AP men’s basketball Top 25: Arizona unanimously No. 1 again, Houston shoots to No. 3

If last season was the year of the SEC, this is the year of the Big 12 and Big Ten battling for supremacy.

That’s according to this week’s Associated Press Men’s Basketball Top 25 Poll.

Undefeated Arizona was again the unanimous No. 1 seed on Monday, meaning the Wildcats have held the top spot for two full months. And the Big 12 leaders were one of the conference’s four teams in the top 10: No. 3 Houston, No. 5 Iowa State and No. 9 Kansas — which hosts Arizona on Monday — were also in the top 10.

The Big Ten, which hasn’t won a national championship since 2000, wasn’t far behind, placing No. 2 Michigan, No. 7 Nebraska, No. 8 Illinois and No. 10 Michigan State in the top 10.

Only No. 4 Duke of the ACC and No. 6 UConn of the Big East entered from other conferences.

Starting with Monday’s game against KU, Arizona’s perfect record will be put to the test with four games against ranked opponents over two weeks. The Wildcats host No. 16 Texas Tech and No. 22 BYU before traveling to No. 3 Houston. In total, six of Arizona’s last eight games have been against ranked opponents.

On the other side of the poll, Kentucky returned to the Top 25 for the first time since Dec. 1, while Tennessee pulled away.

Here’s the full poll, along with the vote from The athletic’CJ Moore:

Others receiving votes: Alabama 72, Iowa 69, NC State 31, Tennessee 26, Villanova 17, Utah State 15, Georgia 6, Santa Clara 2, Auburn 2, Saint Mary’s 1.

How I ranked my top 5

I’ll probably continue to rank Arizona at No. 1 as long as it’s undefeated, but Arizona and Michigan are essentially ranked 1a and 1b, and you could make an argument for Michigan at the top spot. Michigan is #1 in the NET and wins above bubble, KPI, KenPom, Torvik and Evan Miya. Arizona is No. 1 in record strength, while Michigan is No. 2. The only place Arizona isn’t in the top two is at BPI, where Duke is No. 1 and Michigan is No. 2. The resumes are nearly identical, save for Michigan’s lone loss and two wins in the second quadrant as well. The Wildcats will certainly be the unanimous No. 1 seed until they lose a game, but we do have two teams worthy of that top spot. If the season were to end today, Michigan would have the third-highest efficiency margin in KenPom history and Arizona would be fifth. (KenPom goes back to the 1996-1997 season.)

I kept UConn, Duke and Illinois at Nos. 3-5 this week because all three still have better resumes than the teams below them and I hesitate to punish teams too harshly for losing road games against quality competition.

Gonzaga plummets

Five teams in last week’s top 10 suffered losses this week, but only Gonzaga fell out of my top 10. The reason, of course, was the quality of the loss. Even though Portland played an incredible game, it’s a bad score on the resume. The Zags are now one of only two teams in the Top 25 – St. John’s is the other – with a Quad 3 loss. However, they are not equal. Providence is No. 63 at KenPom; Portland is 184. (The Providence loss was at home to St. John’s.)

It marks the first time since 2010 that Gonzaga has lost to an opponent under 150. That season, the Zags lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament as a No. 8 seed. This team will likely be a much higher seed, but that loss left Gonzaga ineligible for the No. 1 seed and it could be difficult to get a No. 2 seed with the depth of the teams at the top. However, it wouldn’t be unprecedented if Gonzaga ended up on one of the top two lines. Houston was No. 1 in 2023 with a third-quarter loss at home to Temple. Gonzaga also had a third-quarter loss that season and earned a No. 3 seed.