Huskies hold firm at No. 2 in final poll of regular season

The top three remained the same in the final AP Top 25 poll of the regular season, with the Uconn men’s basketball team holding at No. 2, behind Houston and ahead of Purdue.

The Huskies (28-3, 18-2 Big East) enter the postseason with the most regular season wins in program history, and the most conference wins ever in the Big East. They finished the regular season with decisive road wins over Marquette (No. 10 in this week’s rankings) and Providence, both coming after clinching the league’s outright regular season championship.

Uconn is favored to become the first back-toback national champions since Florida in 2006-07, and only the third program to win in consecutive years since UCLA in 1973, when only 25 teams were in the field.

This year’s Huskies have a 5-2 record against current ranked teams, including north Carolina, which moved up to No. 3 this week after sweeping its season series with Duke. Tennessee dropped to No. 5 and Arizona is No. 6 in this week’s Top 25.

Uconn was also No. 2 in both the USA Today Coaches’ Poll and in Kenpom, but No. 3 behind Houston and Purdue in the NET.

The Big East had three teams in the AP Top 25 for the 11th consecutive week. Marquette dropped two spots after suffering another loss, at home against Uconn, without star point guard Tyler Kolek, before ending its season with a win at Xavier. Creighton, after nearly blowing a 32-8 lead but holding on to beat Villanova, 69-67, with a last-second shot from Trey Alexander on Saturday, moved up to No. 8.

Uconn’s Big East Tournament run begins in the quarterfinal at noon on Thursday, when the top-seeded Huskies will meet the winner of Wednesday’s first round matchup between eighth-seeded Butler and ninth-seeded Xavier.