A win is a win is a win ...

Only one change from my preseason Top 25 ballot to this week's: Harvard, obviously. The Crimson, who at least one national college hoops expert picked to reach the Final Four, got popped by Holy Cross on Sunday. I was leery of the Crimson as Top 25, anyway (they lost some key players from last year's team), but had them at No. 21 preseason. No more.

In their place is Oklahoma, who I didn't have ranked in my preseason poll. A lot of other people did, however, and the Sooners really intrigue me now that Houston transfer Ta'Shawn Thomas, one of the best players in the AAC last year, has been cleared as fully eligible to play this entire season. Great news for Oklahoma. Had Thomas (and Danuel House, who's now at Texas A&M) stayed at Houston under Kelvin Sampson, the Cougars would have NCAA tournament hopes this season.

Otherwise, nothing changes, even if some ranked teams weren't overly impressive in their opening-weekend wins. Like UConn. I fully expect the Huskies to have some early-season struggles, probably lose a game or two that we didn't expect them to lose. It's Kevin Ollie's job to meld the considerable talent he has here into a cohesive unit by the time February and March roll around. Here's betting he gets the job done.

Are the Huskies the 12th-best team in the nation right now? Probably not. But no sense moving them down based solely on a relatively lackluster opening-night win over Bryant. UConn's not alone. Did you see where Kentucky trailed Buffalo at halftime on Sunday, at Rupp Arena? Did you see where Villanova struggled to get by Lehigh? Some good teams are going to struggle early. No sense shuffling things around just yet.

1. Wisconsin
2. Kentucky
3. Arizona

4. Duke

5. Kansas

6. North Carolina

7. Louisville

8. Texas

9. Wichita State

10. Iowa State

11. Villanova

12. UConn

13. Florida

14. Gonzaga

15. Virginia

16. SMU

17. San Diego State

18. Michigan State

19. Virginia Commonwealth

20. Michigan

21. Oklahoma

22. Ohio State

23. Stanford

24. Syracuse

25. Memphis

Sports reporters are supposed to be neutral and play it right down the middle when it comes the teams and sports that they cover. There's no cheering in the press box, they say, and with the occasional notable exception, that largely holds true in college basketball.

What we can root for, however, is the story. It makes things much more enjoyable and interesting to cover when there are intriguing storylines behind certain teams, games or -- in this case -- conferences. The American Athletic Conference, to be exact.

While no one was happy to see Louisville leave (and no one really cared about Rutgers' departure), we all knew it was coming. We also were hoping for some good stories to pop up in the AAC, even without Louisville. Danny Manning was joining the league as head coach at Tulsa. His two battles against Larry Brown, who coached Manning to a national title with Kansas in 1988 (or did Manning lead Brown to that title?) was juicy stuff. And joining Brown at SMU was Emmanuel Mudiay, the No. 1 recruit in the nation, per most recruiting services.

Mudiay would make SMU better than it already was -- and the Mustangs already were pretty good, with Nic Moore, Markus Kennedy and Keith Frazier returning and Xavier transfer Justin Martin joining the fray. SMU beat UConn twice last year and would rightfully be not only the preseason favorite to win the conference, but a legit candidate for the Final Four. This was going to be fun.

Then, it all unraveled. Manning joined Louisville as another ACC defection, bolting incoming Tulsa for Wake Forest. All whole bunch of good players transferred (TaShawn Thomas and Danuel House of Houston, to Oklahoma and Texas A&M, respectively; Temple's Anthony Lee to Ohio State; USF's John Egbunu to Florida). 

And the big blow was Mudiay, who apparently had a whole bunch of eligibility concerns stemming from his two years at Deion Sanders' Prime Prep (who ever would have guessed that could happen?), is instead going to play professionally in China.

Suddenly, the AAC just got a whole lot less interesting next season.