There’s a new sheriff in town.
On the heels of its fourth consecutive victory by 30 points or more, Michigan basketball (8-0, 1-0 Big Ten) has taken over the No. 1 spot in the nation in the latest USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, after it defeated Rutgers 101-60 over the weekend.
It represents the first time the Wolverines have been No. 1 in men’s basketball in either of the two major polls since the final week of January 2013, after the Wolverines opened the season 16-0 and moved into February at 20-1 overall.
The Wolverines received 17 of 31 first-place votes, for a total of 755 points. Following U-M in the top five are Arizona (with 11 first-place votes), Duke (with two first-place votes) and Iowa State (one).
Michigan State remained in the top 10, moving down one spot to No. 9, after Saturday’s 66-60 loss to Duke.
Rounding out the top 10: No. 5 UConn, No. 6 Purdue (down from No. 1), No. 7 Gonzaga (which lost to Michigan in Las Vegas last month), No. 8 Houston and No. 10 BYU.
In addition to U-M, MSU and Purdue, the Big Ten placed three other teams in the top 25: No. 13 Illinois, No. 22 Nebraska (making its season debut in the poll) and No. 24 Iowa
Party like it’s 2013?
During the 10-year anniversary of that team, two years back, John Beilein sat down with the Free Press for a retrospective on the season – he and star guard Nik Stauskas both detailed the day that ranking came out and Stauskas said it’s when they truly became celebrities on campus.
He remembered he was in a “History of Basketball” class and his lecture even stopped dead in its tracks because there was such a buzz in the air as students were passing phones around showing one another the news.
The Wolverines went on to play for the national championship just more than two months later and came up just short against Louisville (the Trey Burke block/foul game), 82-76.
This is just the second time U-M has been the top ranked team in the country since the Fab Five days in 1992-93.
Polls, metrics agree on Wolverines
It’s not just the coaches poll that has the Wolverines as the best team in America. U-M is No. 1 on KenPom, BartTorvik, EvanMiya and in the NET rankings. It’s hard to argue, given the Wolverines have won their past four games – all over teams in power four leagues or with NCAA Tournament pedigree – by a combined 151 points.
The team’s star, Yaxel Lendeborg, has not been shy about his expectation from the preseason: He said this was a roster that can win a national championship. So far, that’s exactly what it looks like, with the Wolverines having won six of eight games by 25 points or more.
U-M features four players who score in double figures, six who put up nine or more a game and seven who average more than eight. KenPom has the Wolverines as a top-10 team in effective field goals on both sides of the ball, Michigan is No. 2 in 2-point defense and No. 2 in 2-point offense, top-20 in both free throw rate and block rate (15.4%) defensively.
“It’s funny, I never been No 1 or anything in my life, so I just feel like it’s a great accomplishment,” senior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. said. “But I feel like it’s important for our guys also not to look at it as, you know, we’re the best, and you can’t, like slack off. I feel like we got to prepare the same way that got us to this point as they’re also highs, there’s also lows.
“We can’t go in there thinking we peaked in December. We got to be able to still build all the way up to March.”
The Wolverines have scored 100 points or more in their past three games, numbers that haven’t been posted since December 1989, a few months after the national title. Coach Dusty May truly had no idea that was the case until it was brought up in a postgame press conference. He nodded along as the question was asked and paused before he responded.
“This is part of our innocent climb, where we’re just lost in the fight of getting better,” he said. “And when you guys say those things, it’s, you know, we process for about a half a second. And then move on to the next thing, because we have a historical program coming in here [soon].”
Michigan’s next test is Tuesday, Dec. 9 (6:30 p.m., FS1), in Ann Arb at Crisler Center when it hosts Villanova.
Tony Garcia is the Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan is new No. 1 team in college basketball rankings
Reporting by Tony Garcia, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
