Men’s Basketball: Northwestern now No. 21 in AP Top 25 poll
Katie Chen/The Daily Northwestern
Northwestern fans demand AP Top 25 rank Northwestern. After putting on an offensive showing Sunday in a win over Iowa, the Wildcats are ranked No. 21 in the latest poll.
February 20, 2023
The 2022-2023 season has been magical for Northwestern. Defying expectations would be an understatement — the Cats were projected to finish towards the bottom of the Big Ten entering this season.
Yet, this season has comprised many historical milestones, from the Cats first win over an AP No. 1 ranked team to winning 11 Big Ten games for the second time in program history. Now, the team has entered the AP Top 25 poll for the first time this season and its first time since 2020.
The Cats, ranked No. 21 in the AP’s latest weekly rankings are now the third-highest Big Ten team on the poll, right below two teams they beat just this past week — No. 5 Purdue and No. 17 Indiana. The squad now is only a mere one game behind the Boilermakers for first place in the Big Ten standings and winning five consecutive games.
Yet, coach Chris Collins — who is expected to win Big Ten coach of the year —, and senior guard Boo Buie — who is expected to make the all-first Big Ten team — have repeatedly wanted to prove the squad’s skeptics wrong. Both have mentioned NU’s success hasn’t been a fluke — those talking about the Wildcats now are the same ones who wrote them off at the beginning of the year.
Nevertheless, a spot in the AP Top 25 rankings is nowhere near NU’s ceiling now. As the team is comfortably positioned to make the NCAA tournament for only the second time in program history, a Big Ten championship and a deep March Madness run is all that is left for the Cats to defy all odds. If the 2016-2017 Northwestern squad — considered by many as one of the best squad’s in program history — was ranked No. 25 at this stage in this season, then there is no ceiling for this year’s Cats.
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