Colorado Buffaloes 24th in AP Poll

The Colorado Buffaloes remain the AP Top 25, the fifth straight week they will be ranked since the season began. They rose to the 20th spot last week, but needed a late comeback to beat Loyola Marymount, then were beat down by the Kansas Jayhawks. Colorado is now 24th in the poll.

The loss to Kansas was expected, but it was less than competitive than we hoped. Kansas is an excellent team — they are #2 in the AP Poll — but the Buffs couldn’t compete because of turnovers and poor shooting. What’s more is that CU had their first defensive problems of the season, although the Jayhawks are nearly to impossible to stop and they had an uncharacteristically hot shooting night.

Colorado is still one of the better teams in the nation and have room to improve, especially offensively. You can’t criticize a team for losing to the #2 team on the road, but it is a lesson that they have yet to prove themselves against high-level teams. They will have plenty of chances against #14 Dayton, #10 Oregon and #15 Arizona, but first, they have to cut down on sloppy mistakes in order to find an offensive rhythm.

This coming week, Colorado will host Northern Iowa on Dec. 10th (7:00 pm, Pac-12 Networks) before traveling to Ft. Collins to play Colorado State (6:00 pm, CBS Sports Network). That is a deceptively difficult schedule that the Buffs will be hard pressed to sweep.

If Colorado wins both games this week, they remain on target in their non-conference schedule. The goal is to enter Pac-12 play with an 11-2 record, and they still have a game against Dayton in Chicago on Dec. 21st.

The full Top 25 goes as follows:

1. Louisville Cardinals
2. Kansas Jayhawks
3. Ohio State Buckeyes
4. Maryland Terrapins
5. Michigan Wolverines
6. Gonzaga Bulldogs
7. Duke Blue Devils
8. Kentucky Wildcats
9. Virginia Cavaliers
10. Oregon Ducks
11. Baylor Bears
12. Auburn Tigers
13. Memphis Tigers
14. Dayton Flyers
15. Arizona Wildcats
16. Michigan State Spartans
17. North Carolina Tar Heels
18. Butler Bulldogs
19. Tennessee Volunteers
20. Villanova Wildcats
21. Florida State Seminoles
22. Seton Hall Pirates
23. Xavier Musketeers
24. Colorado Buffaloes
25. San Diego State Aztecs