Around the Top 25: Feb. 5
There were some minor shake-ups in the new AP Top 25 basketball poll after another week of college basketball. Some teams dropped out of the polls completely while other teams made a jump up in the rankings.
Here’s a deeper dive into the AP Top-25 rankings for week 13.
No. 3 UCLA
With a huge victory over the No. 3 Arizona Wildcats, the UCLA Bruins have jumped all the way up to the No. 3 ranking this week.
UCLA and Arizona have been the two top teams in the Pac-12 this year and last week's battle and this week's battle has allowed us to see that the two teams are pretty dead even. In this week's battle, the Bruins came up short this time, 76-66.
The two teams split their season series and it will be interesting to see if they battle for the Pac-12 championship.
No. 5 Kentucky Wildcats
The Kentucky Wildcats had a major game last week as they played No. 5 Kansas Jayhawks at the time. The Wildcats had an impressive performance going into Allen Fieldhouse where the Jayhawks were 10-0 going into that game this season.
However, the main storyline for that game was Ochai Agbaji was only held to 13 points for the Jayhawks. The Wildcats were able to keep Agbaji from having his hands all over this game.
Instead, the Wildcats had two dominant performances from Keion Brooks, who scored 27 points in the win, and Oscar Tshiebwe, who had 17 points and 14 rebounds that helped propel the Wildcats up the AP Top-25 ranking list.
No. 18 Illinois Fighting Illini
The Illinois Fighting Illini have had a very successful season ever since the return of Kofi Cockburn from an early-season suspension.
In their last three games, the Fighting Illini have been able to defeat two ranked opponents, which helped them jump from the No. 24 ranking last week to No. 18 this week.
The ranked opponent for last week's game was then-No. 10 Michigan State. The Fighting Illini were able to defeat the Spartans in a tight 56-55 battle. This helped them jump in the ranking for this week.
However, for this week's games, the Fighting Illini were able to defeat the Wisconsin Badgers behind Kofi Cockburn’s 37 points and 12 rebounds.
This victory will propel the Fighting Illini up even higher through the AP Top-25 rankings as they now sit in first place in the Big Ten.
No. 23 Texas Longhorns
It has been an eventful two weeks for the Texas Longhorns. Coming off a ranked 52-51 victory over the No. 18 Tennesse Volunteers in the SEC/Big-12 challenge. This victory propelled the Longhorns into the AP Top-25 rankings as well.
However, their time in the rankings may be short lived as they traveled to a huge matchup against No. 14 Texas Tech, that had huge implications for both teams. For the Longhorns it could have been back-to-back ranked wins that would have certainly moved them up the rankings.
Although, the game for Texas Tech was huge after former head coach Chris Beard came back to town. The arena was packed and emotions ran high for Red Raider fans everywhere.
As a result, the Red Raiders were able to get a huge home 77-64 win over the Longhorns that may knock the Longhorns back out of the top-25 rankings.
Dale Ostrander is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email dko5097@psu.edu.
