Dayton climbs in AP poll after 2-0 week

Houston, Connecticut and Purdue remained the top three teams. North Carolina and Tennessee rounded out the top five. Thirteen top-25 teams suffered at least one loss last week.

Next up for Dayton is the Atlantic 10 conference tournament. No. 3 seed Daytonwill play No. 6 Duquesne (20-11, 10-8), No. 11 Rhode Island (12-19, 6-12) or No. 14 Saint Louis (12-19, 5-13) in the quarterfinals at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. The event starts Tuesday.

Dayton is in the top 25 for the ninth straight week, its longest run as a ranked team since 2020. Here’s a timeline of where Dayton ranked in recent weeks.

• On Jan. 15, Dayton moved into the top 25, at No. 23, for the first time this season.

• On Jan. 22, Dayton climbed into the top 20, at No. 16, for the first time since 2020.

• On Jan. 27, Dayton dropped to No. 21 after losing 69-64 at Richmond.

• On Feb. 5, Dayton climbed to No. 18 after victories at home against George Washington and St. Bonaventure.

• On Feb. 12, with the 10 bottom teams in the poll finishing 1-1 the previous week, Dayton moved to No. 16. It won 94-79 at Saint Joseph’s and lost 49-47 at Virginia Commonwealth the previous week.

• On Feb. 19, Dayton stayed at No. 16 victories after beating Duquesne 75-59 and Fordham 78-70 the previous week at UD Arena.

• On Feb. 26, Dayton dropped to No. 21 after losing 71-67 at George Mason the previous week.

• On March 4, Dayton stayed at No. 25 after beating Davidson 80-66 and losing 77-72 at Loyola Chicago the previous week.

Other rankings: Dayton is No. 21 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (no change), No. 30 on Haslametrics.com (down two), 24th in the USA Today Coaches poll (after being unranked last week), No. 36 on BartTorvik.com (down three), No. 28 on KenPom.com (down one) and No. 28 in ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (down one).