings are mostly based on recruiting hype and what happened last year. By now, they’re basically irrelevant.
- Follow the Individual Ballots: The AP makes individual voter ballots public. If your team is getting snubbed, you can usually find the one or two voters who are "holding out" and see if their logic makes any sense. (Warning: it usually doesn't).
The poll will update again next Monday. Until then, enjoy the arguments. They’re half the fun.
Next Steps for Tracking the Rankings:
To get the most out of the poll movement, you should compare the NCAA AP Top 25 against the NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) rankings released by the NCAA. While the AP poll reflects human opinion and "momentum," the NET is purely analytical. When a team is ranked high in the AP but low in the NET, it’s a massive red flag that they might be "overrated" by the media and could be a prime candidate for an early exit in March. Keep a spreadsheet of these discrepancies to find the true sleepers before the tournament starts.