First, my vote from this week’s AP Top 25. The full poll can be found here.

1. Texas
2. Kentucky
3. Kansas
4. Purdue
5. Villanova
6. Syracuse
7. Duke
8. Michigan State
9. Tennessee
10. Georgetown
11. West Virginia
12. North Carolina
13. BYU
14. Pittsburgh
15. Gonzaga
16. Kansas State
17. Connecticut
18. Mississippi
19. Miami
20. Clemson
21. Wisconsin
22. Baylor
23. Georgia Tech
24. Temple
25. Northern Iowa

I’m pretty high on BYU. The Mountain West is a good league and BYU beat a UNLV team that turned around and beat New Mexico in Albuquerque. I’m a little higher on Miami than most and a little lower on Wisconsin. Don’t sleep on Baylor. I watched a little bit of the Baylor-Oklahoma game Saturday before leaving Rock Hill and the Bears absolutely pounded the Sooners.

Some extra notes from Liberty’s 65-62 loss at Winthrop Saturday:

Let’s just empty the ol’ recorder, so to speak, starting with Winthrop’s Mantoris Robinson:

On the sense of urgency once the Eagles fell behind by seven points with about six minutes to play
One thing about our team is that we’ve been down a lot. We showed that grit that we have. We keep going until the buzzer, until the whistle stops.

On his shooting confidence. Robinson entered the game shooting 13 percent from 3-point range but shot 40 percent against the Flames
“Statistics are statistics. I know how much work I put in during the summer. Each shot, I’m shooting with confidence. It doesn’t matter if I made the last one or not.“

On Andre Jones, the struggling guard who hit the go-ahead 3 against Liberty in the final 30 seconds
“Andre’s always confident, no matter what the situation. Any big shot that comes, he’s going to take it each and every day. He’s a very confident kid.“

Next up, Liberty coach Dale Layer:
What happened during the 1:13 that the seven-point lead evaporated?
“We had a few quick turnovers. They got some run-outs. It was just the ebbs and flows of a good college game. We did the same thing and battled back (from 10 down in the first half). They hit big 3s, and that’s an area where they typically struggle. But they stepped up and hit big shots. They hit too many shots and got too many offensive rebounds, and we had too many turnovers. You can’t beat a good team on their home court whenever they get 13 extra shots. We played hard, and our team is continuing to improve. We’re disappointed, but not discouraged.“

Adjusting to the physical nature of a Winthrop game
“We’ve played some physical teams. I think Clemson was very physical. Old Dominion was very physical. Notre Dame was very physical. Central Florida was very physical. So we certainly have seen that. Winthrop is definitely in that class, no doubt about that.“

How much does it hurt when Jesse Sanders picks up his third foul?
“We really have two guys with experience—Jesse and Kyle (Ohman). When you take 50 percent of our experience off the floor, you’ve got a bunch of freshmen and newcomers trying to make it work. I thought they handled it OK. But we’re certainly a different team without Jesse.“

On Evan Gordon’s turnover struggles—15 in the last three games
“I’m not worried about Evan. He’s a warrior. There’s always room for improvement with everybody. He’s a guy that averages 17 or 18 points in league. We’ll certainly work on everything. He’s trying to do a little too much. But you’ll take a freshman averaging 17 or 18 trying doing a little too much. He’s got to score points for us and sometimes he tries to shoulder too much of a load.“

On when Winthrop switched Robinson on to Gordon
“Robinson’s certainly their best defender. But they’ve got four or five guys who are quality defenders. When he was on Evan, we got Jeremy (Anderson) and Kyle some open looks. When he was on Kyle early in the game, then Evan got some open looks. We’ve got some guys who can step up and hit some shots. We’re still a work in progress. We’re still getting better. I think this team has a lot of room for improvement yet.“

On winning two of three on the road
“Any time you win two of three on the road—any time, any league, any situation—you’ll take it. I think the winning percentage is about 17 percent on the road across the country. We’ll take 67 percent any day.“

On the press Liberty threw at Winthrop
“We’ve shown quite a bit. It’s one of the things I don’t think we’re great at, but it helped us tonight. I thought it sped them up and we got a couple of turnovers. We’ve not had as much success with it as we had tonight. But we’ve been working on it.“

Liberty’s Jesse Sanders:
Content with Robinson taking outside shots?
“Yeah. A team like this, they’re a little bigger and stronger than we are and probably don’t shoot quite as well. We were just kind of playing the odds. That guy (Robinson) is a tremendous player, a great defender, a great worker. I’ve got a ton of respect for him. But he’s not a knockdown shooter. They’ve got a couple of big guys down low that we needed to double down on.“

Adjusting to the physical play
“You go from playing VMI a couple of days ago, and then you go to Winthrop, it’s about the two most opposite college basketball teams in the country. VMI is just run and gun. Here, they’re grind it out, physical, rough and tough basketball. We didn’t do as good of a job early on. Coaches did a great job preparing us. They were hitting us with pads all through the week, saying this will be the most physical game you’ll have played. These guys are strong. It’s just different hearing it, mentally, then having to go out and fight. It’s great for us to go through though. Antwan (Burrus), it’s his second game starting, and it’s a great opportunity for him to be playing against some of the best post players in the league. He’ll learn a lot from it and build off of it.“

On Evan Gordon taking care of the basketball
“Evan’s a great player. I’m a team captain, but I’m not one that’s kind of holding a position over him. He’s a great player. He’s earned my respect. He’s earned the respect of the team. It’s tough sometimes when you’re in a scoring role, especially as a freshman, you know, being in that position of the team depending on you to score. You have a tendency some times to do a little too much. Evan’s not a selfish player. Winthrop might have their best defensive player on him. They might know his tendencies. They might be doubling down on him. The coaches always are telling us to not over-dribble, don’t over-force it. It’s something they preach to me and preach to Evan and preach to Kyle. We all have a tendency that when the going gets tough sometimes, you try to do it yourself. So we’re trying to get out of mentality as a team.“

Just a couple observations from my end in regards to Saturday, and the upcoming week:

* Liberty hosts Gardner-Webb Thursday, and it’s unclear whether guard Grayson Flittner will play. He had microfracture surgery back in April and his knees are bothering him. He didn’t play last week against Charleston Southern and Coastal Carolina at home. Gardner-Webb is a totally different team without Flittner, so his availability will be a huge storyline heading into Thursday.

* UNC Asheville, which visits Lynchburg Saturday, is 1-4 in the Big South, but every game the Bulldogs have played have been decided by single digits. UNCA’s Sean Smith seems to always get hot against the Flames, so that game is by no means a gimme for LU.

* Good stabilizing performance at Winthrop for Liberty’s Carter McMasters, who has just seemed lost at times this season. He’s not thick enough to bang against more aggressive, physical bigs. But he read two passes perfectly when Liberty pressed, leading to steals, and he can change the game by blocking shots. He showed a little more confidence rebounding the basketball as well. If the Flames can get the 15 minutes out of him that they got Saturday, they’ll be fine.

* I wonder why WU coach Randy Peele is so adamant about playing a grind-it-out, slow-down offensive game. The Eagles have some athletes, and they looked great when they sped up and played in transition. Liberty had a great defensive plan—pack in a zone, make the Eagles reverse the ball and shoot from the outside. The only time Winthrop really looked good offensively was when it pushed the ball in transition.

* Sneaky gut feeling—Radford beats Coastal Carolina Thursday in Conway.

That’s all for now. Back with more Thursday before the Gardner-Webb game.