For the second time this season, Houston is No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 basketball poll released Monday.
The Cougars (16-1), who enjoyed a two-week stay in the top spot earlier this season, received 34 of 60 first-place votes, followed by No. 2 Kansas (14-1) with 22 first-place votes. Purdue (15-1) suffered its first loss of the season last week and dropped from No. 1 to No. 3 with four first-place votes.
Off to a strong start, Kansas State was unranked until this week. But after impressive road wins over Texas and Baylor, the Wildcats (14-1) entered the poll at No. 11. Led by first-year coach Jerome Tang, the Wildcats are off to their best start since the 1958-59 season and back in the Top 25 for the first time since the end of the 2018-19 campaign.
The Southeastern Conference boasts a pair of top-five teams, as Alabama returned to No. 4 and Tennessee moved up to No. 5.
UConn, UCLA, Gonzaga, Arizona and Texas — which fired coach Chris Beard last week — rounded out the top 10.
Along with Kansas State, another team on the rise is No. 14 Iowa State, which vaulted 11 spots after road wins against Oklahoma and No. 17 TCU. Xavier rose six spots from No. 18 to No. 12 after extending its winning streak to nine. Overall, 10 teams moved up from last week’s rankings.
Nine teams tumbled from last week’s poll, including No. 24 Duke, which fell eight spots after a narrow win at Boston College was preceded by a blowout loss at N.C. State. No. 16 Miami and No. 18 Wisconsin each fell four spots, as did Arizona and Texas.
The Big East added a pair of teams to the Top 25 as No. 19 Providence (14-3) and No. 25 Marquette (13-4) entered the poll. No. 23 San Diego State (12-3) is back in for the second time this season.
Four teams – Indiana (No. 15), Baylor (No. 19), New Mexico (No. 21) and Ohio State (No. 24) – fell out of the poll. The Bears are unranked for the first time since the 2018-19 season.
The rest of the poll:
No. 11 Kansas State
No. 12 Xavier
No. 13 Virginia
No. 14 Iowa State
No. 15 Arkansas
No. 16 Miami
No. 17 TCU
No. 18 Wisconsin
No. 19 Providence
No. 20 Missouri
No. 21 Auburn
No. 22 Charleston
No. 23 San Diego State
No. 24 Duke
No. 25 Marquette
–Field Level Media