Houston, UConn, Purdue remain top AP Top 25 while bluebloods North Carolina, Kentucky on the rise

Houston remained atop the AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll for the third consecutive week Monday while a couple of the game’s traditional bluebloods made big jumps as they peak just in time for postseason play.

The Cougars received 52 of 62 first-place votes from a national media panel after a week in which they beat UCF and routed then-No. 14 Kansas to clinch the Big 12 regular-season title in their first year in the league. The three straight weeks Houston has spent at No. 1 matches the school’s longest run since the 1967-68 season.

“It’s gratifying. I’m happy for everybody,” said Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson, whose team will be the top seed in the Big 12 tourney and open play on Thursday. “There’s so many people that have an inferiority complex about, ‘We’re the University of Houston.’ This is a damn good school. We live in a damn good city, and we’re a damn good basketball program.”

Defending national champion UConn, the top seed in the Big East tourney, was second in the poll after picking up six first-place votes, and Purdue — the top seed in the Big Ten tourney — remained at No. 3 after getting four first-place votes.