{"id":577877,"date":"2026-02-02T19:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/577877\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T19:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T19:01:15","slug":"arizona-leads-usa-today-sports-college-basketball-top-25-poll-rankings-as-illinois-surges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/577877\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona leads USA TODAY Sports college basketball Top 25 poll rankings as Illinois surges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The first <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/ncaab\/coaches-poll\/2025\/2026-02-02\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:USA TODAY Sports men\u2019s college basketball poll;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">USA TODAY Sports men\u2019s college basketball poll<\/a> for February is out, with the top four teams from the end of January holding steady.<\/p>\n<p>Arizona remains at No. 1 with all 31 first-place votes. Michigan stays at No. 2 thanks to a pair of solid Big Ten wins this week. Connecticut and Duke remain at third and fourth respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Gonzaga inherits the No. 5 spot, followed by a surging Illinois vaulting four positions to No. 6 after <a href=\"https:\/\/fightingillini.com\/news\/2026\/2\/1\/mens-basketball-9-illinois-surge-past-5-nebraska-to-keep-pace-in-b1g-title-race.aspx\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:its Sunday defeat of Nebraska;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">its Sunday defeat of Nebraska<\/a>. Iowa State jumps ahead of fellow Big 12 contender Houston by just two poll points for the No. 7 position. Nebraska and Michigan State each fall back multiple spots but stay in the top 10.<\/p>\n<p>TOP 25: <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/ncaab\/coaches-poll\/2025\/2026-02-02\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Complete USA TODAY Sports men&#039;s basketball poll;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Complete USA TODAY Sports men&#8217;s basketball poll<\/a><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a strong Big 12 presence in the next five as Kansas is back up to No. 11 leapfrogging No. 12 Purdue. Texas Tech and Brigham Young hold the next two positions, and Vanderbilt now leads the SEC contingent at No. 15.<\/p>\n<p>Texas A&amp;M joins the rankings at No. 25. Thanks to last week\u2019s tie there are actually two dropouts as Alabama and Iowa fall.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ncaab\/2026\/02\/02\/college-basketball-poll-rankings-top-25-arizona-illinois\/88475766007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:College basketball poll rankings keep Arizona at No. 1; Illinois rises;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">College basketball poll rankings keep Arizona at No. 1; Illinois rises<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first USA TODAY Sports men\u2019s college basketball poll for February is out, with the top four teams&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,8837],"class_list":{"0":"post-577877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab","13":"tag-usa-today-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116002585632285517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577877","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=577877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}