Michigan may have gotten the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament and a claim of the regular-season championship, but AP voters are giving the nod to Illinois as the best team in the conference after the Fighting Illini handed the Wolverines one of their two losses in the final week of the season.
No. 1 Gonzaga was off all week, and held its spot at No. 1 with 61-first place votes. Baylor moved up one spot to No. 2 in the reshuffling of the top four, picking up two first-place votes after a tremendous week that included three wins against ranked teams, and Illinois was bumped up to No. 3, one spot ahead of Michigan. The voters appear to be honoring the head-to-head result over winning percentage, which was used to crown the Wolverines as league champions heading into the conference tournament.
Oklahoma State moved up five spots to No. 12 after a busy week that included a sweep of rival Oklahoma, a loss to Baylor that included Cade Cunningham suffering an ankle injury and then a Cunningham-less win at West Virginia. The Mountaineers went 1-2 last week, sandwiching a win against TCU between losses to the Bears and Cowboys, and fell four spots to No. 10.
Villanova and Florida State were both notable for finishing the regular season with a loss, the Wildcats against Providence and the Seminoles at Notre Dame, and each dropped four spots in the rankings to No. 14 and No. 15, respectively. Virginia got a boost after its two wins helped propel it to the program's fifth ACC regular season title in the last eight years, moving up five spots to No. 16.
The biggest movement in either direction was Oklahoma's nine-spot drop to No. 25 following losses to Oklahoma State and Texas. Wisconsin was the only team to drop out of the rankings, clearing the way for USC's arrival at No 24 following its epic buzzer-beating win at UCLA.
Check out the full AP Top 25 below:
AP Top 25
1 Gonzaga (61)
2 Baylor (2)
3 Illinois
4 Michigan
5 Iowa
6 Alabama
7 Houston
8 Arkansas
9 Ohio State
10 West Virginia
11 Kansas
12 Oklahoma State
13 Texas
14 Villanova
15 Florida State
16 Virginia
17 Creighton
18 Loyola Chicago
19 San Diego State
T-20 Texas Tech
T-20 Purdue
22 Virginia Tech
23 Colorado
24 Southern California
25 Oklahoma
Others receiving votes: BYU 93, Oregon 67, Connecticut 53, Clemson 25, Wisconsin 24, Tennessee 14, Wichita State 13, St. Bonaventure 11, Winthrop 7, Virginia Commonwealth 4, LSU 2, San Diego 1, Michigan State 1, UC Santa Barbara 1
