South Carolina remained the clear No. 1 team in the country and No. 2 Kansas State matched its best ranking ever after a chaotic week that saw nearly half of the AP Top 25 lose at least one game.
The top five of the AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll remained unchanged Monday with defending national champ UConn still ahead of mighty Purdue.
Defending champion UConn earned its first No. 1 ranking in the AP men’s college basketball poll in nearly 15 years, while Gonzaga has fallen out of the poll for the first time in eight years.
It's a big Monday for the two Gonzaga basketball programs, as both the Zags men's and women's teams made a move in the latest Associated Press top 25 polls.
Anton Watson scored a career-high 32 points on nearly perfect shooting and No. 11 Gonzaga held off UCLA 69-65 Wednesday night in the fifth-place game at the Maui Invitational.
Nolan Hickman scored 12 of his team-high 19 points after halftime to lead No. 11 Gonzaga to a 76-57 win over Syracuse in a losers bracket game at the Maui Invitational on Tuesday.
Anton Watson is one of only two returning starters for the Gonzaga Bulldogs, who weren’t ranked in the top 10 of the preseason AP Top 25 for the first time since 2017-18.