A season prickled with postponements and cancellations because of COVID-19 did not need another reason to push off more games. But due to a significant snowstorm currently lurching its way eastward across the United States -- impacting more than 100 million people in the process -- dozens of games scheduled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (at minimum) have been stalled. The storm system has affected schools in states that normally don't have weather dictating when games are played in the month of February. Nevertheless, places such as Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and many more are all in a deep freeze. Some schools, like Kentucky, hit the road early Monday to beat the bad stuff and try to ensure they play later this week.
These power rankings know no weather delays, though. As always, we've got the 19 hottest and best teams in college hoops as of late. No, this won't match up with the selection committee's top 16 reveal from Saturday because, as I make sure to explain often, these rankings are not arranged with total team résumé in mind.
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Hey Nineteen Power Rankings
Norlander's Hey Nineteen is a weekly encapsulation of the 19 hottest and/or most successful teams in college basketball, combining team quality with win quality but also leaving no shame for recency bias and rewarding significant winning streaks.
| 1 |  |
| 🔄Last week: No. 1 | Record: 20-0. Here's a stat: Gonzaga played its fifth straight road game over the weekend, marking the first time since the 1972-73 season that a No. 1-ranked team had five consecutive road games. The last team to do it was UCLA, and even then UCLA didn't play five straight road games against conference opponents. (College basketball's January and February schedules used to be much more eclectic.) Credit to ESPN Stats and Info for that goodie. The Zags were rightfully slotted as the No. 1 overall seed in Saturday's bracket reveal. They await any potential additions to their conference slate. They have Saint Mary's on Thursday and then San Diego Saturday, but there's still time to add two more conference games on the back end and get to 24 before the postseason. | |
| 2 |  |
| 🔄Last week: No. 2 | Record: 17-0. Not much to add this week, given the Bears haven't played since Feb. 2. They are on pace to return Saturday and play at home vs. Oklahoma State. The lack of play has dropped the Bears nearly three points back in KenPom's efficiency margin from Gonzaga ... and yet BU is still 5.54 points ahead of No. 3 Michigan. | |
| 3 |  |
| 🔄Last week: No. 7 | Record: 17-4. The Buckeyes will remain firm at No. 3 here, considering they're 9-1 in their past 10 games and averaged 78.8 points and an impressive 1.16 points per possession in those 10 games. What's more, Ohio State didn't drop below 1.06 points per possession in any game. A clear-cut No. 1 seed at this stage, the team's next two are scheduled at Penn State on Thursday and then a humongous Sunday home game vs. Michigan. | |
| 4 |  |
| 🔄Last week: No. 4 | Record: 14-1. And welcome back, Wolverines. That second half toppling of Wisconsin on Sunday was quite the arm-wave. Juwan Howard's team needed 20 minutes to knock off the rust, then outscored Bucky 40-20 and held the Badgers to 0.62 points per possession in the second half. In doing so, Michigan reaffirmed its standing as the No. 3 team in the metrics, but Ohio State's done enough by fortune of being able to continue to play as of late that I had to keep the order the same. The good news is Sunday's game decides who gets to be No. 3 next week. | |
| 5 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: No. 7 | Record: 17-3. The Trojans have consistently been getting more respect in these here power rankings than anywhere else in college hoops media this season. The oversight continued over the weekend when the selection committee decided not to include USC in its top 16; to me, this squad clearly had a No. 4 seed résumé. USC is 12-1 in its last 13. Last week's wins were on the road against the Washington schools, lifting USC to 11-2 in the Pac-12 and tying its best record in conference play since 1992. A couple of delicate home games against the Arizona schools await this weekend. | |
| 6 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: No. 9 | Record: 17-2. I will dedicate this space this week to Houston's Quentin Grimes, who is quietly flourishing after he decided to leave Kansas two years ago. Grimes was a five-star recruit who didn't totally click under Bill Self. Under Kelvin Sampson, Grimes' stat line this season reads 16.9 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 2.1 apg, 1.2 spg, along with an improved defensive presence. Grimes (season-high 29 points on Feb. 10 vs. USF) has seemingly found a near-perfect fit for his skill set and become a great example of how down-transferring can be advantageous. | |
| 7 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: No. 12 | Record: 17-5. Shouts to Herb Jones for scoring a career-best 21 points in the Tide's Saturday win against Georgia. Jones waited a long time to get his -- it took him 118 games in a Bama uniform to drop at least 20. This team remains a cut above all others in the SEC. Due to horrendous winter weather, its Wednesday game at Texas A&M has been pushed to Thursday. It will have a two-day turnaround to face Vanderbilt on Saturday. The Tide has the No. 2 defense in college basketball. To find out who's No. 1, you'll have to keep reading. | |
| 8 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: No. 11 | Record: 12-3. I'm not sure any team deserves this spot more than FSU. On Monday it scored more than 69 points against Virginia for the first time since 2009. (Tony Bennett was not coaching UVA then.) FSU went 19 straight games — with an average of 56.7 ppg — before finally cracking 70. A bit of an offensive cleansing for that team, though I'll note FSU has been above .500 vs. Tony Bennett the past 11 seasons. And now the ACC is up for grabs as FSU and UVA are tied with two losses apiece. What made the game that much more wowing was FSU needing overtime to escape a bad Wake Forest team just two days prior. RaiQuan Gray and Scottie Barnes are ascending magnificently. | |
| 9 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: No. 10 | Record: 14-4. Our No. 9 team's next game just so happens to be scheduled against the No. 8 team. If Virginia Tech can be cleared with testing later this week, it's scheduled to face Florida State on the road Saturday in a good ACC tip. The Hokies' last game was an 80-76 OT win at Miami on Feb. 6. If Mike Young's team wants any chance at finishing atop the ACC standings, it must win this weekend. Even without a win there, I maintain this is a great Sweet 16 dark horse come March. | |
| 10 |  |
| 🔻Last week: No. 5 | Record: 15-4. How about Virginia allowing a 17-0 run Monday night vs. FSU? I think Monday's result was so much more about FSU than UVA, but the Wahoos have to drop a bit regardless. Since we last convened, this team won 57-49 at Georgia Tech, won 60-48 at home vs. North Carolina and then got squashed 81-60 against the Noles. It's not often a team gets three games in a seven-day span, but the pandemic is forcing the issue. UVA is 11-2 in the past six weeks. | |
| 11 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: No. 13 | Record: 14-5. As I wrote in my weekend takeaways, Ayo Dosunu saved Illinois' hide on Friday by scoring 15 straight to get his team out of Nebraska with an overtime win. The Illini have won five in a row and are 9-2 in their past 11 with losses to Maryland and Ohio State by a combined nine points. Illinois fans are no doubt bracing for the next two weeks: at least four road games await before the Big Ten Tournament. Illinois is a must-see team. | |
| 12 |  |
| 🔻Last week: No. 6 | Record: 13-3. I'd like to slot Villanova a bit higher, but I've got somewhat-shocking facts to share. The Wildcats are 2-2 in their last four. They haven't beaten a surefire NCAA Tournament team since Dec. 6 (Texas) and won't get a chance again to beat a surefire NCAA Tournament team until March 3 (Creighton). This is bizarre, but Texas is Villanova's only win against a tournament team at all this season. The next-best is a sweep of Seton Hall, which is 12-8 and 45th in the NET. A bigger opportunity than I think most realized was lost when VU got sideswiped at Creighton 86-70 on Saturday. | |
| 13 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: No. 15 | Record: 13-5. The margins are slim, but Texas finds itself in the unusual spot of having its NET ranking (22nd) the lowest of the six metrics on the NCAA team sheets. Usually the NET has a tendency to either be a team's best metric or in the top three. It's not a huge deal, though. Texas ranks as high as No. 10 and as low as No. 22 across all six. It quietly just took two wins as it was supposed to vs. Kansas State and TCU. A bit of a gut check awaits Thursday at Oklahoma, if the game can be played then. | |
| 14 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: No. 19 | Record: 13-5. Austin Reaves lifted the Sooners to another dossier-enhancing victory Saturday at West Virginia. He flirted with a triple-double by going for 28 points, nine boards and seven assists. Reaves scored 22 second-half points and sank what would be the winning basket with 26 seconds to go. Per Oklahoma, this is what that game produced: "Reaves became just the third player in Big 12 history to produce a game of 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists, joining Trae Young (2018) and Oklahoma State's Maurice Baker (2001). He is the only major-conference player with a 28-9-7 game over the last two seasons." This is stupefying to me. | |
| 15 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: No. 18 | Record: 22-1. The Bruins continue to rise as they continue to roast opponents. This group leads the nation in wins (22) and just had its first triple-double since moving to D-I in the late 1990s. Over the weekend Grayson Murphy had 13 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in a key 73-58 victory against Morehead State. Belmont's won 26 straight regular-season games vs. OVC opponents, a league record that broke Western Kentucky's longstanding mark from 1965-67. Belmont's won 28 overall OVC games including last year's league tournament. It will need four more for the overall record. | |
| 16 |  |
| 🔄Last week: No. 16 | Record: 14-6. You know, you lose a double-overtime game by one point to a conference opponent that projects as a No. 3 seed and I can't fault ya that much. WVU remains in the Hey Nineteen, though it's in danger of dropping out due to three straight road matchups against Texas, TCU and Baylor forthcoming. For Derek Culver, big gains. He had a career-high 29 points and 14 rebounds in the Oklahoma loss. He's going to have a moment to shine in March. The man's made huge strides in the past 11 months. | |
| 17 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: N/R | Record: 16-5. The Bluejays did themselves swell in the past week by going 2-0 and winning by an average of 15.5 points, punctuated with an 86-70 win against Villanova that was Marcus Zegarowski's best game of the season. He had a season-high 25 against Nova in what could be a turning-point game for him and the team. Still, consistency is the theme for CU. Creighton's been ranked in the AP Top 25 for 20 consecutive weeks (a program record). The only other schools to be ranked the past 20 polls: Gonzaga, Villanova, Baylor, Houston and Iowa. | |
| 18 |  |
| 🔻Last week: No. 17 | Record: 18-4. It's true that the Ramblers lost at shorthanded Drake on Sunday, but this team also beat Drake the day before by 27 points. And with an adjusted defensive efficiency of 86.7, this is your No. 1 defense in college basketball as of Tuesday. It's also No. 9 at KenPom, No. 10 in the NET and No. 15 in BPI. It has three home games remaining. If Porter Moser's team wins all three to improve to 21-4, it will be a lock no matter if or when it loses in the Missouri Valley Tournament. | |
| 19 |  |
| ⤴️Last week: N/R | Record: 16-5. Some good competition for the final spot, but the Razorbacks are 6-1 in their past seven with the only loss by four points at projected No. 7 seed Oklahoma State. Two road wins in the past week (at Kentucky, at ranked Missouri) have this team safely in the field of 68 at this point. Times are good out there: Eric Musselman put his shirt back on, plus a winter coat and hat and got to sledding on Monday with the team. | |
