Kansas back on top in AP poll

The Jayhawks (29-2), coming off their sixth straight Big 12 regular season title, moved back into the top spot in The Associated Press’ college basketball poll Monday. It is their 14th week at No. 1 this season, more than triple the total of the other three schools who have been there in 2009-10.

Kansas, which dropped to second last week after a four-week stint on top, was a near unanimous No. 1, receiving 63 first-place votes from the 65-member national media panel.

Kentucky (29-2) moved up one place to No. 2 and had the other first-place votes.

Syracuse (28-3), No. 1 last week for the first time since 1990, lost to Louisville on Saturday in the last game played at Freedom Hall and fell to No. 3.

Syracuse’s one-week run at No. 1 matched Kentucky’s, while Texas, which dropped out of the rankings last week, was on top for two weeks.

Duke held fourth while Ohio State and Purdue both moved up one place to fifth and sixth.

West Virginia moved from 10th to seventh after wins last week over Georgetown and Villanova, while New Mexico, Kansas State and Villanova rounded out the top 10.

Villanova’s loss to West Virginia was the Wildcats’ fourth in six games and they dropped one spot to No. 10. Kansas, Kentucky, Duke and Villanova are the only teams to be ranked in the top 10 all season with one poll remaining.

Kansas State dropped from fifth to ninth after losing at Kansas and to Iowa State at home last week.

Michigan State was 11th, followed by Butler, Wisconsin, BYU, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, Temple, Gonzaga, Maryland and Vanderbilt. The last five ranked teams were Baylor, Georgetown, Texas A&M, Xavier and UTEP.

It was the first time this season the same 25 teams were ranked two weeks in a row.

The Big Ten’s three teams that finished tied for the regular season title with 14-4 records — Ohio State, Purdue and Michigan State — were all in the top 11.

Vanderbilt lost 77-73 to South Carolina at home and had the week’s biggest drop, falling from 13th to No. 20.

Temple, which ended its Atlantic 10 regular season with wins over Saint Louis and George Washington, and Maryland, which beat Duke and Virginia to earn a share of the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season title with the Blue Devils, both matched West Virginia’s jump of three spots from last week.

Nine teams — Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, Purdue, West Virginia, Michigan State, Villanova, Tennessee and Georgetown — have a chance at being ranked the entire season. Since no team can lose more than one game this week because of the conference tournaments, only No. 22 Georgetown from that group appears to be in any danger of not going wire to wire.

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