College basketball rankings: Illinois is out, Miami is in. And hello, New Mexico!

Merry Day After Christmas! I trust that the holiday treated everyone well, even though there were precious few college basketball games to garner our attention. As a result, there wasn’t a whole lot of movement at the top of my ballot. The good news is there are lots of great matchups on tap for this week, cresting with a jam-packed New Year’s Eve slate on Saturday. In the meantime, allow me to spread my usual holiday cheer by presenting the correct order of the top 25 teams in college basketball, as submitted to the Associated Press last weekend. Remember, no man is a failure who has polls.

Dropped out: Illinois (13), Iowa (21), Virginia Tech (23), Mississippi State (24)

Almost Famous: Auburn, Boise State, Creighton, Maryland, Penn State, Providence, Saint Mary’s, San Diego State, UAB, Utah State, West Virginia

Notes on the votes

• Due to the light slate, my top eight teams remained in the same order from last week. I’m sure that will be the last time this season I’ll be able to say that. The only team that fell out of my top 10 was Virginia, which lost at Miami. There’s no shame in losing to a ranked team by a bucket, and Reece Beekman is still hobbled by a sore hamstring. And even though that was the Cavaliers’ second straight loss, the one before came at home against top-five Houston. So the Cavs only dropped three spots. They have four very winnable games coming up, and then they play North Carolina at home Jan. 10.

• I did not have Miami on my ballot last week even though the Hurricanes were 11-1, because their two Quad 1 wins were over UCF (road) and Rutgers (home), although by my eyes the more impressive win was over Providence, 74-64, on a neutral court. But Miami validated the confidence of my fellow AP voters with that win over Virginia. The metrics don’t like this team (No. 48 NET, No. 38 KenPom, No. 52 BartTorvik), but the Canes pass the eye test. They could be 18-1 when they play at Duke on Jan. 21.

• As I’ve mentioned countless times in this space, nothing makes a voter’s decisions more complicated than injuries, illnesses and other personnel issues. I pointed out last week in Hoop Thoughts that Creighton was a very different team without Ryan Kalkbrenner, who missed three games (all losses) with a non-COVID-19 illness. Kalkbrenner returned for the Bluejays’ home game against Butler, and they won, 78-56. They followed that up with an 80-65 win over DePaul on Christmas Day. Hopefully Kalkbrenner stays healthy and effective, because Creighton has a big week coming up with games against Seton Hall (home) and UConn (away).

• Indiana moved up two spots because two teams that were ranked ahead of the Hoosiers last week dropped. But this team has a major injury issue with 6-3 senior point guard Xavier Johnson, who had surgery on the foot he injured early in the loss at Kansas. It makes no sense to punish a team for an injury when it hasn’t lost any games, but by the same token we can’t give the Hoosiers any relief on this front because it looks like Johnson will be out for most of the season, at least. And who knows? Maybe Indiana is just as good if not better with Johnson out. I’ll be interested to see if sophomore guard Tamar Bates gets more playing time, and if so, what he does with it.

• Iowa was a real pickle. The Hawkeyes suffered a shocking loss at home on Wednesday to Eastern Illinois. Yes, they didn’t have Kris Murray, who has now missed four straight games with a left foot injury, and Connor McCaffery, who was sidelined by an injured hand. But we’re still talking about an opponent that came in 3-9 and is ranked No. 347 on KenPom even after that win. The Hawkeyes had to drop a few spots, and since they were No. 21 last week, they ran out of real estate. They play at Nebraska and Penn State this week, so even if they win both games they will probably stay unranked on my ballot for at least another week.

• I was actually a little surprised North Carolina wasn’t ranked in the AP poll last week. I was even more surprised that the Tar Heels were behind Charleston in the “Others receiving votes” section in both polls even though the Tar Heels beat the Cougars by 16 points on Nov. 11 and are 75 spots ahead of them on KenPom. The Tar Heels validated my vote by beating Michigan in Charlotte last week. I realize the Wolverines are unranked, but as I’ve detailed before, none of North Carolina’s four losses were bad ones, and its current four-game win streak includes an overtime victory over Ohio State in Madison Square Garden.

• What to make of Duke? The Blue Devils suffered a bad loss at Wake Forest, but they were playing without two key freshmen, Dereck Lively II and Dariq Whitehead. I leaned on the metrics for this one. Duke is No. 17 in the NET, No. 14 on KenPom, No. 14 in BartTorvik and No. 20 in KPI. That’s pretty consistent across the board, so I slotted them at 18. The Blue Devils’ next five games are against bottom-tier ACC teams, so another loss in that span will probably knock them out.

• Illinois, on the other hand, is on the verge of becoming a disaster. Yes, Missouri might be better than we thought, but it was still striking to see the Illini get run off the floor like that in the Braggin’ Rights game. We never know what’s really going on inside a team’s locker room, but there are some troubling signs that internal divisions are becoming an issue at Illinois. After the Illini lost at home to Penn State on Dec. 10, Brad Underwood responded to a question about Terrence Shannon Jr.’s leadership by blowing a big ole raspberry. After the team beat Alabama A&M, senior forward Matthew Mayer cryptically said that the players and coaches were not on the same page. Illinois was fortunate to be able to come back and beat Texas in overtime on Dec. 6. Otherwise, the Illini would have now lost four of their last five games. At any rate, this team is No. 43 in the NET, No. 31 on KenPom, No. 37 in BartTorvik and No. 56 on KPI. That’s not the profile of a ranked team.

• Virginia Tech and Mississippi State also dropped off my ballot by virtue of their losses to Boston College and Drake, respectively. So that opened up some slots at the bottom of my ballot. The metrics love West Virginia, but it’s hard to vote for a team whose lone Quad 1 win was at Pittsburgh. So I went with Xavier, which is one of the two teams that beat West Virginia (Purdue was the other). The Musketeers have been impressive and consistent. Their three losses were all in Quad 1 — Indiana (by two at home), Duke (by seven in Portland) and Gonzaga (by four in Portland). They also won by three at Cincinnati, and last week they beat Seton Hall, 73-70, at home.

• I’ve also been high on TCU all season. The metrics say otherwise, but the Horned Frogs have had a plethora of injury issues all season, yet they are 10-1 with wins over Iowa (neutral), Providence (home) and Utah (home). They open Big 12 play on Saturday at home against Texas Tech, and things get tougher from there.

• The two highest-ranked teams on KenPom that I left off my ballot are Auburn (No. 17) and Saint Mary’s (18). As I’ve said before, I think Auburn has some talent and will no doubt get better as the season progresses, but I don’t understand how the Tigers remained ranked after their loss at USC on Dec. 18. Their best win was over Northwestern on a neutral court, and they also lost to Memphis in Atlanta. Yet, Auburn was No. 23 in the AP poll last week while Memphis remained unranked. Makes no sense. The Gaels’ metrics are even stronger than Auburn’s (No. 16 NET, No. 18 KenPom, No. 31 KPI, No. 7 BartTorvik), but they also lost at home to an undefeated New Mexico squad. So at the very least, Saint Mary’s needs to be behind New Mexico. Also, the Gaels lost on Dec. 18 at home to Colorado State, which lost its next game to USC in Phoenix.

• You notice, by the way, that USC beat those two teams? Keep your eye on the Trojans. They’ve won six straight and should win two more at Washington and Washington State this week. That sets up a delightful showdown at UCLA on Jan. 5. Andy Enfield has had Mick Cronin’s number thus far. I’m guessing that will be a part of the pregame conversation.

• As for New Mexico, the Lobos are one of three undefeated teams remaining. (The others are Purdue and UConn — just as we all predicted.) I slotted them at No. 25 largely because I didn’t have any compelling candidates, but you’ve gotta tip your hat to what they’ve done so far, especially considering that win at Saint Mary’s. Still, that remains the Lobos’ only Quad 1 win. Their next Quad 1 game will be Jan. 14 at San Diego State, but there are not a lot of easy wins in the Mountain West, so we’ll find out soon enough just how good Richard Pitino’s squad is.

(Photo of Virginia’s Armaan Franklin and Miami’s Isaiah Wong: Jasen Vinlove / USA Today)