Kansas remains runaway No. 1 in AP poll, Syracuse jumps from unranked to No. 10

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Kansas still No. 1 in AP poll; Syracuse No. 10

Syracuse was so impressive in the 2K Sports Classic that it made one of the best entrances ever into The Associated Press’ college basketball poll.

The Orange, who beat California and North Carolina by an average of 19 points in winning the tournament at Madison Square Garden, went from unranked to No. 10 on Monday, the third-best jump-in in poll history.

Kansas was still the runaway No. 1 and Michigan State and Texas held on to second and third in the second poll of the regular season, but that’s where the changes started after a week that saw six ranked teams lose, including California and Dayton, which both lost twice and dropped out.

Notre Dame (4-0) and Vanderbilt (2-0) moved into the rankings this week at No. 23 and 24, respectively, while Georgia Tech also fell out.

Kansas (3-0) received 65 first-place votes from the 65-member national media panel, while Michigan State (4-0) had seven and Texas (2-0) got one. Syracuse received the other vote for No. 1.

Villanova, which won the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, and Kentucky, which wasn’t impressive in wins over Miami of Ohio, Sam Houston State and Rider, switched places at fourth and fifth. Purdue moved up one spot to sixth and Duke moved up two to seventh.

West Virginia held eighth and Tennessee moved up one place to ninth.

Then came the Orange, who beat then-No. 13 California 95-73 and then-No. 6 North Carolina 87-71 in the tournament that benefits Coaches vs. Cancer.

“I just watched the tape of the second half of the Carolina game and it was unbelievable,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said Monday of the half that started with a 22-1 run.

The Orange didn’t look anything like the team that lost an exhibition game to Division II LeMoyne earlier in the month.

“I just wanted to find out if we could play some man-to-man this year. LeMoyne executed well and they have a nice team. We played man-to-man and realized we can’t. We tried to play 10 guys and realized we can’t,” Boeheim said of the exhibition loss. “We learned from that, went back to working on the zone and intensified it a bit and came right out against Albany and Robert Morris and played really good defense. The defense is better than the past few years. The offense could be, but the defense is better and that’s what has been the difference.”

The most impressive move from unranked to ranked was Kansas’ jump in to No. 4 in 1989 after beating No. 2 LSU, No. 1 UNLV and No. 25 St. John’s in the Preseason NIT.

Second on the list was Arizona coming in at No. 8 in 2001 following wins over No. 2 Maryland and No. 7 Florida in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic and a victory over No. 23 Texas.

North Carolina, which has one starter back from last season’s national championship team, dropped to 11th and was followed by Butler, Connecticut, Washington, Michigan, Louisville, Ohio State, Georgetown, Clemson and Illinois.

Maryland was No. 21, followed by Minnesota, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma.

California (2-2) dropped out from 13th after the semifinal loss to Syracuse and a 76-70 loss to Ohio State in the third-place game.

Dayton (2-2) beat Georgia Tech 63-59 in the opening round of the tournament in Puerto Rico then lost 71-65 to Villanova and 83-75 to Kansas State 83-75 and fell out from 18th.

Even though Georgia Tech rallied from the loss to Dayton with wins over George Mason and Boston University, the Yellow Jackets dropped out from 21st.

The other ranked teams to lose last week were Ohio State to North Carolina in the 2K Sports Classic semifinals and Oklahoma, which lost at Virginia Commonwealth.

Syracuse and Notre Dame join Villanova, West Virginia, Connecticut, Louisville and Georgetown to give the Big East seven teams in the Top 25, two off the record the 16-team conference set in the Jan. 5, 2009 poll.