College basketball rankings: Houston takes over No. 1 spot in Coaches Poll with UCLA up to No. 3, Kansas No. 4

Alabama only lasted one week at the top following last week's loss at Tennessee as the Cougars jumped to No. 1

By David Cobb

Feb 20, 2023 at 12:45 pm ET • 1 min read

USATSI

Houston made it a clean sweep of Monday's new college basketball polls when the Cougars overtook Alabama for No. 1 in the Coaches Poll after also taking the top spot in the AP Top 25. On the heels of a Sunday victory over Memphis, coach Kelvin Sampson's squad is now 25-2 (13-1 AAC) and projected as a No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament in Jerry Palm's Bracketology.

The Cougars received 24 of 32 possible first-place votes from the coaches with the No. 2 Crimson Tide receiving six votes after a loss at Tennessee and win over Georgia. Alabama did win at Houston earlier this season but was edged out by the Cougars in both polls despite the head-to-head result.

No. 4 Kansas and No. 6 Virginia each received one first-place vote apiece. The Jayhawks rose three spots in this week's poll while UCLA crept up another spot to No. 3 while extending its winning streak to six games. The Bruins are not a projected No. 1 seed in Palm's Bracketology but are a top-four team in both polls this week after registering at No. 4 in the AP poll.

New to this week's poll is Northwestern at No. 22 as the Wildcats continued a hot streak with victories over Indiana and Iowa after knocking Purdue last Sunday when the Boilermakers were ranked No. 1. Northwestern replaced TCU, which dropped out of the Coaches Poll despite a 100-75 win over Oklahoma State on Saturday in the return of star guard Mike Miles from injury.