The USA TODAY Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll was released on Monday. The Big Ten was heavily represented at the top, but not the UCLA Bruins, who dropped out.
The Bruins preseason ranking started at No. 12, but since the start of the season, they’ve slipped down the rankings until they plopped right out of a rank position. In the place of the Bruins, the No. 25 Iowa Hawkeyes entered the poll to have there continue to be six Big Ten Conference teams listed in the Top 25.
The No. 1 Purdue Boilermakers have been safe and sound at the top, but now the No. 2 Michigan Wolverines have entered the Top five as they jumped up four spots over Thanksgiving week.
The Hawkeyes and Wolverines weren’t the only two Big Ten teams to jump up exponentially. The No. 8 Michigan State Spartans climbed up four spots to enter the Top 10 and the No. 19 Indiana Hoosiers clawed their way up five to get in the Top 20.
In between the Spartans and Hoosiers was the No. 19 Illinois Fighting Illini, who fell down a spot after falling to a 6-2 overall record.
Just outside of the rank teams was four other Big Ten teams with the first three just missing a ranked position. The closest was the USC Trojans at 56 votes, then UCLA with 33 votes, followed by the Nebraska Cornhuskers’ 31 votes and then at the bottom was the Wisconsin Badgers receiving four votes.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: Big Ten dominates USA TODAY Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches Poll
Reporting by Ryan Lorenz, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
