{"id":547598,"date":"2026-01-19T22:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/547598\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T22:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:21:16","slug":"top-25-and-1-houston-looking-good-enough-to-win-ncaa-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/547598\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 25 And 1: Houston looking good enough to win NCAA Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Article-featuredImageImg\" alt=\"houston-top-25.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/houston-top-25.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"433\" width=\"770\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                CBS Sports graphic<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-basketball\/teams\/HOU\/houston-cougars\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston<\/a> improved to 17-1 on Sunday with a 103-73 win over <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-basketball\/teams\/ARIZST\/arizona-state-sun-devils\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arizona State<\/a> that extended the Cougars&#8217; winning streak to 11 games and allowed them to remain No. 9 in Monday morning&#8217;s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. But it should be noted that since Dec. 1 Kelvin Sampson&#8217;s program is 10-0 and rating as the best team in the country, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.barttorvik.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">BartTorvik.com<\/a>. That suggests Houston is trending in the right direction, per usual.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re just doing what we do every year,&#8221; said Houston coach Kelvin Sampson. &#8220;We just get better.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Which is scary for the rest of the Big 12.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-basketball\/news\/college-basketball-undefeated-teams-next-loss-arizona-nebraska-miami\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>College basketball&#8217;s three undefeated teams win Saturday, but we predict two more fall before January ends<\/p>\n<p>\n                    Kyle Boone                <\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" alt=\"College basketball's three undefeated teams win Saturday, but we predict two more fall before January ends\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768861276_415_usatsi-28028880-1.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"152\" width=\"270\"\/><\/p>\n<p>    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yes, <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-basketball\/teams\/ARIZ\/arizona-wildcats\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arizona<\/a> is No. 1 in the Top 25 And 1 for the ninth consecutive day &#8212; but, as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/CBSSportsCBB\/status\/2008691172340797646\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">I said on Inside College Basketball earlier this month<\/a>, if I had to pick a national champion right now, I&#8217;d go with Houston. The Cougars have an all-time great coach still operating at an elite level at the age of 70 years old, roster-continuity from year-to-year and multiple five-star freshmen who double as projected top-20 picks in the 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/cbssports.com\/nba\/draft\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NBA Draft<\/a>. In other words, Houston has good roster-balance and everything else a team typically needs to march through that 68-team bracket.<\/p>\n<p>Last season, they won five games in it. This season, my prediction is that they&#8217;ll ultimately win six games in it, cut nets and solidify Sampson&#8217;s place in the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n<p> Top 25 And 1 rankings <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CBS Sports graphic Houston improved to 17-1 on Sunday with a 103-73 win over Arizona State that extended&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[11976,1982,7,217,37927,60152,60153,2811,62790],"class_list":["post-547598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-arizona-state-sun-devils","tag-arizona-wildcats","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-basketball-rankings","tag-college-basketball-top-25","tag-college-basketball-top-25-and-1","tag-houston-cougars","tag-mens-college-basketball-rankings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115924100489784089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}