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Loss to Mizzou Drops Illinois in Latest CBB Rankings

The No. 13 Illinois Fighting Illini dropped seven spots to fall out of the top 10 after losing to Missouri in the latest AP Top 25 men's college basketball polls.

 

Illinois knocked off No. 21 Blue Devils earlier in the week, who took the week’s longest tumble by falling 11 spots after losing at home to Illinois.

 

The top five teams remained in place in Monday’s latest Top 25, with Mark Few’s Gonzaga Bulldogs receiving 54 of 62 first-place votes to remain firmly in place at No. 1. The second-ranked Baylor Bears, who knocked off Illinois a few weeks ago, had seven first-place votes to remain 1-2 with Gonzaga in each of the season’s four polls so far.

 

The Iowa Hawkeyes received the remaining first-place vote to finish ahead of No. 4 Michigan State and No. 5 Kansas. Houston, Villanova, West Virginia, Creighton and Tennessee rounded out the top 10, with the Mountaineers rising three spots and the Volunteers climbing two.

 

Missouri cracked the poll at No. 16 after beating Illinois, the program’s AP ranking since midway through the 2013-14 season.

 

The Big Ten has a national-best seven teams in the Top 25, with No. 12 Wisconsin, No. 19 Rutgers and No. 20 Ohio State joining Iowa, Michigan State, Illinois and Michigan.

 

No. 18 San Diego State had the biggest jump, climbing six spots after beating then-No. 23 Arizona State. No. 15 Florida State jumped five spots, while No. 14 Texas Tech matched West Virginia’s rise of three spots.

 

No. 22 North Carolina fell six spots after losing a high-scoring game at Iowa in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, while Creighton slid one spot as the only other team to fall this week.

 

 

 

Duke dropped 12 spots in the latest USA Today Coaches Poll, all the way from No. 11 last week to No. 23 Monday with the most precipitous fall among ranked teams. The tumble comes after it lost at home to Illinois last week and fell to 2-2 on the season with two home losses. Other notable fallers in the poll this week include Virginia Tech, which went from No. 15 to outside the rankings. No. 23 Arizona State and No. 25 Florida also dropped out. All three took losses in the last week.

 

Gonzaga did not play a game this past week because its program is on pause due to COVID-19 infections, but it held on to the No. 1 overall spot in the poll once again, garnering 24 of a possible 32 first-place votes. Baylor and Iowa earned six and two first-place votes, respectively, staying at Nos. 2 and 3 in the poll. Michigan State and Kansas held steady at Nos. 4 and 5.

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