Huskies move up to No. 11 in AP poll

The Uconn men’s basketball team made another leap up to No. 11 in the Associated Press poll released Monday after finishing the regular season on a five-game winning streak and winning eight of its last nine.

It is the highest Uconn has been ranked since it was No. 6 in the Week 10 poll, which came out on Jan. 9.

It’s also the highest AP ranking for the program in Week 18 of the season since it was No. 3 in 2009-09. That team dropped to No. 5 in the final poll after losing to Syracuse in the quarterfinal round of the Big East Tournament and went on to reach the Final Four before falling to Michigan State in the national semifinals.

Having locked up a No. 4 seed in the Big East Tournament and a quarterfinal game against fifth-seeded Providence on Thursday, the Huskies are the second-highest ranked team in the conference behind regular season champion Marquette, which held at No. 6. Uconn, which split the season series with Marquette, could earn a rubber match in the Big East semifinal.

Xavier moved up four spots to No. 15 in the Top 25 rankings while Creighton reentered at No. 24 and Providence fell out after closing its regular season with three losses in its final four games.

Uconn was ranked as high as No. 2 in the AP poll before picking up its first loss New Year’s Eve and losing five of eight games in January – a brutal part of the schedule that head coach Dan Hurley wishes was spread out a bit.

“It was depressing, and it sucked, and it was bad,” Hurley said of the losing stretch after the Huskies capped off an excellent final stretch with a win over Villanova in the regular season finale Saturday.

“It led to some self-doubt, but it also got the edge back for the team. This team was not celebrated going into the season… There were very few people that were touting us as a top team . We had the chip on our shoulder to start the season, the shovels were out and the dirt was thrown on top of us during that stretch in January and we’re gonna keep that edge. We don’t want the pats on the back and the flowers now, we’re gonna keep that edge and we just can’t wait to get to the Garden and play on Thursday because we know that that’s gonna be unbelievable this week in New York for the Big East Tournament.”