Monday Headlines: Kentucky in the College Basketball Rankings (UPDATE)

Mark Pope — Dylan Ballard – A Sea Of Blue

The Kentucky Wildcats make another jump in the latest college basketball rankings!

The Kentucky Wildcats are moving on up in the world!

The latest Coaches Top 25 Poll has the Cats at No. 8. Auburn (3), Tennessee (6), and Alabama (9) are the SEC’s other top-10 teams.
The AP Top 25 Poll also has Kentucky up to No. 8. Auburn (4), Tennessee (7), and Alabama (9) are also in the top 10. Kansas and UConn are the top two teams in both polls.
The CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 has the Cats up to No. 10.
FOX Sports has Kentucky at No. 8.
BartTorvik has the Wildcats at No. 9, while Western Kentucky is at No. 97.
Andy Katz’s Power 36 has the Cats all the way up at No. 5!

One other note: This time next week, we’ll have our first edition of the NET rankings to paint a more clear picture of where Kentucky truly stands in the college basketball landscape.

Kentucky basketball is rolling right along through the first several weeks of the regular season, holding a 5-0 record and a win over Duke in their back pocket.

When it comes to advanced analytics, KenPom has Kentucky sitting at No. 13 in their net ratings while DRatings also has the Wildcats at No. 13. Haslametrics, however, had Kentucky make a significant jump from 12 to 7.

Last week, the Wildcats beat Lipscomb and Jackson State by a combined 78 points.

This week, Kentucky is scheduled to face Western Kentucky on Tuesday and Georgia State on Friday — both games in which the Wildcats have at least a 97% chance of winning, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index.

Mark Pope’s team is doing exactly what they need to by taking care of business in games they’re expected to win (and win by a significant margin), building chemistry, and determining what lineups work best.

Despite having to bring in all new players for this year’s team, Pope has an incredibly deep roster and can play 9-10 guys on any given night if necessary.

Honestly, if you had told any UK fan a few months ago that they’d be ranked in the top-10 just a few weeks into the regular season, they would probably have been ecstatic

Check back here throughout the day for updates on where Kentucky stands in the official rankings!