Kansas University’s men’s basketball team is on the move after the season’s opening weekend.
Arizona, Duke and Michigan State, the top three teams in the Associated Press preseason poll, held those places in the first regular-season poll Monday, while KU vaulted from seventh to fourth.
The Jayhawks beat UCLA and St. John’s to win the Coaches Vs. Cancer Classic championship, stretching their winning streak in November to 31 games, a run dating to a 1990 loss at Arizona State.
UCLA, which finished third in the CVC Classic, moved from 17th to No. 14, while Kentucky, which lost to St. John’s and UCLA and started a season 0-2 for the first time since 1975-76, dropped from 12th to 20th.
The only other ranked team to play was North Carolina, which dropped one place to seventh despite winning the NABC Classic with victories over Winthrop and Tulsa. The home games were North Carolina’s first under Matt Doherty, who replaced Bill Guthridge and became the Tar Heels’ third coach in five seasons.
With three freshmen in the starting lineup, St. John’s was supposed to take some time to rejoin the Top 25, but needed just two games.
The Red Storm, which beat Kentucky in the opening round of the Coaches Vs. Cancer Classic and then lost 82-72 to KU in the championship game, jumped into the AP poll at No. 24.
Freshmen Omar Cook, Kyle Cuffe and Willie Shaw all New York natives started against Kansas along with Anthony Glover and Reggie Jessie, the only starters back from the team that was ranked No. 9 in last season’s final poll.
Cook lived up to his hype as one of the top recruits in the country, but Cuffe and Shaw were right with him in the title-game loss.
“They were probably thinking of themselves as freshmen, guys usually asked just to be spectators,” St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis said. “It finally dawned on them that not only were they being asked to participate, they were capable of participating. Both of them are going to be excellent basketball players.”
Jarvis has high expectations for the team.
“I see a group of guys who really, really compete,” he said. “I see a team with unbelievable potential and I see the makings for a heck of a basketball team.”
Arizona received 35 first-place votes and 1,538 points from the nationwide media panel, while Duke was No. 1 on 21 ballots and had 1,522 points.
Michigan State, which opens defense of its national championship next Sunday against Oakland, had five first-place votes, while Kansas had one.
Stanford; Maryland, which had the only other first-place vote; and North Carolina all dropped one place from the preseason poll and were followed in the Top Ten by Illinois, Tennessee and Seton Hall.
Neither Arizona nor Maryland plays this week, but the other Top Ten teams will all get started. Duke plays Princeton on Tuesday night in the opening round of the Preseason NIT, while Stanford (San Francisco State), Illinois (Maine), Tennessee (Chattanooga) and Seton Hall (Rider) all open their seasons Friday night.
Florida again led the Second Ten, followed by Utah, Connecticut, UCLA, Arkansas, Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Wake Forest, Wisconsin and Kentucky.
The final five ranked teams were Oklahoma, DePaul, Southern California, St. John’s and Virginia.
Iowa State, which was 25th in the preseason poll, dropped out despite not playing a game. The same thing happened last year to Miami, and the Hurricanes returned to the rankings for the final two weeks of the regular season.
