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If you're a fan of upsets and ranked teams losing, this was the week for you.

Eleven different Associated Press Top 25 teams lost this week, including two — Virginia and Arizona — that lost twice.

All those losses, along with some other teams picking up big-time wins, made for a lot of fluctuation in this week's AP Top 25. Usually by Sunday night I have a pretty decent handle on how things went and what my ballot will generally look like, but here's a glimpse at where I was Sunday night during the final Top 25 game of the week:

Watching Butler-Villanova while working on my AP Top 25 for this week. Here's a preview of my picks: ¯\_(ã)_/¯ — Matt Velazquez (@Matt_Velazquez) January 11, 2016

Below is this week's AP Top 25 along with the picks I came up with. I (somewhat surprisingly) had 10 picks in the same spot as the poll, including the top five. You can also view the poll here.





If you couldn't tell from my tone earlier, I'm probably the least confident in this week's picks compared to past weeks. There aren't really any absolutely elite teams this year, while there are plenty flawed good/very good ones. Outside of the top 8 I can see almost any team being ranked anywhere. Case in point, 9 of 13 teams ranked 11-23 got at least one top 10 vote.

I'm going to mix things up a bit and run through a couple of teams that I found interesting this week instead of writing multiple paragraphs.

Xavier and Villanova — Last week I argued that even though the Musketeers got clocked by the Wildcats, I still liked their body of work better. I still do, but the margin is getting really close. I'll see both teams up close this week, so we'll see how that influences my picks for Jan. 18.

Iowa — I'm high on the way the Hawkeyes have been playing of late. Their offense has been fantastic and highly efficient all season and they're off to a 3-0 start in the Big Ten after beating Michigan State (without Denzel Valentine), Purdue on the road and Nebraska at home. None of Iowa's non-conference losses were especially damning, either. We'll get to see how good Iowa really is when it visits Michigan State (with Valentine back) on Thursday.

West Virginia — I almost put West Virginia in the top 10, but the Mountaineers don't have any really great wins. They'll get two chances this week, starting when Kansas visits Morgantown on Tuesday followed by a trip to Norman to take on Oklahoma on Saturday.

Baylor — The Bears' three losses (Oregon, Texas A&M, Kansas) all came on the road, but they finally broke through with a 94-89 victory over Iowa State this past week. No bad losses and a couple other decent wins made it hard for me to rank the Bears lower than the Cyclones — so I didn't.

Butler — Speaking of no bad losses, all four of the Bulldogs' defeats (Miami, Providence, Xavier, Villanova) have been to teams in this week's top 12. I couldn't reconcile moving them out, but they did fall from No. 12 to No. 20 on my ballot in this week's big shuffle.

Kentucky — Maybe I have Kentucky unfairly low at No. 21 on my ballot. On three of the other 64 voters had them lower, with one putting the Wildcats at No. 22 and two leaving them off entirely. I'm also on the low end of the spectrum on the two best teams Kentucky has beaten (Duke and Louisville), so that kind of explains where I'm coming from. Also, those losses to Ohio State and LSU were ugly.

Louisville — Since I mentioned Louisville, here's why I dropped the Cardinals all the way down to No. 25. As best I can understand, Louisville's really only ranked for the way it played in a pair of losses. The Cardinals lost by four at Michigan State on Dec. 4 and lost by 2 at Kentucky on Dec. 26. Outside of those losses, Louisville's best win is maybe Wake Forest. Add in a loss to Clemson this week and I'm almost regretting even putting Louisville at No. 25. Maybe the Cardinals will prove themselves against Pitt this week?

USC and Indiana — Both of these teams certainly have their warts, but their recent play spurred me to include them on my ballot. USC bounced back from a road loss at Washington by sweeping Arizona and Arizona State this week. Add that to a respectable non-conference season and the Trojans have acquitted themselves well. The Hoosiers had a terrible trip to Maui in November then (expectedly) lost at Duke, but have rattled off nine wins since. Indiana's defense, which was a sieve early on, has tightened up. With a favorable start to the Big Ten schedule, it's very possible the Hoosiers could flirt with starting conference play 10-0.