Kentucky Wildcats in the new College Basketball Rankings Roundup

The Kentucky Wildcats entered the 2026-27 college basketball season ranked No. 23, and have already fallen a spot in the AP Poll after a 2-0 start. Kentucky also dropped out of the College Basketball Coaches Poll. Kentucky certainly wasn’t playing world beaters in week one, with Manhattan and James

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What is the story about?

The Kentucky Wildcats entered the 2026-27 college basketball season ranked No. 23, and have already fallen a spot in the AP Poll after a 2-0 start. Kentucky also dropped out of the College Basketball Coaches Poll.

Kentucky certainly wasn’t playing world beaters in week one, with Manhattan and James Madison coming to Rupp Arena to get the season started, so Kentucky got off to an expected 2-0 start in year three of the Mark Pope era. In the second game, against James Madison, Kentucky struggled to pull

away or look dominant, as they let the Dukes linger throughout the game.

The good thing for Kentucky is that there are opportunities to make big jumps so long as they can win against some opponents coming up on the schedule. On Tuesday, November 10, No. 24 Kentucky will face off against No. 15 Kansas in Chicago in the annual State Farm Champions Classic. The Jayhawks actually jumped up two spots after beating up on two lowly opponents in Fordham and Middle Tennessee.

Following Kansas, Kentucky will play at Virginia (No. 6) on December 2, Louisville (No. 10) on December 12, in non-conference play, before facing Florida (No. 1), Texas (No. 7), Tennessee (No. 11), Alabama (No. 18), Arkansas (No. 19), and Vanderbilt (No. 22) in SEC play.

As for the Coaches Poll, the Wildcats are slotted as the first team outside of the top 25. The Wildcats received 101 votes, but that kept Kentucky just behind BYU.

Elsewhere, here are some other new college hoops rankings:

DRatings has Kentucky ranked No. 29.
KenPom also has the Cats ranked No. 29.
BartTorvik has Kentucky down to No. 30.
Evan Miya dropped the Wildcats down to No. 28.
Andy Katz’s Power 44 has Kentucky at No. 24.
CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish was the friendliest to Kentucky, putting them at No. 19.
Finally, ESPN’s Basketball Power Index has the Cats at No. 28.

Kentucky will have a great opportunity on Tuesday night to prove some people wrong. Both Kentucky and Kansas haven’t played major opponents yet, so we’ll learn a lot about the two teams in that face-off at the United Center.