Auburn tops males’s AP survey; UConn drops to 25
Jan 27, 2025, 01:25 PM ET
Auburn keeps winning games that come down to the wire. It has kept them on top of the AP Top 25, too.The Tigers were the consentaneous option atop the men’s college basketball poll for the 2nd consecutive week Monday, getting all 62 votes from the nationwide media panel. Their place at No. 1 was strengthened when Miles Kelly hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 30 seconds delegated propel Auburn to a 53-51 victory over then-No. 6 Tennessee this weekend.
“We can play better, and we still had the ability to beat a great group,” Tigers coach Bruce Pearl said. “We’ve won 4 of the last six games in the last possession. It’s going to be a fight every night, but we’re happy with this one since that’s an excellent group.”
| Group Record | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Auburn | 18-1 | ( 62 ) | ||
| 2. Duke | 17-2 | |||
| 3. Iowa St.17-2 4. | Alabama 17-3 5. Florida | 18-2 | ||
| 6. Houston | 16-3 | |||
| 7. Michigan St.17-2 8. Tennessee 17-3 9. Marquette 17-3 10. Purdue 16-5 11. Kansas | ||||
| 14-5 12. Kentucky 14-5 13. Texas A&M | ||||
| 15-5 14. Mississippi St.16-4 15. St. John’s | ||||
| 17-3 16. Oregon | ||||
| 16-4 17. Wisconsin 16-4 18. | ||||
| Illinois 14-6 | 19. Memphis 16-4 | |||
| 20. Missouri 16-4 21 | . Louisville 15-5 22. Texas Tech 15-4 23 | . Mississippi 15-5 24 | . Vanderbilt | 16-4 |
| 25. UConn 14-6 The Tigers got All-American | forward Johnni | Broome back from | ||
| an ankle injury that | had actually sidelined him for | two games. He led the way with 16 points, | ||
| 12 rebounds and four | blocked shots against the Vols.The Tigers led a top-five that was unchanged from the | previous week. Duke stayed No. 2, followed by Iowa State, Alabama and | Florida, which rallied to beat South Carolina early in the | |
| week before a resounding triumph over |
Georgia.The big modifications came somewhere else in the Top 25. Houston climbed up one spot to No. 6, thanks to a thrashing of Utah and a frenzied, double-overtime win at Kansas.”Our kids have a clear understanding of how it is we win,”Cougars
coach Kelvin Sampson stated.”The way we won in double-overtime, I believe it talks to this program’s culture, how difficult our kids are and our capability to hang in there, you understand? “Michigan State went up one spot to No. 7 and was followed by the Vols, who balanced out their close loss to Auburn by beating No. 14 Mississippi State. Marquette and Purdue– which beat then-No. 21 Michigan– rounded out the leading 10.
Kansas moved up one spot to No. 11, regardless of the loss to the Cougars, while Kentucky fell 3 areas to No. 12 after losing to Vanderbilt. Texas A&M and Mississippi State were next after each went 1-1 on the week, and St. John’s leapt 5 areas to No. 15 after beating
Xavier in overtime, matching the best ranking for the Red Storm considering that Dec. 29, 2014. Oregon was No. 16 and followed by Wisconsin, Illinois, Memphis and Missouri. Louisville continued its climb, now approximately No. 21, and was followed by Texas Tech, which got in the poll after 2 wins recently. Mississippi was up to No. 23, Vanderbilt broke into the poll at No. 24 and two-time protecting nationwide champ UConn fell to No. 25 after its loss to Xavier.Rising and falling St. John’s and Memphis made the biggest jumps, climbing five areas today. The Red Storm have won 6 directly since a loss to Creighton, while the Tigers have won seven of their last
eight and are connected atop the American Athletic Conference.Ole Miss fell seven areas after close losses to Texas A&M and Missouri, while UConn toppled six but stayed in the Leading 25 for the 52nd straight week- the fourth-longest streak behind Houston( 98), Kansas (77 )and Tennessee (72). In and out Texas Tech made its Top 25 season launching at No. 22 after beating Cincinnati and Oklahoma State to run its Huge 12 winning streak to 4 games. Vanderbilt entered the survey at No. 24 for the first time given that Dec. 7, 2015, as the ladies’s team also cracked the poll this week for the very first time since 2014. Their areas came at the expense of Michigan and West Virginia, which lost both of their games to unranked teams last week.Conference watch The SEC continued to control the Top 25 with three groups in the leading five, 4 in the top 10 and 10 in the poll in general. The Big Ten was next with 5 ranked teams; the Huge 12 had 4, the Big East 3
, the ACC 2
and the American had one.