{"id":138658,"date":"2026-01-26T18:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T18:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/138658\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T18:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T18:08:09","slug":"college-basketball-rankings-coaches-poll-top-25-sees-illinois-texas-tech-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/138658\/","title":{"rendered":"College basketball rankings: Coaches Poll top 25 sees Illinois, Texas Tech surge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"illinoisjpg\"<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

Illinois<\/a> made its return to the top 10 of the latest Coaches Poll after an eventful week of college basketball, as the Fighting Illini used a pair of strong wins to propel themselves to No. 10. It’s the highest that Illinois has been ranked since Nov. 17, when it landed at eighth amid a 4-0 start to the 2025-26 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Illini are on a nine-game winning streak, dating back to Dec. 22’s victory against SEC foe Missouri<\/a>, with seven of those wins coming against Big Ten opponents. None were bigger than Illinois’ Jan. 24 triumph against Purdue<\/a>, which plummeted to No. 12\u00a0after suffering its first two Big Ten losses of the season last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Illinois freshman Keaton Wagler put on one of the best performances that college basketball has ever seen from a first-year player. He scored 46 points, a program record for Illinois freshman and tied for the second-most ever from an Illinois player, on 9-of-11 shooting from 3-point range, which set another Illinois record. He also scored all 14 of his team’s points to open the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas Tech<\/a>, meanwhile, continued its ascent to No. 11\u00a0after downing Houston<\/a> on Jan. 24. That was the Red Raiders’ second top-15 victory since Jan. 15. They have just two losses since the start of December. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the Jan. 26 Coaches Poll in its entirety.<\/p>\n

First-place votes in parenthesis<\/p>\n

Coaches Poll\u00a0<\/p>\n

1. Arizona<\/a> (31)\u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Michigan<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

3. UConn<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

4. Duke<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

5. Nebraska<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

6. Gonzaga\u00a0<\/p>\n

7. Houston\u00a0<\/p>\n

8. Michigan State<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

9. Iowa State<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

10. Illinois\u00a0<\/p>\n

11. Texas Tech\u00a0<\/p>\n

12. Purdue\u00a0<\/p>\n

13. BYU<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

14. Kansas<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

15. Vanderbilt<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

16. Arkansas<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

17. Virginia<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

18. North Carolina<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

19. Clemson<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

20. Louisville<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

21. Florida<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

22. Saint Louis\u00a0<\/p>\n

23. Alabama<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

24. St. John’s\u00a0<\/p>\n

25. Miami (OH)<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

25. Iowa<\/a><\/p>\n

Others receiving votes:\u00a0Georgia<\/a> 33; Tennessee<\/a> 30; Texas A&M<\/a> 19; Villanova<\/a> 15; Saint Mary’s 9; SMU<\/a> 4; Kentucky<\/a> 3; Utah State<\/a> 2; Liberty<\/a> 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images Illinois made its return to the top 10 of the latest Coaches Poll after an eventful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2698,17321,26069,875,26068,261,4857,2745,2742,1014,763,4860,2764,770,787,26070,26071,776,791,27,260,29,28,1769,415],"class_list":{"0":"post-138658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-arizona-wildcats","9":"tag-byu","10":"tag-cbb-rankings","11":"tag-coaches-poll","12":"tag-college-basketball-rankings","13":"tag-college-football","14":"tag-duke-blue-devils","15":"tag-florida-gators","16":"tag-houston-cougars","17":"tag-illinois","18":"tag-illinois-fighting-illini","19":"tag-iowa-state-cyclones","20":"tag-kansas-jayhawks","21":"tag-michigan-state-spartans","22":"tag-missouri-tigers","23":"tag-ncaa-basketball-rankings","24":"tag-ncaab-rankings","25":"tag-nebraska-cornhuskers","26":"tag-purdue-boilermakers","27":"tag-texas","28":"tag-texas-am-aggies","29":"tag-texas-headlines","30":"tag-texas-news","31":"tag-texas-tech","32":"tag-texas-tech-red-raiders"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}