A new team will take over the No. 1 spot in the AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll Monday after Arizona, ranked No. 1 for nine consecutive weeks, stumbled twice this week, ending its perfect start to the season at 23 games.
That new team will be the Michigan Wolverines.
Michigan (24-1, 14-1 Big Ten) won its 10th consecutive game Saturday in fitting fashion — by 30 points over UCLA — to pave the way for the one-spot rise. The Wolverines lead college basketball in scoring margin this season and rank No. 1 at analytics sites KenPom.com and BartTorvik.com. It is also No. 1 in Sunday’s NET rankings (and our Top 25 and 1).
The Wolverines will be the fourth No. 1 team in the AP poll this season joining Purdue, Houston and the aforementioned Arizona Wildcats. No team besides Arizona has held the top spot for longer than three consecutive weeks.
That change is one of many coming to Monday’s overhauled rankings. Among top 10 teams last week, six suffered at least at least one loss, including every team ranked in the No. 7-10 range. Those results should have big ramifications in the refreshed ranks.
Below is how I suspect voters will react to the week’s results.
