The Gonzaga Bulldogs made a strong case to be ranked at the top of college basketball’s pecking order with how they beat Baylor by 38 points on opening night. The human polls might not have received that message, but the computers certainly did.

Kentucky, which faces Gonzaga on Dec. 7 in Seattle, moved up four spots to No. 19. UCLA, GU’s opponent Dec. 28 at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, fell out of the rankings and didn’t receive a vote after falling 72-64 to New Mexico. The Bruins were No. 22 in the preseason poll.

The only matchup between top-10 teams on the opening day of the 2024-25 college basketball season was more lopsided than most so-called buy games. If you went to bed early, congrats, because as awesome as the 2021 NCAA Tournament title game looked on paper,