The Associated Press released its Week 2 NCAA basketball rankings and the results are more or less similar to the USA Today/Coaches Poll with Duke ruling the roost at number one.
Washington represents the Pac-10 here as well, although it is a couple spots down at No. 13. California is once again getting one vote while Stanford gets no votes. One note on both polls is that UCLA and Arizona are both receiving votes this week. That gives the Pac-10 four representatives in the polls in some form or fashion.
It will be interesting to see how many teams in the Pac-10 end up in the poll or even just getting votes when April comes around. Nobody in the Pac-10 was even receiving votes after last year’s NCAA tournament, although Washington did have a nice little run last March.
This year the Pac-10 has some young talent, but there are a lot of question marks throughout the conference. Washington is getting some respect regionally (preseason No. 1 in conference) and nationally (given their poll rankings), but otherwise there are a lot of unknowns in the conference. That might make early season respect hard to come by, but it could make for an interesting season.
The full rankings:
1. Duke
2. Michigan State
3. Ohio State
4. Kansas State
5. Pittsburgh
6. Kansas
7. Villanova
8. Kentucky
9. Syracuse
10. Purdue
11. Missouri
12. Baylor
13. Washington
14. Memphis
15. Minnesota
16. Florida
17. Georgetown
18. San Diego State
19. Illinois
20. Texas
21. Temple
22. Gonzaga
23. Brigham Young
24. Tennessee
25. North Carolina