Gonzaga guard Julian Strawther celebrates during a game last week. Gonzaga remains the No. 1-ranked team in the AP Top 25 poll. Young Kwak/Associated Press
Gonzaga’s bid for a wire-to-wire run at No. 1 keeps chugging along.
Baylor is still right there with the Zags.
Gonzaga received 60 first-place votes from a media panel in The Associated Press men’s college basketball poll released on Monday, picking up one vote from last week. The second-ranked Bears received the other four first-place votes in a week of little change.
Gonzaga and Baylor have been 1-2 all season.
Michigan, Ohio State and Illinois rounded out the top five for the second straight week. The Buckeyes held their ground despite losing 92-87 to the Wolverines on Saturday.
The Zags (22-0, 13-0 West Coast Conference) ran over Saint Mary’s and San Diego last week in their bid to become the first wire-to-wire No. 1 since Kentucky in 2014-15.
Gonzaga has won 26 consecutive games after blowing out San Diego 106-69 on Saturday and hasn’t really been tested despite playing one of the nation’s toughest schedules.
LOUISVILLE COACH Chris Mack says it was “not a good look” for him to be shown in a viral video maskless while celebrating the Cardinals’ Dec. 26 victory over rival Kentucky.
The 33-second video, tweeted Saturday night by Drew Franklin of Kentucky Sports Radio, shows the third-year Louisville coach with former Cardinals football player Eric Wood playfully mocking the 62-59 win while celebrating Christmas with family and neighbors who stopped by his house.
Wood yells in the clip that former Kentucky associate head coach Kenny Payne, now with the NBA’s New York Knicks, was responsible for the Wildcats’ previous victories over the Cardinals before noting he’s gone and that coach John Calipari “will never beat U of L again.”
Mack tried to offer context to the video during a virtual news conference Monday, explaining that some of his neighbors were golfing buddies of Payne and wanted to “give him grief” for the game. The coach also recognized the potential fallout for appearing to go maskless during the pandemic, even in his own home. “I’ve got to do better,” he said.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
AP TOP 25: UConn remained the No. 1 team in The Associated Press poll after blowing out its two opponents last week.
The Huskies received 28 of 30 first-place votes from a media panel after holding St. John’s and Xavier to 32 points apiece in routs.
North Carolina State returned to the No. 2 spot and Texas A&M climbed to third after South Carolina and Louisville – the previous second- and third-ranked teams – lost games. The Wolfpack had a two-week run at No. 2 last month.
It’s the highest ranking for the Aggies (20-1), who received one first-place vote, since the 2008-09 season, when they were third for three weeks. Coach Gary Blair’s team can win the Southeastern Conference regular-season title with victories over Alabama on Thursday and South Carolina on Sunday. The Gamecocks fell to fifth after losing to Tennessee.
Stanford received the remaining first-place vote and moved up to No. 4 in the poll. The Cardinal have a huge Pac-12 showdown against No. 9 Arizona on Monday night.
Louisville dropped to No. 6 after losing at Florida State on Sunday. The Cardinals were followed by Baylor, Maryland, Arizona and UCLA.
The Bruins had an impressive 27-point victory over then-No. 13 Oregon on Friday night but lost to Oregon State by seven on Sunday.
TOURNAMENTS
THE BIG WEST Conference will hold its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments without spectators, including family and guests of the teams.
The tournaments will be played March 9-13 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, where they were moved from their usual home in Anaheim, California.
The Big West’s board of directors decided to start the season without fans in attendance. League Commissioner Dan Butterly says the latest decision to keep fans away from the tournaments is a way to protect the teams in their chase for the league’s automatic bids to the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments.
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