Wisconsin men’s basketball: UW moves into top-five of AP Poll

After one week of college basketball games, there were a lot of surprising results across the country. Less surprising: Wisconsin beating up on its lesser opponents. What could be surprising is how many spots the Wisconsin Badgers moved up.

The Badgers (2-0) moved up three spots in the AP Poll from No. 7 to No. 4 (FINAL FOUR BOUND BABY!!) after beatdowns against Western Eastern Illinois and Arkansas Pine-Bluff. Let’s scour the rest of the AP poll and see the movers and shakers.

Big Ten

Iowa → No. 3 AP Poll
Wisconsin → No. 4 AP Poll
Illinois → No. 5 AP Poll
Michigan State → No. 8 AP Poll
Ohio State → No. 23 AP Poll
Rutgers → No. 24 AP Poll

Nationwide View

• The Big Ten is looking again like it might be the best conference in the country this year. Obviously, three of the top five are in the Big Ten, but Michigan is just outside the rankings and Michigan State jumped up five spots after an impressive out-of-conference win against Notre Dame.
• The Virginia Cavaliers fell the hardest in the poll after a shocking 61-60 upset against the San Francisco Dons. The last champion fell from No. 4 to No. 15. The other noteworthy upset was Villanova losing Saturday 81-73 to Virginia Tech, dropping the Wildcats nine spots from 3 to 12.
• There’s gonna be a lot more forced moving and shaking this week as a lot of the top teams play each other. Tuesday, Michigan State will play the No. 6 Duke Blue Devils and the No. 7 Kansas Jayhawks will face the No. 20 Kentucky Wildcats. Wednesday, Illinois will play the No. 2 Baylor Bears, and the No. 1 Gonzaga Bulldogs tip off against the No. 11 West Virginia Mountaineers

New Teams

AP Poll → No. 16 Virginia Tech Hokies, No. 19 Richmond Spiders (good week for Virginia teams not named UVA)

Drop Outs

AP Poll → Michigan, UCLA