Leading canines: UConn AP’s No
UConn completed atop the very first Associated Press Top 25 males’s college basketball survey to be launched after March Insanity following its run to the very first back-to-back championship game in 17 years.The Huskies(37-3)topped all 58 tallies Tuesday, coming roughly 12 hours after they beat Purdue 75-60 in the title game. That win permitted UConn to become the very first guys’s repeat champion considering that Florida in 2006 and 2007, as well as signing up with Florida and Duke( 1991 and 1992)as the only back-to-back champs given that UCLA won 7 straight titles under John Wooden from 1967-73.” I simply think it’s the very best two-year run I think in an extremely
, very long time just because of whatever we lost from in 2015’s team,”UConn coach Dan Hurley said after the win.Editor’s Picks 2 Related The Boilermakers(34-5)were next at No. 2 as they nearly matched Virginia in
2019 with an amazing turnaround
. The Cavaliers became the very first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in UMBC in 2018 before winning the title the next year. Purdue has the just other 16-vs. -1 upset loss, to Fairleigh Dickinson last year, but followed that by coming within a win of the title, too.Houston and Alabama– which reached its first Last Four– were next in a tie for No. 3, followed by Tennessee at No. 5.
UConn eventually invested eight weeks at No. 1 this season, while its most affordable ranking was sixth in the preseason poll.The Huskies invested 6 straight weeks from mid-January into late February at No. 1, fell to No. 3 on Feb. 26 after a loss at Creighton, then had 2 weeks at No. 2 before returning to No. 1 for the final pre-tournament poll on March 18. Dan Hurley and the Huskies are the first string to win successive
national championships since Florida did it in 2006 and 2007. Jamie Squire/Getty Images Purdue had actually been within range of the Huskies all season in what ended up being mainly a clear top tier. The Boilermakers, led by a two-time AP national player of the year in 7-foot-4 Zach Edey, invested five weeks at No. 1, 9 weeks at No. 2 and was never ever ranked lower than fourth.Once in the competition, the Huskies won six competition games, with the closest call being a
14-point win versus the Crimson Tide in the nationwide semifinals. Ultimately, UConn and Purdue ranked 1-2 six times this season.THE TOP TIER Regional finalist Illinois was next at No. 6, followed by North Carolina, Iowa State and Duke– all of
which reached the 2nd weekend of the NCAAs. Then came NC State, which rode its very first Last 4 run considering that 1983 as an 11-seed to sign in at No. 10 after being unranked all season.CONFERENCE view The Southeastern Conference led the way with 5 ranked teams in the final poll, including No. 18 Auburn, No. 20 Kentucky and No. 25 South Carolina. The Atlantic Coast Conference had 4, with No. 14 Clemson joining the North Carolina-based trio in the top 10 after its go to the Elite 8. The Big 12 also had four, consisting of No. 16 Baylor and No. 19 Kansas.The Big East had three with No. 11 Marquette and No. 13 Creighton joining UConn. The Big Ten, Pac-12, West Coast and Mountain West conferences each had two, while the Atlantic 10 had one.SEASON RECAP The survey celebrated
its 75th anniversary previously this year, and this marked the 20th season in which there were at least five various teams to reach No. 1– the record is 7 in 1983 and 2020– because that January 1949 launch.Preseason No. 1
Kansas spent 3 weeks at No. 1, matched by Houston and followed by Arizona with two weeks.In all, 52 groups were ranked eventually this year, making this just the fourth season in poll history to have at least 50 different teams make the poll. In 2015 marked the record with 54, while there were 53 in both 2010 and 2015.