After Houston loss, AP Top 25 men’s basketball poll has third No. 1 team of the season

Five weeks into the Associated Press Top 25 poll and we’ll have our third No. 1 team. North Carolina started it off. Houston held it for two weeks. Purdue leapfrogged Virginia from last week’s poll to become No. 1 for the second straight season.

It was far from unanimous: The Boilermakers received 27 of 62 first place votes with Virginia at 19, Connecticut at 15 and Tennessee with one. Purude hopes its stay at the top is longer than last season, when it lost the same week it was voted No. 1.

The Cavaliers are 8-0 for the first time since the 2018-19 season, which happened to be the same season they won the program’s first national championship. They’ll be tested in their only game this week, a home game against Houston on Saturday.

Highest rise

Mississippi State jumped six spots mainly because teams lost, and not because its win over Minnesota was overly impressive. Wisconsin went from unranked to No. 22 by mastering winning close games as both their wins over Marquette and Iowa both came in overtime and they held on to beat Maryland by five. Their only two losses were in overtime to Kansas and a 78-75 home loss to Wake Forest in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

Biggest drop

Auburn dropped eight spots back to No. 19 after its first loss of the season. The Tigers have talent, yes, but their schedule isn’t very challenging and they lost to Memphis in their biggest test to date. This deep into the season, their best wins are against St. Louis and Northwestern.

Maryland dropped seven places back to No. 20 after back-to-back losses last week at Wisconsin and to Tennessee.

Welcome to the Top 25

The ACC nudged its way into the poll with both No. 24 Virginia Tech and No. 25 Miami making their season debuts..

Outta here

Creighton fell under the same spell as North Carolina did a week ago. The Bluejays’ 83-80 loss to BYU marked their fourth straight after being ranked in the top 10 to start the season. They were joined by Iowa State and San Diego State.

AP Top 25 Week 5

C.L. Brown’s Top 25 Ballot