College basketball rankings: Kentucky drops out of Top 25 and 1 after Kansas dominates Wildcats

Kentucky coach Mark Pope entered his third season guiding his alma mater with real professional pressure as the face of the so-called hot seat list. Unfortunately for him, nothing that happened on Tuesday improved his chances of getting a Grade 4.

Final score: Kansas 89, Kentucky 69.

This is a big blow and a failure for Pope in his first real test of the season. His Wildcats were down 10 points at halftime and 23 in the second half before losing by 20. Costly transfer Milan Momcilovic had just seven shots for UK while former Kentucky recruiting target Tyran Stokes put up 23 points on the Wildcats.

Bad things, everywhere.

Kansas’ three-week trial beats Kentucky’s eye-opening five months of performance at the Champions Classic

Isaac Trotter

And did you see this social media post from Kyle Tucker? The former Kentucky writer, who now works for 247Sports, noted that in 75 games as Kentucky’s coach, Pope led by double digits in 27 of them, by more than 15 points in 20 of them and by more than 20 points in 13 of them. That’s a lot of uncompetitive performance from one of the biggest brands in sports. If things don’t improve quickly, the situation in Lexington will become even more uncomfortable.

Kentucky was removed from the daily CBS Sports Top 25 and 1 college basketball rankings updated Wednesday morning with a 2-1 record. The Wildcats are ranked 39th on KenPom.com, 39th on BartTorvik.com and 43rd on EvanMiya.com. And when you remove the preseason bias in Torvik, Kentucky falls to 103rd, one spot behind Florida Gulf Coast.

Next up for the Wildcats is Friday’s game against Northern Arizona. Their next high-profile test comes a week later, when they face Indiana at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on CBS.

Rankings Top 25 And 1

In: North Carolina, Saint Louis| Out: Kentucky, Memphis