Men’s Basketball AP Poll: UCLA Ends Regular Season on Upswing
A handful of wins to close out the season helped the Bruins reverse their fall through the rankings as March Madness approaches.
UCLA men's basketball (23-6, 15-5 Pac-12) rose from No. 17 to No. 13 in the latest edition of the AP Poll on Monday. The Bruins did not receive a single first-place vote and totaled 737 points, whereas they earned 498 a week ago.
The polls from three weeks ago had UCLA at No. 13 – which was their new low at the time – after they lost to crosstown rival USC in their first matchup of the season. The week before that, though, the Bruins were No. 3, so they still have yet to re-enter the top 10 they were so familiar with through the first three months of the season despite closing the regular season winning six of seven.
The Bruins have now been in every regular season edition of the AP poll for the first time since 2016-2017.
UCLA beat Washington on the road last Monday, then came back to Westwood to beat crosstown rival USC on Saturday. That marked the Bruins' first ranked win in over a month and it was also their first head-to-head win over the Trojans since 2019.
The top 12 stayed largely the same after major shakeups last week, as the country is just six days away from Selection Sunday and eight days away from the start of the start of the NCAA tournament. UCLA is currently in line to be a No. 4 seed, looking at bracketologists, the AP poll and Net rankings.
Around the Pac-12, Arizona stayed put at No. 2 after closing out the regular season conference title. The Trojans, meanwhile, fell from No. 16 to No. 21 after falling to both the Wildcats and Bruins over the course of the week.
Arizona, UCLA and USC remain the only teams in the conference in the top 25, and no others even received votes. The three are the only projected tournament teams out of the Pac-12, too, although Oregon and Colorado are still trying to make a push as bubble teams.
The full AP poll is as follows, complete with records and first-place votes:
1. Gonzaga, 24-3 (46 first-place votes)
2. Arizona, 28-3
3. Baylor, 26-5
4. Auburn, 27-4
5. Kentucky, 25-6
6. Kansas, 25-6
7. Duke, 26-5
8. Villanova, 23-7
9. Purdue, 25-6
9. Tennessee, 23-7
11. Providence, 24-4
12. Wisconsin, 24-6
13. UCLA, 23-6
14. Texas Tech, 23-8
15. Arkansas, 24-7
16. Illinois, 22-8
17. St. Mary's, 24-6
18. Houston, 26-5
19. Murray State, 30-2
20. UConn, 22-8
21. USC, 25-6
22. Texas, 21-10
23. Colorado State, 24-4
24. Iowa, 22-9
25. North Carolina, 23-8
Others receiving votes: Boise State 49, South Dakota State 32, Memphis 26, San Diego State 24, LSU 22, Loyola Chicago 16, Ohio State 16, Seton Hall 9, San Francisco 9, Rutgers 8, Alabama 7, Notre Dame 4, Vermont 3, Davidson 1, Longwood 1
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