Michigan basketball receives first-place vote, moves up in AP top 25 rankings

Michigan Wolverines basketball entered the 2025-26 season No. 7 in the Associated Press poll rankings, and has moved up to No. 6 after one week.

The Maize and Blue and others passed Florida, which lost 93-87 to Arizona Monday night, and St. John’s, which fell to Alabama 103-96 Saturday. Arizona jumped up eight spots to No. 5, ahead of U-M.

The Wolverines are 1-0, coming off a 121-78 win over Oakland on opening night last Monday. They haven’t played since but have two high-major matchups this week, taking on Wake Forest Tuesday at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit and Texas Christian Friday night in Fort Worth, Texas.

This week, Michigan is behind only No. 1 Houston, No. 2 Purdue, No. 3 UConn, No. 4 Duke and No. 5 Arizona.

The Wolverines are one of six Big Ten teams in the AP poll, joined by No. 2 Purdue, No. 14 Illinois, No. 15 UCLA, No. 17 Michigan State and No. 24 Wisconsin.

Michigan will play eight games against seven teams that are in the top 25 at the current juncture: at No. 2 Purdue (Feb. 17), vs. No. 4 Duke (Feb. 21 in Washington D.C.), at No. 14 Illinois (Feb. 27), vs. No. 15 UCLA (Feb. 14), vs. No. 17 Michigan State (at MSU Jan. 30, home game March 8), vs. No. 22 Auburn (Nov. 25 in Las Vegas) and vs. No. 24 Wisconsin (Jan. 10).

Coming out of the first week of the college basketball season, Michigan ranks No. 9 in the nation in Kenpom’s adjusted efficiency ratings. The Wolverines are No. 15 on offense and No. 9 on defense.

The Wolverines’ No. 7 preseason ranking was their highest mark since slotting No. 6 ahead of the 2021-22 campaign that ended with a 19-15 record and Sweet 16 appearance. This is the 16th time that U-M has been ranked top 10 to begin a year.

Michigan head man Dusty May, who led his team to a top-10 finish in 2024-25, believes his team has improved even since the start of the season and is looking forward to a tough matchup against Wake Forest this week.

“I feel like we’re a much better basketball team than we were one week ago,” the Michigan coach said. “We did some good things at home, especially shooting the basketball, but after analyzing the film, we knew we had a lot to clean up and build upon. We’re certainly better than we were.

“Wake is going to be a very challenging matchup for us. They’re physical like Cincinnati. They’re going to push us off of our spots. So, obviously, our ability to take care of the basketball is going to be pivotal. They also have smaller, versatile bigs, and as the first three games have shown us, that’s been a little bit of a hole in our defense.”

College basketball AP poll

1. Houston (18 first-place votes)
2. Purdue (36)
3. UConn (3)
4. Duke (2)
5. Arizona
6. Michigan (1)
7. BYU
8. Alabama (1)
9. Kentucky
10. Florida
11. Texas Tech
12. Louisville
13. St. John’s
14. Illinois
15. UCLA
16. Iowa State
17. Michigan State
18. North Carolina
19. Gonzaga
20. Tennessee
21. Arkansas
22. Auburn
23. Creighton
24. Wisconsin
25. Kansas