Top three unchanged; Texas stays at No. 5
Gonzaga and Baylor have remained firmly atop the Associated Press men’s college basketball poll all season while everyone else keeps rotating in and out of the top 10 beneath them as potential challengers.
This week, that includes Alabama for the first time in 14 years.
While the Bulldogs and Bears earned all 64 first-place votes in Monday’s latest Top 25 poll, the Crimson Tide had the week’s biggest jump by climbing nine spots to No. 9. That is the program’s highest ranking since last cracking the top 10 in January 2007.
Alabama has won nine straight games, with several wins marked by hot shooting and blowout margins.
“They’re playing together,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said Monday. “They’re showing great leadership, the chemistry’s good. Everything’s good around the program to the point where these guys deserve to be ranked in the top 10. Their play shows it. But all the hard work you put to get there, one bad outing and you’re probably out of it.”
Villanova remained third followed by Michigan, with the Wolverines cracking the top five for a second straight season under Juwan Howard after being unranked earlier in the year. The rest of the top 10: Texas, University of Houston, Iowa, Virginia, Alabama and Texas Tech.
Michigan’s rise comes after the school announced a twoweek pause in all sports activities because of concerns about a new COVID-19 variant believed to spread at a higher rate.
Beyond Alabama’s big jump, Missouri climbed seven spots to reach No. 12 for the second time this season following Saturday’s win at then-no. 6 Tennessee. Virginia had the week’s other notable rise, climbing five spots after a 6-0 start in Atlantic Coast Conference play.
In all, 11 teams climbed from last week’s poll.
Tennessee took the week’s biggest tumble, falling 12 spots after a 26-point loss at Florida followed by the Missouri loss.
There were also six-spot slides for No. 15 Kansas and No. 17 Creighton. The Jayhawks lost at Baylor to start last week then fell at Oklahoma, marking the program’s first three-game skid since February 2013 and dropping them out of the top 10 for the first time in two years.
A total of seven teams fell from last week’s poll.
No. 24 Oklahoma and No. 25 Louisville joined Florida State as the week’s new additions to this week’s poll. Clemson (No. 20), Oregon (No. 21) and Connecticut (No. 23) fell out of the rankings.
The Big Ten and Big 12 lead the way among the conferences with six ranked teams.
The ACC is next up with four teams, followed by the SEC (three) and the Big East (two).