Kentucky No. 3 in Jay Bilas' updated College Basketball Rankings

Jay Bilas has had a front-row seat to some of the best games in college basketball this season, including Kentucky’s win over Kansas in Lawrence. In his eyes, the Wildcats are the third-best team in the country. Bilas released “The Bilas Index, Vol. II” this morning, a ranking of the top 68 teams in the sport. Kentucky is No. 3 behind Gonzaga and Auburn. Bilas believes the Cats are elite because of the man in the middle, Oscar Tshiebwe, his National Player of the Year frontrunner.

When healthy, Kentucky is as good as anyone. Even after a loss to Tennessee, this holds up as one of the best and most balanced offensive teams in the country, and a formidable defensive team that effectively guards the 3-point line. But, Kentucky does not win without Oscar Tshiebwe. He has been the national player of the year to this point. Tshiebwe leads the Wildcats in scoring, blocked shots, steals, field goal percentage, and he leads the nation in rebounding and offensive rebounding.

The rebounding is simply astounding. The easy thing to say, and it is almost cliche, is that Tshiebwe gives greater effort than anyone else. That short-changes him. He does give great effort, and he has unusual talent and aptitude for rebounding, but he is the nation’s best rebounder largely because he is incredibly intelligent in his positioning. Some of that comes from Bob Huggins, but Tshiebwe has an uncommon understating and study of where the ball is likely to come off of the rim. As long as Tshiebwe is healthy and plays, Kentucky is legit.

Arizona and Purdue round out the top five, followed by Baylor (6), Duke (7), UCLA (8), Kansas (9), and Villanova (10). Bilas being Bilas, he opened the piece with a lengthy rant, this time about officiating. There are fewer fouls being called this season than ever before, which Bilas says is leading coaches to teach their players to foul because they know the fouls won’t be called.

“Turn on any major conference game, and you will see arm bars on ball handlers not in the post, handchecking, bumping and chucking of cutters, illegally riding cutters and screeners off of their paths, and overt physicality in the post area, including a lack of enforcement of verticality on shooters. Whatever you see on the floor in major conferences this season is not basketball and would not be allowed in the NBA or FIBA. Hell, it would not be allowed in the NFL on wide receivers. It is wrong and needs to be seriously addressed. Coaches are confounded and complaining, and so are the bloviating gasbags who announce the games.”

Preach. To read the rest of the rant and see Bilas’ complete rankings, you’ll need an ESPN Insider subscription.