All-Time AP Poll, 2025 Update
Another widescale look at the movement in my all-time men's basketball program ranking
Hello and welcome back to the All-Time AP Poll! In case you’re unfamiliar, here’s the boilerplate intro text…
In 2021, I tabulated an all-time men’s college basketball program ranking I call the All-Time AP Poll. It works like this:
The actual AP Men’s Basketball Poll is calculated on a weekly basis by taking individual voters’ ballots, assigning each ranked team a point value inverse to their ranking (#1 gets 25 points, #2 gets 24 points, down to 1 point for #25), and combining all of the ballots to calculate each team’s final score. My All-Time AP Poll performs the same calculations, but instead of combining 60 or so individual voters’ ballots to determine the best teams on any given week, I combine all 1301 composite weekly polls—from January 18, 1949, to the present day—to help determine the best programs of all time.
For the past few years, I’ve been updating this ranking on a weekly basis as new polls are released, and for just as long, I’ve been recapping the full-season movement after all is said and done. I have historically written that post in the spring, but I got married this spring so needless to say I had other stuff on my plate. And then once I got back from honeymoon it was already June, so…might as well wait until college sports are back in full swing.
Which brings us to today. Without further ado!
Biggest Point Gainers
A total of 50 different teams were ranked in the AP Poll at some point during the 2024-25 season. Of those, 10 gained at least 250 points: the equivalent of being ranked #1 for ten weeks.
These were the biggest point gainers of the year.
Same as last season, the maximum amount of points any one team could have earned was 525: 25 points * 21 polls. This means that Auburn earned 93.5% of all possible points this season. They were ranked #11 in the preseason, then jumped to the top five in Week 2 and never left for the remainder of the season, including six straight weeks at #2 followed by eight straight weeks at #1 (most of them unanimous).
Every other team to be ranked #1 this season is also represented here:
Kansas (preseason–Week 5)
Tennessee (Weeks 6–10)
Duke (Weeks 19–20)
Florida (postseason)
In a season so dominated by the SEC, it’s only fitting that they account for half of the teams on this list. In addition to the three aforementioned, Alabama and Kentucky also find themselves here.
Six of these teams have been here in back-to-back seasons: Duke, Tennessee, Houston, Kentucky, Kansas, and Marquette. Three of them—Tennessee, Houston, and Kansas—have been here for three seasons straight.
Rounding out the list is Iowa State, whom I didn’t know how to categorize.
How many of these point gains resulted in movement in the overall ranking? Let’s find out, shall we?
Highest Rank Climbers
In each of the past two seasons, at least one team earned a spot in the weekly top 25 for the first time ever, leading to massive overall ranking jumps as they rocketed past teams who’d only ever been ranked for one or two weeks in their history. Florida Atlantic gained 22 spots two years ago (and 46 last year) and James Madison gained 37 last year.
There’s also usually a well established, middling program or two that has a good enough year to rise double-digit spots: that was TCU two years ago and Colorado State last year.
This season, none of the above was true. Nobody debuted in the overall ranking and nobody rose ten spots or more.
That said, six teams climbed at least four spots on the All-Time AP Poll in 2024-25.
The SEC floods this list too, accounting for four of its six teams.
Ole Miss rose the highest. Despite never breaking the top 15 at any point in the season, they were ranked for 16 of the season’s 21 weeks and gained 76 points, enough to rise from #114 to #106.
Texas A&M, Auburn, and Tennessee entered the overall top 75, top 50, and top 25, respectively. Texas A&M was ranked for all 21 weeks of the season and rose six spots despite only spending four weeks inside the top ten and peaking at #7. Tennessee was the only team new to the top 25 this season, pushing NC State into the proverbial Others Receiving Votes section.
Escaping the SEC, Iowa State was perhaps this season’s most forgotten great team. They too were ranked for the entire season, but unlike Texas A&M, they spent the entire regular season inside the top ten. Sadly, losing three out of their last five dropped them to #12 during the Big 12 Tournament, a quarterfinal loss there dropped them to #15 during the NCAA Tournament, and a Round of 32 loss there placed them at #17 in the postseason poll. Brutal.
Somewhat opposite them was Texas Tech, who didn’t crack the poll until Week 13, then cemented their spot the next week with a road upset of Houston. By season’s end, they had been in the top ten for six consecutive weeks and reached the Elite Eight.
So who did all these jetpack-wearing high-flyers pass in the overall ranking? At least one answer may surprise you!
Losing Ground
Last year, because multiple teams jumped dozens of spots, 51 teams were passed at least twice—way too many to list.
This year, that didn’t happen, so our number of double-droppers is a much more manageable four. Here are the four teams who dropped at least two spots on the All-Time AP Poll in 2024-25.
DePaul and Georgia Tech were passed by both Auburn and Iowa State. The latter has not been ranked since 2010; the former has not been ranked since 2000. Both drop out of the top 50.
Dayton and Creighton were passed by both Texas A&M and Clemson. Both teams were ranked at some point this season. Dayton spent Week 7 at #22 after upsetting Marquette, then lost to Cincinnati the very next week and was banished for the remainder of the season. Meanwhile, Creighton began the season in the top 15 and stayed ranked for four weeks before early-season struggles knocked them out for all but one week of the rest of the season.
On a tangentially related note, despite passing both of these teams, Clemson only gained one spot in the ranking because they themselves were also passed by Texas A&M.
As always, let’s wrap things up with a look at everyone whose standing changed at least a little this season.
And the Rest
The following teams, sorted by current All-Time AP Poll rank descending, are listed differently on the poll today than they were a year ago. This means they either gained at least one point or were passed up in the rankings by at least one team.
Kentucky (+292 points)
Duke (+456) [+1 rank]
North Carolina (+69) [-1]
Kansas (+280)
UCLA (+33)
Arizona (+92)
Louisville (+60)
Indiana (+41)
Michigan State (+224)
Illinois (+56)
Ohio State (+5)
Michigan (+101)
UConn (+192) [+1]
Cincinnati (+75) [-1]
Purdue (+245) [+1]
Maryland (+85) [-1]
Marquette (+256)
Gonzaga (+180)
Tennessee (+434) [+4]
Oklahoma (+67) [-1]
Virginia [-1]
Notre Dame [-1]
NC State [-1]
Alabama (+435) [+1]
Iowa [-1]
Florida (+375)
Memphis (+108)
Arkansas (+43)
St. John’s (+167) [+2]
Texas (+7) [-1]
Missouri (+68) [-1]
Houston (+381) [+1]
UNLV [-1]
Pitt (+8)
Wisconsin (+148) [+2]
West Virginia (+8) [-1]
Kansas State [-1]
Baylor (+68)
Auburn (+491) [+6]
Minnesota [-1]
Stanford [-1]
LSU [-1]
Vanderbilt (+2) [-1]
Iowa State (+406) [+6]
DePaul [-2]
Georgia Tech [-2]
USC [-1]
San Francisco [-1]
Bradley [-1]
Wichita State [-1]
Xavier (+4)
Mississippi State (+86)
Oregon (+127) [+3]
Oregon State [-1]
New Mexico [-1]
Seton Hall [-1]
BYU (+35) [+2]
La Salle [-1]
Duquesne [-1]
Texas A&M (+232) [+6]
Saint Louis [-1]
Clemson (+84) [+1]
Dayton (+4) [-2]
Creighton (+42) [-2]
Arizona State [-1]
St. Bonaventure [-1]
Texas Tech (+133) [+4]
Davidson [-1]
Boston College [-1]
Penn [-1]
San Diego State (+14) [-1]
Miami (FL) [-1]1
Saint Mary’s (+23) [+2]
Utah State (+5) [-1]
Georgia (+3) [-1]
Ole Miss (+76) [+8]
Columbia [-1]
Washington State [-1]
TCU [-1]
Colorado [-1]
Louisiana-Lafayette [-1]
Wyoming [-1]
Indiana State [-1]
Detroit Mercy [-1]
Rutgers (+5)
This concludes yet another season of tracking the All-Time AP Poll. Can’t wait to start it all over again when the 2025-26 preseason poll drops in a month!
Texas Tech and Miami (FL) began the season tied for 85th, so Texas Tech rose four spots, but five teams behind them lost a spot because Miami (FL) also dropped to the losing end of the tie.