Florida remained No. 1 in the USA Today Coaches Poll released Monday, closing out the first week of the 2026-27 college basketball season, while Kentucky and Purdue both dropped out of the top 25 after rough opening stretches.
The fresh rankings add intrigue to Tuesday's Championship Classic. No. 2 Duke and No. 5 Michigan State will meet in a top-five matchup, and the nightcap pits No. 14 Kansas against Kentucky. The Wildcats, who were ranked No. 23 in the preseason poll, are now the first team outside the cut-line, drawing 101 points, the most of any team left out of the top 25.
Purdue's slide out of the rankings stands as the week's most notable fall. No Big Ten team has won more games since 2021 than Matt Painter's Boilermakers, but that track record is a distant memory at the moment. Purdue is off to an 0-2 start for the first time since the 1976-77 season.
A season-opening loss to Gonzaga was entirely understandable. A double-overtime home flop against Valparaiso was not. The combined damage pushed Purdue out of the Coaches Poll for the first time since the preseason poll released ahead of the 2022-23 campaign. The Boilermakers managed only 12 points in this week's voting.
Among the other teams receiving votes, Memphis collected 34 points, Saint Louis had 23 and Indiana 12, followed by Texas A&M with 11, Baylor with nine, North Carolina and Marquette with six apiece, West Virginia with five, Missouri with four, LSU with three, and Wisconsin, Villanova and Nevada with one each.
The poll is determined by a 30-member panel of head coaches, with points awarded on a scale of 25 for a first-place vote down to one for a 25th-place vote, based on results through Sunday. This season's voting panel includes Baylor's Scott Drew, Alabama's Nate Oats and Painter himself, along with coaches from programs across the country, from Vermont's John Becker to Delaware State's Stan Waterman.
Tuesday's doubleheader offers an immediate opportunity to reshape the early pecking order, with Duke and Michigan State clashing in a battle of top-five teams and Kansas and Kentucky squaring off in a game that could influence next week's ballot.
