Best Start in Years Propels UCLA to Fifth in National Basketball Poll
Jim Harrick promised stability when he became the sixth man to follow John Wooden as UCLA basketball coach. He is delivering success.
The Bruins (7-0) are off to their best start since Wooden quit winning national championships in 1975, and they are ranked fifth in this week’s Associated Press poll.
“Two years ago, I think we were 45th,” Harrick said Monday. “That’s probably the best part of it--where we were and where we’ve come to.”
The Bruins haven’t been ranked this high since the next-to-last poll of the 1982-83 season.
The top four teams--Nevada Las Vegas, Arkansas, Syracuse and Arizona--are unchanged from last week. Georgetown fell from No. 5 to No. 12 after losing to Texas El Paso, 71-60, on Saturday.
Las Vegas (3-0), a 95-75 winner over Michigan State, got 61 of 63 first-place votes and 1,573 points. Syracuse, which beat Cal State Long Beach, 94-79, and UCLA, which beat DePaul, 92-90, got the other two first-place votes.
Rounding out the top 10 after UCLA are Indiana, Ohio State, North Carolina, Duke and LSU.
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