Sportsbetting on Northwestern, yes, Northwestern could actually be popular in college basketball. It has been 40 years since Northwestern was ranked in the Associated Press college basketball poll. Sportsbetting online has the Wildcats ranked at #25 this week.
Sportsbetting has Kansas as the #1 team again this week. The Jayhawks have led the poll since it came out in the preseason. In fact, the top eight teams remained unchanged this sportsbetting week. Kansas beat California in their only game last week in sportsbetting online odds. Kansas got 52 first-place votes. Texas is second after beating Michigan State 79-68 in sports betting last week. They got 11 first place votes. Kentucky got a first place vote and was third. Purdue was fourth while Syracuse was fifth with the other first place vote. West Virginia is 6th followed by Duke and Villanova. North Carolina and Connecticut are 9th and 10th in the AP poll.
The bigger news in the poll is the addition of Northwestern. The Wildcats are 10-1 on the season having won nine straight games since a loss to Butler. The last time Northwestern was ranked was in the 1968-69 season. Before that they had made the poll only twice, in 1954-55 and in 1958-59.
In addition to Northwestern, there are three other new teams in the poll this week. Florida State is at #22, Wisconsin is #23 and UAB is #24. It is the first time UAB has been ranked since 2005-06. UAB beat Butler last week and that sportsbetting loss pushed Butler right out of the poll. The Bulldogs started the season ranked 11th but they have lost four games this season. A number of other teams fell out of the poll this sportsbetting week. Those teams were Florida, Texas A&M and Gonzaga.
The second ten of the AP poll begins with Michigan State. They are followed by Kansas State, Georgetown, Tennessee, Ohio State, Mississippi, Washington, Temple, New Mexico and Texas Tech. The final five teams in the poll are Clemson, Florida State, Wisconsin, UAB and Northwestern. The team that dropped the most this sportsbetting online week was New Mexico who fell six places after losing in sportsbetting to Oral Roberts.
There are six sportsbetting online games between ranked teams this week. The big one is on Friday as Purdue and West Virginia get together. There will be one less unbeaten team in the country after that matchup.