The Arizona Wildcats with their 8-2 record are still on the outside of this week's NCAA College Basketball AP Top 25 Poll. The Wildcats did garner eight votes in the poll and if they can keep up their winning ways and get some help from losses to the higher-ranked teams they could just crack the Top 25 at some point.
At big reason for their exclusion despite the solid record is the schedule. The Wildcats have beaten the likes of Northern Colorado and Rice but when they had their chance to get win over ranked opponents they fell short. Losing to Kansas (3) in the Las Vegas Invitational in November and then to BYU (16) by the disappointing score of 87-65 is not a good way to earn votes.
The Wildcats have three more easy non-conference games scheduled before opening up Pac-10 play on December 30 in Oregon. Fortunately for the Cats, this is a down year for the Pac-10 in men's basketball with no teams in the Top 25 poll although Washington St. (7-1) just got booted out this week after a loss to Texas A&M. That leaves plenty of opportunity of Arizona to do some damage with their in-conference schedule and hopefully make it back to the tournament.
The Arizona State Sun Devils are 4-4 and won't be coming anywhere close to the Top 25 this season. The Sun Devils also open up conference play with the Oregon and Oregon State road trip over New Year's weekend.
The complete AP Top 25 poll:
Duke
Ohio State
Kansas
Connecticut
Syracuse
Kansas State
Tennessee
Pittsburgh
Baylor
Villanova
San Diego State
Illinois
Missouri
Michigan State
Georgetown
Brigham Young
Kentucky
Memphis
Purdue
Louisville
Minnesota
Texas
UNLV
Notre Dame
Texas A&M