Both the Michigan men’s and women’s basketball teams moved up in the AP Poll after solid respective weeks:
With Monday afternoon comes two new Associated Press Polls, a weekly winter tradition around these parts. After solid respective weeks, both the Michigan men’s and women’s basketball teams went up in the polls — the men’s team went from No. 4 to No. 3, while the women’s team went from No. 8 to No. 7.
For the second straight year, the men’s team went undefeated on its now annual West Coast trip, beating both Washington and Oregon by 10 points. What also helped Michigan move up the AP Poll is former No. 2 Iowa State losing twice last week; the Cyclones moved all the way down to No. 9 this week.
The Wolverines are still the darlings of the advanced analytics community, still ranking No. 1 in KenPom, No. 1 in Bart Torvik, and No. 1 on EvanMiya.com. They are also still No. 1 in the NET rankings, and they would benefit from Wisconsin — which had 61 votes in this poll, the most of any unranked team — continuing to win and help their tournament case a bit.
The men’s team is back home this week, with two games against teams in the top-40 on KenPom. Michigan faces Indiana on Tuesday, Jan. 20 (7 p.m., Peacock) and Ohio State on Friday, Jan. 23 (8 p.m., FOX).
Meanwhile, the women’s team played one game last week, defeating No. 25 Illinois, 85-69. Olivia Olson led the way with 21 points in that game, with Te’yala Delfosse not far behind with 15 points off the bench.
Halfway through the regular season, the Wolverines are No. 6 in the NET, the equivalent of being a 2-seed come the NCAA Tournament.
An hour after this article is published, Michigan will play its first game against a top-five team since losing in thrilling fashion to No. 1 UConn in late November. Michigan faces No. 5 Vanderbilt at the Coretta Scott King Classic in Newark, New Jersey (2:30 p.m., FOX). The Wolverines stay in New Jersey to face Rutgers on Thursday, Jan. 22 (6 p.m. EST on Big Ten Network) and then return home on Sunday to take on a USC team without Juju Watkins (2 p.m. EST on Big Ten Network).
Category: General Sports
