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March 18, 2013

NCAA MEN'S BB: Gonzaga No. 1 in final AP poll

ASSOCIATED PRESS Associated Press

NEW YORK — Gonzaga's first stint on top of The Associated Press' college basketball poll lasted through the final Top 25 of the season.

The Bulldogs (31-2), the fourth of the four top seeds in the NCAA tournament, were a runaway No. 1 for a third straight week on Monday, receiving 45 first-place votes from the 65-member national media panel. They become the first school from a non-BCS conference to finish No. 1 in the final poll since Massachusetts of the Atlantic 10 in 1996.

Louisville, the overall No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, is second and got the other first-place votes. Kansas and Indiana - the other No. 1 seeds - are third and fourth followed by Miami, Duke, Ohio State, Georgetown, Michigan State and Michigan.

Forty-four schools were ranked during the 2012-13 season, five off the record set in 2008-09. Five of them held the No. 1 ranking at some point - Indiana (10 weeks), Duke (5), Gonzaga (3), Louisville (1) and Michigan (1) - and there was a stretch of five straight polls when there was a different No. 1 each week.

Eleven teams were ranked in all 20 polls this season with Indiana, Michigan and Duke the only ones from that group to be in the Top 10 all season.

There were two one-week wonders this season: Florida State, which was No. 25 in the preseason poll for its only appearance, and Louisiana Tech, which was No. 25 three weeks ago.

The week's lone newcomer was Pac-12 champion Oregon. The Ducks replaced VCU, which lost to Saint Louis in the Atlantic 10 tournament championship game.

Duke's season-long run in the poll extended the longest current streak to 117 weeks, starting with the preseason poll of 2007-08. Kansas has the second-longest such streak at 85 polls.

The Big East had the most schools ranked during the season with eight, one more than the Big Ten. The Atlantic Coast Conference had five ranked during the season while the Southeastern Conference, Big 12, Pac-12 and Mountain West Conference all had four.

There were 46 schools ranked last season with three reaching No. 1.

 

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