CLEVELAND, Ohio — Gonzaga, the only undefeated team in Division I, remained in the No. 1 spot in the Associated Press Top 25 men’s basketball poll announced Monday.
Gonzaga (24-0) got 59 of 65 first-place votes and 1,619 points to be No. 1 for the second straight week. The Bulldogs are followed by last year’s champion, Villanova (22-2), which jumped up two spots and got the other six first-place votes.
Kansas remained third, followed by Louisville and Oregon. Rounding out the top 10 are Baylor, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona and UCLA.
Kansas had a 51-game home winning streak snapped by Kansas State last week, while Baylor dropped from No. 2 after losing twice.
Break down, Top 25: Another tough week for ranked teams as there were seven losses among top 10 teams and 13 in the Top 25, with two teams losing both games last week. Only seven ranked teams have avoided a loss in the last two weeks. Meanwhile, Notre Dame drops out of the Top 25 after losing four straight.
All of this volatility is a mirror of what is happening in conference races around the country. None of the recognized power conferences have an undefeated team, unless you count the American Conference (former football teams splintered from the Big East) where Cincinnati is 10-0.
And few go more than five or six teams deep with winning conference records. One would think this opens the door for a few more mid-major teams into the NCAA Tournament as at-large teams. Time will tell on that with five weeks still to play in the regular season.
Lookahead: There are six double-ranked games this week: No. 4 Louisville is at No. 12 Virginia on Monday; No. 5 Oregon is at No. 10 UCLA and No. 8 North Carolina visits No. 18 Duke on Thursday; No. 1 Gonzaga visits No. 20 Saint Mary’s and No. 2 Villanova is at No. 24 Xavier on Saturday; and No. 11 Cincinnati is at No. 25 SMU on Sunday.
Several key games this week are Thursday night, including Purdue at Indiana, North Carolina at Duke, and Oregon at UCLA. For Indiana and Duke, these are must-win games and rivalries to boot. The Hoosiers and Blue Devils are already hovering at .500 in league play so another loss, even to a quality rival, is not good on the NCAA Tournament resume.
ASSOCIATED PRESS TOP 25
The top 25 teams in The Associated Press’ college basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Feb. 5, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote and last week’s ranking:
RecordPts Prv 1. Gonzaga (59) 24-0 1619 1 2. Villanova (6) 22-2 1565 4 3. Kansas 20-3 1446 3 4. Louisville 19-4 1411 6 5. Oregon 21-3 1263 13 6. Baylor 20-3 1255 2 7. Wisconsin 20-3 1232 10 8. North Carolina 21-4 1145 12 9. Arizona 21-3 1136 5 10. UCLA 21-3 1115 11 11. Cincinnati 21-2 876 14 12. Virginia 17-5 875 9 13. West Virginia 18-5 861 7 14. Florida State 20-4 839 15 15. Kentucky 18-5 741 8 16. Purdue 19-5 537 23 17. Florida 18-5 530 24 18. Duke 18-5 514 21 19. South Carolina 19-4 493 19 20. Saint Mary’s 21-2 468 18 21. Maryland 20-3 326 17 22. Butler 18-5 285 16 23. Creighton 20-4 207 22 24. Xavier 17-6 144 — 25. SMU 20-4 107 —
Others receiving votes: Wichita State 38, Southern Cal 35, Notre Dame 33, Northwestern 11, California 3, Iowa State 3, Monmouth (N.J.) 3, New Mexico State 3, VCU 3, Kansas State 1, Oklahoma State 1, Vermont 1.
ELTON ALEXANDER’S BALLOT
1. Gonzaga
2. Villanova
3. Louisville
4. Kansas
5. Baylor
6. Arizona
7. Wisconsin
8. UCLA
9. Oregon
10. West Virginia
11. Kentucky
12. Virginia
13. North Carolina
14. Cincinnati
15. Florida State
16. Saint Mary’s
17. South Carolina
18. Maryland
19. Florida
20. Duke
21. Butler
22. Purdue
23. Monmouth
24. Wichita State
25. Creighton
(The Associated Press contributed)
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