INDIANAPOLIS — Houston returned to No. 1 in the AP men’s college basketball poll for the third time this season while Northwestern and Texas A&M moved into the rankings with impressive wins last week.
Purdue fell to fifth, behind Alabama, Kansas and UCLA. The Boilermakers are still in line for a top seed in the NCAA tournament based on the selection committee's preliminary rankings that came out over the weekend.
The Boilermakers host 17th-ranked Indiana on Saturday night after falling to the Hoosiers in Bloomington last weekend.
Northwestern entered the poll for the first time in more than two years at No. 21 following its upset of Purdue two weeks ago with wins over the Hoosiers and Iowa.
"We haven't gotten ahead of ourselves," Wildcats coach Chris Collins said. "We've had big aspirations of who we could be, and not many people believed it. I'm sure a lot of people laughed at them. But we had them and they were real. And these guys have followed up on it. But we're still in the moment. For me, it's not a time for reflection.
"We want more," Collins continued. "We can reflect at the end of the year, when it's all done in a month's time. And we can look back at the ups and downs. But we're trying our hardest right now to stay in the moment."
Houston picked up 48 first-place votes from the 62-member national media panel with just two weeks left in the regular season. Alabama dropped one spot after losing to Tennessee but beating Georgia during its lone week at No. 1. Kansas climbed two spots to No. 3.