After this past week, we were going to see a shakeup at the top of the college basketball poll. The Michigan basketball program was going to jump to the top of the AP poll after Arizona lost two straight to Kansas and Texas Tech. It marks Michigan's first time being ranked No. 1 since January of 2013. However, it was not a unanimous pick for the Wolverines, with one voter choosing Houston.
The new weekly AP poll came out on Monday, and it marked the end of Arizona's nine-week reign atop the poll. It was a big milestone for the Michigan basketball team. Still, the Wolverines received 60 of 61 first-place votes, with one voter picking Houston, keeping them from being the unanimous top team in college basketball.
“Not much,” coach Dusty May said when asked by the AP after Saturday’s rout of UCLA about the significance of potentially topping the poll. “It means we haven’t drank our own Kool-Aid. We’ve put ourselves in a position to be playing the types of games in mid-February that we want to be in, but we’ve got to continue to improve.”
Michigan had been ranked No. 2 behind Arizona for six of Arizona’s nine weeks at the top. Still, it was No. 1 in analytics rankings by KenPom, Evan Miyakawa, and Bart Torvik last week.
Houston and Duke each moved up one spot to sit behind Michigan. The Wolverines and Blue Devils are set to meet this weekend in a marquee nonconference matchup in Washington, D.C., in a huge game with NCAA Tournament implications.
Arizona dropped three spots to No. 4. UConn was next at No. 5, and Iowa State, Purdue, Kansas, Nebraska, and Illinois rounded out the top 10.
The other teams that had big weeks in the polls were Purdue, which rose six spots, and Texas Tech, which rose three spots. The polls are also going to see a lot more movement with the home stretch of the season coming up. However, Michigan deserves the top spot, and its case will only get better if it beats Duke on Saturday.
