Baylor remains No. 1 in AP Top 25

Reigning national champion Baylor isn’t showing any sign of loosening its grip on No. 1.

The Bears remained the unanimous No. 1 in The Associated Press men’s college basketball poll for the fourth time in five weeks. That came after Baylor (15-0) beat Oklahoma and TCU last week to push its winning streak to 21 games dating to last year’s title run in the Indianapolis bubble.

That streak is the third longest in the Big 12’s 26year history, trailing Baylor’s 23-game run in 201920 and Kansas’ 22-game stretch in 1996-97. The Bears enter this week as the only team in the top 10 of KenPom’s adjusted efficiency rankings for both offense (120.6 points per 100 possessions) and defense (89.6).

They trailed by nine early in the second half of Saturday’s win at TCU, but ended up winning by double figures for the 12th time this year.

“I think when you’re a No. 1 team, everybody is going to look at you in situations like this,” point guard James Akinjo said. “They want to see how you respond.”

So far, it’s been good enough to stay in place at the top.

No. 2 Gonzaga and No. 3 UCLA each climbed two spots after losses by Duke and Purdue, while Auburn and Southern California were new additions to the top five.

For the Tigers, they jumped five spots after beating South Carolina and Florida to push their winning streak to 11 games. Then there were the Trojans, who climbed two spots to their highest ranking since last reaching No. 5 in December 1974 after beating California on Thursday.

USC (13-0) joins Baylor as the last two unbeaten teams in Division I men’s basketball.

Arizona, Purdue, Duke, Kansas and Michigan State rounded out a reshuffled group of the same top10 teams from last week.

No. 13 Wisconsin had the biggest jump in this week’s poll, leaping 10 spots after upsetting the then-No. 3 Boilermakers along with beating Iowa and Maryland.