College basketball rankings: Duke loses to UNC without Zion, but remains No. 2 in the Top 25 And 1

Not long after Zion Williamson suffered a knee injury Wednesday night while former President Barack Obama looked on from courtside, countless people with social media accounts started offering college basketball’s biggest star free advice. And a lot of the advice was rooted in the idea that, with his status as the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft all but secured, Williamson should “shut it down” and officially be done as an “amateur” even though March hasn’t even arrived.

To be clear, I understand the sentiment.

This young man is possibly, if not probably, worth hundreds of millions of dollars — and he’s currently playing basketball twice a week for no paycheck. In a vacuum, that’s crazy. I’ve written and talked about it a bazillion times. The concept of amateurism is flawed to its core and wrong. But it would be nice if the “shut it down” crowd could also recognize that Williamson has spent the past four months playing basketball with his best friends, for a team favored to win the national championship, in a way that’s made him an international star and the clear favorite to win national player of the year honors — and that’s worth something, too.

Why is that so hard for some to grasp?

Truth be told, the risk of a career-altering injury while playing a maximum of 14 more games at Duke is very low — and the payoff, in terms of legacy and memories, is extremely high. Plus, Williamson has made it clear he wants to play college basketball and would’ve still played college basketball even if he would’ve been allowed to enter the NBA Draft out of high school. And if that’s what he wants to do, then he should do it. And anybody calling him crazy or stupid for doing it is assigning what they think they would value if they were in his situation instead of allowing him to value whatever he wants in his actual situation.

That’s what seems dumb and crazy to me.

So Zion, if you’re reading, my advice is to educate yourself on the pros and cons of everything — and then do what you want. You can’t make a decision I wouldn’t understand. Every option on the table is sensible on some level.

Now to the Top 25 And 1.

The first thing you probably noticed is that I didn’t move Duke even after its (shorthanded) 88-72 loss to North Carolina inside Cameron Indoor Stadium, and the reason is because moving Duke down would’ve meant placing the Blue Devils, who have still only lost once at full-strength, below a Virginia team with a comparable resume that Duke has already beaten twice — first at home, then on the road. Simply put, I didn’t want to do that. So I didn’t didn’t do that. And I left North Carolina at No. 7 because I still believe the schools I have in the six spots ahead of the Tar Heels have better bodies of work than the Tar Heels.

So UNC didn’t move.

But Nevada did.

The Wolf Pack lost 65-57 Wednesday at San Diego State. So they’re now 24-2 with two losses to sub-100 KenPom teams and zero Quadrant 1 wins. That’s not great — which is why Nevada is down to 15th in Thursday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. Villanova, after another loss to another unranked team, is down to No. 24. And Gonzaga is No. 1 for the fifth straight day.

Thursday’s Top 25 And 1