Iowa State men’s basketball: Cyclones still remain 17th in latest AP poll

Dec 13, 2013; Ames, IA, USA; Iowa State Cyclones fans celebrate after their game with the Iowa Hawkeyes at James H. Hilton Coliseum. Iowa State beat Iowa 85-82. Mandatory Credit: Reese Strickland-USA TODAY Sports

The Associated Press Top 25 is out for week seven of the men’s college basketball season, and Iowa State remains unchanged at 17th after defeating then 23rd-ranked Iowa last Friday.

This is now the fourth straight week that the Cyclones have been at 17th in the AP poll. They had 698 total votes, just one shy of tying Florida. The Hawkeyes hang around in the top 25, only dropping a couple spots to 25th.

Oklahoma State moves up to 7th with 1165 votes, Baylor is at 12th with 898 votes, and Kansas now falls below Iowa State at 18th with 482 votes.

In the national perspective, Arizona received 63 of the 65 available first-place votes after edging out a victory at Michigan on Saturday. Syracuse had the other two and is ranked second. After that, three Big Ten teams round out the top five: Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Michigan State.

After four straight weeks of seeing the same number by Iowa State’s name, I think they deserve to be ranked a little higher. They’ve already had clutch performances in four different games this season, and I don’t believe many teams have been as successful as the Cyclones have been in their slate of tough games against Michigan, BYU, and Iowa.

They came close to 16th, and perhaps they’ll get that or finish even higher if they can win the Diamond Head Classic tournament in Hawai’i that goes from next Sunday through Christmas.