The Kentucky Wildcats (1) are officially the first team in 23 years to go from the preseason to the postseason, with all 18 weeks in between, ranked at the top of the Associated Press' men's college basketball poll.

After cruising through the SEC in the latter half of their schedule, it was much of the same in the conference tournament, beating Florida, Auburn and Arkansas (21) by double digits. Now Kentucky is five wins from the first perfect season since the 1975-1976 Indiana Hoosiers.

Following Kentucky in the AP's final Top 25 is Big East champs Villanova (2), Big Ten champs Wisconsin (3), Duke (4) and Pac-12 champs Arizona (5). Duke lost to Notre Dame (8), the eventual ACC champs, in the semifinals.

After following Kentucky in the second or third spot of the ranking most of the season, Virginia (6) fell three spots out of the top five after losing to North Carolina (15) in the ACC semifinals. Gonzaga (7) stayed put while Notre Dame rose three places and Iowa State (9) leapt up four places to join the top 10, after beating Kansas (10) in the Big 12 Tournament final.

The Jayhawks did manage to stay in the AP top 10 and even earned a two-seed in the NCAA Tournament's Midwest region.

Only Davidson and Boise State fell off the Top 25 ranking and were replaced by Michigan State (23) and Virginia Commonwealth (25). After an up-and-down season, Tom Izzo's Spartans made it to the Big Ten title game, but could not score a single point in overtime against Wisconsin.

Their Big Ten Tournament run did, however, include wins over Ohio State and Maryland, earning themselves a seven-seed in the tourney's East region, fortunately the opposite side of Kentucky's region.