photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas guard Brannen Greene (14) holds up three fingers after knocking down a three against Kansas State during the second half on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015 at Allen Fieldhouse.

Kansas was ranked eighth in the Associated Press college basketball poll released today, a one-spot move up the rankings from a week ago.

The Jayhawks are the highest ranked among six Big 12 schools: Iowa State (11), West Virginia (15), Baylor (19), Oklahoma (21) and Texas (25) also made the cut.

The top 25 teams in the AP poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Feb. 1, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote and last week’s ranking:

Record Pts Prv

1. Kentucky (65) 21-0 1,625 1
2. Gonzaga 22-1 1,503 3
3. Virginia 19-1 1,470 2
4. Duke 18-3 1,416 4
5. Wisconsin 19-2 1,381 5
6. Arizona 20-2 1,338 6
7. Villanova 19-2 1,209 7
8. Kansas 18-3 1,177 9
9. Louisville 18-3 1,114 10
10. Notre Dame 20-3 1,072 8
11. Iowa St. 16-4 892 15
12. North Carolina 17-5 861 13
13. Utah 17-4 824 11
14. N. Iowa 20-2 792 18
15. West Virginia 18-3 779 17
16. Wichita St. 19-3 678 12
17. Maryland 18-4 508 16
18. VCU 17-4 479 14
19. Baylor 16-5 420 20
20. Ohio St. 17-5 358 _
21. Oklahoma 14-7 312 24
22. Butler 16-6 250 25
23. SMU 18-4 221 _
24. Georgetown 15-6 162 21
25. Texas 14-7 106 19

Others receiving votes: Texas A&M 40, Seton Hall 22, Arkansas 21, Indiana 18, San Diego St. 18, Colorado St. 11, Dayton 9, Tulsa 8, Xavier 8, Stephen F. Austin 5, Providence 3, Stanford 3, Louisiana Tech 2, Murray St. 2, Oklahoma St. 2, Temple 2, Georgia 1, Michigan St. 1, Rhode Island 1, Valparaiso 1.

My AP top 25 ballot:

1 – Kentucky: Nation’s best team hasn’t scored more than 70 points in any of past five games.

2 – Virginia: Cavs made just 3 of 13 three-pointers vs. Duke and didn’t score a fast-break bucket in first loss of season.

3 – Gonzaga: Best Zags team ever has one loss and it came in overtime at Arizona. Three of the five double-figures scorers are 6-foot-10 or taller and the two leading scorers are three-point marksmen: Kyle Wiltjer (.432) and Kevin Pangos (.455).

4 – Duke: Quinn Cook made three of Duke’s five three-pointers in the final 4:38. And after it was over, I saw another ridiculous online headline: “Duke stuns Virginia.” No, once upon a time, Chaminade stunned Virginia. Duke is too good to “stun” anybody. The Blue Devils lost to a really good team (Notre Dame) and defeated the No. 2 school in the nation. They were not involved in an upset.
Best shot of day from a Duke basketball player came from ESPN’s Jay Bilas. After a Virginia student made a half-court heave to win $18,000, Bilas said, “They can pay the students, but they can’t pay the players.” Bilas also was involved in the best highlight of the day. It was from early in his freshman season. Virginia’s Ralph Sampson, who didn’t appear to be all that close to the hoop, stretched out his arm and threw down a one-handed dunk. Sampson’s hand accidentally caught Bilas’ head on the way down, perhaps slapping this thought into Bilas’ head: “Maybe I should study really hard so that I can get into law school.”

5 – Wisconsin: Bo Ryan knows how to find players. Nigel Hayes, a 6-7, 250-pound sophomore forward from Toledo, keeps the heat off Frank Kaminsky with physical play and he’s plenty skilled. Hayes has five consecutive double-figures scoring games and has four double-doubles this season.

6 – Arizona: Pac-12’s dominant program having little trouble tearing through conference. Since losing by two points in Corvallis, Wildcats have won five in a row by an average margin of 23.8 points, including a 57-34 revenge job against Oregon State. Freshman forward Stanley Johnson leads team in scoring, rebounding and turnovers.

7 – Louisville: Not many teams could shoot .338 from the field, .333 from three and .614 from the line and defeat North Carolina, but the Cardinals aren’t like many teams in that they can ugly up a game like nobody else. Guards Terry Rozier and Chris Jones combined for 39 points against the Heels and made 10 of 34 shots from the field. National player of the year candidate Montrezl Harrell was the best player in the game with 22 points and 15 rebounds.

8 – Notre Dame: I didn’t attend either the 77-73 victory against Duke or the 76-72 loss at PIttsburgh, but I’m guessing somebody asked the Irish coach and/or players, “Was this a statement game?” And then when PIttsburgh won at home vs. Notre Dame, I’m guessing the Pittsburgh coach and/or players were asked, “Was this is a statement game?” The only appropriate answer to that silly question is, “No, this was a basketball game.”

9 – Kansas: Good team, fun team, improving team. But No. 1 in the RPI? That tells you all you need to know about the worst computer ranking out there. Still, it’s overused by the NCAA Tournament selection committee. It’s a brilliant scam in which most selection committee members have no clue they are participating. It’s all about the records of teams you play and the record of those teams’ opponents. It does not use margin of victory at all. So the key becomes scheduling schools you’re confident you can defeat and are confident they will have a good record. TV loves it because it pressures teams to schedule aggressively in the preseason because that results in quality games for our viewing pleasure and networks’ advertising dollars. Anyway, Kansas has become a much tougher team to play, in part because Brannen Greene can’t miss. In his past four games, Greene is 10 for 13 from three. For the season, Greene has made 50 percent from three and 92 percent from the line.

10 – Villanova: ‘Cats have chance to avenge 20-point loss when Georgetown visits Saturday.

11 – North Carolina: I don’t want to say Marcus Paige is having similar season to a year ago, but here are some statistical comparisons with his junior year ranked first, sophomore second: Three-point percentage (.390, .389), three-pointers made (2.5, 2.5), assists (4.2, 4.2), blocks (0.2, 0.2), steals (1.4, 1.5), turnovers (2.1, 2.1).

12 – Iowa State: Sophomore point guard Monte Morris has 5.14 assists-to-turnover ratio and shoots .575 from inside the arc. He and KU’s Frank Mason both palyed well in Ames, which adds juice to tonight’s matchup.

13 -Utah: This is how old I am: When I was a kid, losing to UCLA wasn’t a cause for embarrassment. Utes got well against USC, limiting Trojans to 12 first-half points.

14 – West Virginia: When Bob Huggins has a bunch of players willing to do it his way, the result is a beautiful ugliness, not unlike his wardrobe. It’s beautiful that he feels comfortable dressing down and it’s beautiful to watch his team dress down opponents by forcing turnovers on 31.2 percent of their possessions (per kenpom.com), No. 1 in the nation. Calling to mind his great Cincinnati teams, the Mountaineers’ best offense is a missed shot. They rebound 40.9 percent of misses, seventh best in the nation.

15 – Ohio State: Whatever owner has the second pick in the NBA draft should invite Donald Trump to the festivities in the event the owner’s general manager does not select D’Angelo Russell. Imagine the theatric value of Trump firing a GM on live TV. In his past eight games, Russell’s averaging 22.9 points and making 48 percent of his threes (28 of 58). First pick, instead of Duke’s Jahlil Okafor, is not out of the question. Russell, a 6-5 freshman guard from Louisville, went for 18 points, 14 rebounds and six assissts in 24-point victory vs. Maryland, which left Marc Loving alone way too often.

16 – Maryland: Starting guards Damonte Dodd and Melo Trimble combined for three points, 0 for 9 shooting, one assist and three turnovers in 40 minutes in Columbus.

17 – Oklahoma: It gets late early with the top 25 these days. Sooners have lost seven games. They have three games in next seven days, starting Tuesday, and two of them are home games vs. ranked teams West Virginia and Iowa State. Big chance for them to show what they’ve got.

18 – Georgetown: Heard Ron Thompson, brother of Hoyas coach John Thompson III, call a game as analyst for the first time over the weekend. Exceptional. Also heard Nick Bahe, former KU walk-on/Creighton scholarship player. Also outstanding. Nothing forced and very good basketball insights from both voices.

19 – Baylor: Bears rebound own misses at nation-leading .433 clip and they start three serious three-point threats in Royce O’Neale (.424), Kenny Cherry (.405) and and Lester Medford (.388) and bring one off the bench, leading scoreer Taurean Prince (405). If they can figure out how to clean up turnovers, they could make a nice NCAA Tournament run.

20 – Virginia Commonwealth: Made just 3 of 20 three-pointers in nine-point loss to Richmond and was outscored by 15 points in second half.

21 – Northern Iowa: Panthers used a 21-3 run late in the first half to carry them to 70-54 blitzing of Wichita State in Cedar Falls. UNI has nine-game winning streak.

22 – Wichita State: When Northern Iowa visits Koch Arena on Feb. 28, might Gregg Marshall remind the Shockers of what Seth Tuttle said after producing career-high 29 points and seven rebounds on them? Marshall might. Tuttle: “We really didn’t talk about beating them by one or two. We talked about coming in here and beating them by 15. That was our mindset.” The loss ended Shockers 27-game regular-season winning streak.

23 – SMU: Larry Brown’s team has won 16 of its last 17 games. Huge week for Mustangs. Cincinnati visits Thursday and then it’s on the road to Tulsa (undefeated in American Conference play) for Saturday game.

24 – Butler: Week featured 20-point blowout of talented Seton Hall and coming back from a 10-point deficit in the final 4:21 of regulation to win in overtime at Marquette.

25 – Texas A&M: Quietly, Aggies residing in second place in SEC and riding six-game winning streak. If they had managed to win double-overtime game vs. Kentucky, they would share first place with the nation’s No. 1 team.