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After Arizona lost at Kansas on Monday, the only thing standing between Michigan and a return to the No. 1 spot in next week’s AP Top 25 was wins over unranked Northwestern on Wednesday and unranked UCLA on Saturday.
One down. One to go. But if you watched the game at Northwestern, you know it was more difficult than oddsmakers anticipated.
Final score: Michigan 87, Northwestern 75.
But that 12-point margin doesn’t properly illustrate what happened at Welsh-Ryan Arena in a game in which Michigan closed as a 15.5-point favorite. Yes, it was another double-digit victory for the 23-1 Wolverines — but they were actually down 58-42 with 14:04 remaining. From that point, Michigan outscored Northwestern 45-17 and turned a 16-point deficit into a 12-point road-win that didn’t feel much like a road game given how many Michigan fans made the trip to Northwestern’s campus.
“When we took our lead, they just erupted,” Michigan coach Dusty May said. “I told our guys, ‘This is a home game.'”
So now the Wolverines are on to UCLA — and two things can be true at the same time:
The Bruins, No. 13 in the preseason AP poll, are the highest-ranked preseason team that’s no longer in the top 25 — point being they’ve been disappointing.But they’ve been better lately.
UCLA will enter this weekend’s matchup with the Bruins 17-7 and outside of the top 35 of the NET. That’s not great. But it’s definitely better than where they were, because where they were, back in early December, was as low as 78th in the NET.
Now they’re 39th.
That’s the result of UCLA going 5-1 in its past six games with the highlight being a Q1 win over Purdue. Things are good. But no team in the sport has a tougher three-game stretch on tap than the Bruins.
Check this out:
Saturday: at Michigan (on CBS)Tuesday: at Michigan State (on Peacock)Feb. 21: Illinois at home (on Fox)
Anyway. …Â
Michigan remains No. 1 in Thursday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. The Wolverines are also No. 1 in the NET, at KenPom.com, BartTorvik.com and EvanMiya.com.
Top 25 And 1 rankings