Huskies crack Top 25 after 5-year absence

The UConn men passed another checkpoint on the road back to national relevance Monday, cracking the AP’s Top 25 for the first time in nearly five years.

The Huskies (6-1, 3-1 Big East) won twice on the road last week, at Marquette and Butler, and it was enough to vault the program from the “others receiving votes” category to No. 25 in the writers’ voting.

“Obviously, it’s validation,” coach

Dan Hurley said Sunday, when asked about the possibility of being ranked. “It’s important for the brand, just in terms of the rebuild and where we’re at.”

The Huskies are No. 21 in the NCAA NetRankings, a key metric for tournament selection, and No. 22 in the influential Ken Pomeroy’s power rankings.

UConn was a fixture in the rankings for 25 years, between the 198990 Dream Season, through four national championship runs to 2016, when a highly touted recruiting class had the team at No. 18 in the preseason poll.

Shocking losses to Wagner and Northeastern to begin that season knocked the Huskies out of the Top 25, and they hadn’t been close again until this season. They had three sub-.500 seasons in a row, but rallied late last season to finish 19-12.

The Huskies’ only loss in their last 12 games was in overtime to Creighton, ranked eighth this week.

“We feel we have the makings of a really good team,” said Hurley, who took over the program after the 2017-18 season and has made steady progress. “A couple of years ago, the program was at the mid-major, minus level, and a couple of years later we’ve got an exciting, talented team that’s potentially in the Top 25 and we’re in the Big East. Just a couple of years later, things are exciting.”

Villanova, No. 3, Creighton and UConn represent the conference in the poll this week. Gonzaga, Baylor, Villanova, Texas and Iowa are the top five.