After winning three times last week while both Auburn and Purdue suffered losses, Arizona returned to No. 3 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll Monday while Tommy Lloyd's old team at Gonzaga took over the top spot.
The Wildcats (22-2) were rated No. 4 last week before they beat ASU, Washington State and Washington all on the road. Auburn lost at Arkansas in overtime and Purdue lost 82-58 to Michigan.
While Gonzaga took over for Auburn at No. 1, the Tigers dropped only to No. 2, just ahead of Arizona while Purdue fell from third to fifth and Kentucky moved up to fourth.
Arizona also held the No. 3 in the Jan. 17 and Jan. 24 Top 25 polls before losing at UCLA on Jan. 25. The No. 3 spot is the highest Arizona has been ranked since the Wildcats were No. 2 heading into the 2017-18 Battle 4 Atlantis.
FWIW, I also had UA at No. 3 and submitted the same order of teams for the top four on my AP ballot.
Arizona is rated No. 2 in the NET and by Kenpom and Sagarin, suggesting the Wildcats are in line for a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed.
However, if all those rankings hold to form, the Wildcats would likely be pushed out of the West region and into the South. The only difference there is that Arizona's potential second weekend games would be played in San Antonio instead of San Francisco, and the two cities are nearly equidistant from Tucson anyway.
Not surprisingly, then, the latest bracket projections from both ESPN and CBS have UA as the No. 1 in the South.
USC's Drew Peterson beat out Benn Mathurin and Cal's Jordan Shepherd for Pac-12 Player of the Week.
Peterson scored 27 points on 9-for-13 shooting in the Trojans' defeat of UCLA, when Isaiah Mobley was not available. He averaged 19.5 points over two games last week, when USC also beat Pacific.
Arizona had nominated Mathurin after he averaged 21.0 points and shot 60% from the field in the Wildcats' three road wins.
Shepherd also had a strong case after leading the Bears to a road sweep in Oregon by averaging 24.0 points and shooting 50%. Shepherd scored 33 points at Oregon, the most ever by a Pac-12 player this season.
As usual, Stanford's Harrison Ingram picked up the Pac-12 Freshman of the Week award.
