Best Start in Years Propels UCLA to Fifth in National Basketball Poll
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Jim Harrick promised stability when he became the sixth man to follow John Wooden as UCLA basketball coach. He is delivering success.
The Bruins (7-0) are off to their best start since Wooden quit winning national championships in 1975, and they are ranked fifth in this week’s Associated Press poll.
“Two years ago, I think we were 45th,” Harrick said Monday. “That’s probably the best part of it--where we were and where we’ve come to.”
The Bruins haven’t been ranked this high since the next-to-last poll of the 1982-83 season.
The top four teams--Nevada Las Vegas, Arkansas, Syracuse and Arizona--are unchanged from last week. Georgetown fell from No. 5 to No. 12 after losing to Texas El Paso, 71-60, on Saturday.
Las Vegas (3-0), a 95-75 winner over Michigan State, got 61 of 63 first-place votes and 1,573 points. Syracuse, which beat Cal State Long Beach, 94-79, and UCLA, which beat DePaul, 92-90, got the other two first-place votes.
Rounding out the top 10 after UCLA are Indiana, Ohio State, North Carolina, Duke and LSU.
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