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Wisconsin men’s basketball: UW falls in latest AP Poll, voters clearly disgusted by first half against PSU

Apparently losing to Illinois and barely beating Penn State isn’t a recipe for moving up in the polls. Who knew?!?

By Drew Hamm
Penn State v Wisconsin Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images

As is tradition, the Associated Press released their new men’s college basketball rankings on Monday morning. Our beloved Wisconsin Badgers (18-4 overall, 9-3 Big Ten) dropped three spots and now sit at No. 14 in the nation. It makes sense they’d fall since they lost at Illinois and barely hung on to beat Penn State at the Kohl Center. It just wasn’t an impressive week of basketball and, quite frankly, I’m glad it’s over.

UW has another week with a tough road game (at Michigan State) followed by a home game they should win (vs. Rutgers) so we can probably expect to have the same discussion in one week’s time! Anywho, here are the rest of the relevant rankings for the Badgers and their Big Ten foes.

Here’s how the rest of the Big Ten looked in the new AP rankings:

Since losing to the Badgers to fall to 1-2 in conference, the Boilermakers have rattled off eight wins in their next nine contests only falling, hilariously, to archrival Indiana during that stretch. PU (9-3 B1G) plays Illinois (10-2 B1G) on Tuesday night, after Wisconsin plays MSU (8-3 B1G), in an evening that will go a long ways towards deciding who wins the regular season conference title.

UCLA took a weekend-long trip to Arizona, returned with two losses, and plummeted out of the top-five all the way down to No. 12. That’s what you get for losing in triple OT to Arizona State though. If anything, the Bruins got off easy. Auburn and Gonzaga remain first and second in the country, with Purdue in third, and a pair of Wildcats, Arizona and Kentucky, round out the new top-five.

No. 22 Saint Mary’s and No. 23 Murray State are the new entrants into the top-25, which just makes Wisconsin’s win over the Gaels in Maui/Las Vegas look even better. Marquette is up to No. 18 and Houston is up to No. 6 and hot damn, this Badgers team really beat some of the best teams in country earlier in the year.

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