Texas Men's Basketball Leaps To #4 Ranking After Blowing Out Kansas
AUSTIN, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) - The Texas Longhorns men's basketball team is ranked in the top 5 for the first time in nearly a decade.
While Gonzaga and Baylor remain firmly atop The Associated Press men's college basketball poll, Shaka Smart and fourth-ranked Texas are making a push into the rankings' top tier, too.
The top-ranked Zags and second-ranked Bears remained 1-2 in Monday's latest Top 25 as they have all season.
But the Longhorns jumped four spots after a lopsided weekend win at Kansas to earn the program's highest ranking under their sixth-year coach, as well as its first top-5 ranking since February 2011.
"If this is the peak on Jan. 2, that would be really, really disappointing," Smart said after the 84-59 win against the Jayhawks. "It's something that we'll talk a lot about. I asked the guys in the locker room if this was kind of all they wanted. Obviously that's a rhetorical question: They want more."
Texas (8-1) started the year at No. 19 and hadn't cracked the top 10 under Smart before this season.
The Longhorns hadn't cracked the top five since spending three weeks at No. 3 followed by a week at No. 5 in February 2011 under former coach Rick Barnes.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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