It wasn’t as chaotic as “Feast Week,” but there was plenty of major upsets last week throughout the college basketball landscape.
Here’s everything from Week 4 of the season, and the latest Associated Press poll.
What happened to North Carolina?
North Carolina’s tough stretch continued last week.
After opening the season ranked No. 1 in the country, the Tar Heels have dropped four straight games. Following their struggles at the Phil Knight Invitational just after Thanksgiving, North Carolina lost to Indiana on Wednesday and then to Virginia Tech on Sunday.
The Tar Heels have now fallen completely out of the rankings, a shocking result considering they were widely considered a favorite to win the title come April. They received just one vote in this week’s poll, which makes them No. 42, unofficially.
“I told the guys that I’m disappointed, but I’m not discouraged,” North Carolina coach Hubert Davis said Sunday, via The Associated Press. “Disappointed with the outcome, but I was really happy with the fight the last 15 minutes of the second half. I told them also that I’m not panicked. I’m not any of that. This is a good basketball team, and I’m convinced that we’re going to be a great basketball team by the end of the season.”
While they were without Armando Bacot on Sunday, who is battling a shoulder injury, North Carolina needs to snap its losing skid, and soon. Thankfully, they’ve got time this week to get that done. The Tar Heels aren’t set to play again until Saturday, when they’ll host Georgia Tech.
Indiana, on the other hand, dropped four spots to No. 14 after it fell to Rutgers. Virginia Tech received 27 votes in this week’s poll, which made them the fourth team outside of the top 25.
Creighton drops third straight
The Big East favorite struggled this week, too — and Sunday was especially bad.
Creighton dropped its third straight game on Sunday in a 10-point loss to Nebraska at home. It marked the Huskers’ first regular season win in the series in Omaha since 1995. No Creighton starter scored more than 10 points on the day, and the team shot just 30.8% from the field. It was just, well, bad.
“It’s different being the hunted,” Bluejays coach Greg McDermott said after the loss, via The Associated Press. “This team hasn’t totally adjusted to that. You play four ‘buy’ games, you play four ranked teams. This is the first one where we played a good basketball team that everybody expected us to beat. It takes maturity to prepare for that. You can dissect this 100 different ways but the bottom line is Nebraska was better today.”
As a result, Creighton fell 14 spots to No. 21 in this week’s poll.
Though Sunday’s loss was tough, Creighton should be fine. They stuck with No. 2 Texas earlier in the week, only falling by five points there in Austin.
Full AP Top 25
The full AP Top 25 poll from Monday, Dec. 5:
1. Houston (8-0)
2. Texas (6-0)
3. Virginia (7-0)
4. Purdue (8-0)
5. UConn (9-0)
6. Kansas (8-1)
7. Tennessee (7-1)
8. Alabama (7-1)
9. Arkansas (7-1)
10. Arizona (7-1)
11. Auburn (8-0)
12. Baylor (6-2)
13. Maryland (8-0)
14. Indiana (7-1)
15. Duke (8-2)
16. Kentucky (6-2)
17. Illinois (6-2)
18. Gonzaga (5-3)
19. UCLA (7-2)
20. Iowa State (7-1)
21. Creighton (6-3)
22. San Diego State (6-2)
23. Mississippi State (8-0)
24. TCU (6-2)
25. Ohio State (6-2)
Others receiving votes: Iowa 70, Charleston 54, Miami 29, Virginia Tech 27, Arizona State 20, Utah 16, Wisconsin 16, UNLV 14, Texas Tech 10, West Virginia 8, Marquette 7, Xavier 6, New Mexico 3, Memphis 3, Michigan State 3, Missouri 2, North Carolina 1, Kansas State 1