College basketball rankings, grades: UConn earns 'A+', Kansas gets a 'D' on weekly report card

UConn, Duke, Tennessee and Arizona all earned A+ marks after a strong week

Mar 3, 2024

3:03 pm ET

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4 min read

USATSI

It was a weekend of separation across the country in college basketball as teams clinched conference titles or inched one step closer to hardware. The week gave us glimpses at greatness with many of the top teams in the top conferences sending statements about their standing in the league’s hierarchy like Tennessee, Purdue, Houston, UConn and North Carolina — in the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East and ACC, respectively — knocking out opponents and remaining atop their respective league standings.

This week’s report card reflects kindly on those teams whose performances were critical to claiming — or helping their team creep closer to clinching — a regular season title. As has long been the case, my grading system is based more on recent vibes and performance within a week and less on any formula or model. But that’s mostly good news because the vibes are good for a large swath of teams with March Madness on the horizon.

Let’s get to the report card for the week.