UConn became the first unanimous No. 1 in The Associated Press men’s college basketball poll this season, while Washington State jumped into the rankings Monday at No. 21 to end a 302-week drought stretching back to the 2007-08 season.
The Huskies remained atop the poll for the sixth consecutive week after a blowout of DePaul and an impressive 81-53 win over then-No. 4 Marquette over the weekend. They received all 62 first-place votes from a panel of national media members, scooping up the 16 first-place votes that Purdue lost when the Boilermakers fell to Ohio State on Sunday.
UConn is riding the second-longest streak at No. 1 in school history behind a 10-week stay during the 1998-99 season, when the team coached by Jim Calhoun and led by Richard Hamilton and Khalid El-Amin beat Duke for the national championship.
“All we can control is taking a championship approach to the next game,” said UConn coach Dan Hurley, whose team was the No. 2 overall seed behind Purdue in the first look provided by the NCAA Tournament selection committee over the weekend.
UConn has won 14 straight games, the longest streak in men’s Division I basketball.