:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70297909/1359361503.0.jpg)
The Wisconsin Badgers (9-2 overall, 1-1 Big Ten) have only played one game in the past week, an uninspiring home win over Nicholls that was way closer than it should have been, so it may come as somewhat of a surprise that they are back in the AP rankings after a one week absence. Seems like UW may have been the beneficiary of “being No. 26 last week and a couple of teams in the twenties lost” which is just a classic maneuver.
Wisconsin’s other rankings have been going in the opposite direction, mostly due to how poor they looked against Nicholls and the fact that they haven’t had a chance to make amends for it with another game since UW is in finals week. The Badgers do play again on Thursday, against a dreadful Morgan State team, so hopefully they can blow them out and regain a little confidence.
Here’s how the rest of the Big Ten looked in the new AP Rankings:
- No. 3 Purdue Boilermakers
- No. 11 Michigan State Spartans
- No. 14 Ohio State Buckeyes
- No. 24 Wisconsin Badgers
- Illinois, Michigan, Iowa and Minnesota are all receiving votes
Iowa picked up a solid neutral site win over Utah State and is now receiving votes again. Their defense is really quite bad and despite having an excellent offense again they should lose a bunch of games in conference.
The Villanova Wildcats plummeted from the top-ten all the way down to No. 23 after back-to-back losses against Creighton and Baylor (in which they only scored 36 points, yeesh). Speaking of the Big East, the Providence Friars hopped into the top-25, at No. 22, after a win over UConn moved them to 11-1 on the season. They currently have four Quad 1 wins, including one over Wisconsin (without Johnny Davis), and are looking really solid this year.
The top-five of Baylor, Duke, Purdue, Gonzaga and UCLA remained the same with the Bulldogs and Bruins just swapping spots from last week.