Dayton earns highest AP ranking since 2020

Twelve ranked teams lost at least once last week. No. 9 Baylor, No. 10 Memphis, No. 19 TCU and No. 22 Mississippi each lost twice.

Dayton passed these teams: Creighton, which moved from No. 18 to No. 17; Utah State, which fell from No. 16 to No. 18, Memphis, which fell to No. 19; BYU, which fell from No. 20 to No. 21; and TCU, which is unranked after being No. 19 last week.

In two games at UD Arena last week, Dayton (15-2, 5-0) beat Saint Louis 70-65 on Tuesday and Rhode Island 96-62 on Saturday. This week, Dayton plays two road games. It faces La Salle (10-8, 1-4) at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Tom Gola Arena in Philadelphia. At 6 p.m. Saturday, it plays Richmond (13-5, 5-0) at the Robins Center in Richmond, Va.

Dayton first received a top 25 vote in the Dec. 11 poll and then received two votes in the following two polls on Dec. 18 and Dec. 25. The Flyers received three votes on Jan. 1. On Jan. 8. they ranked as high as No. 17 on one ballot and appeared on 30 of the 63 ballots. Dayton moved into the top 25 last week for the first time this season.

This is the sixth time this century Dayton has ranked in the top 20. In addition to be No. 3 in 2020, it ranked as high as No. 15 in 2015-16, No. 18 in 2009-10, No. 14 in 2007-08 and No. 16 in 2002-03.

In other rankings, Dayton is No. 3 in the Ratings Percentage Index, No. 15 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (up from No. 17 last week), No. 18 on Haslametrics.com (up one spot), No. 17 in the USA Today Coaches Poll (up six), No. 19 on BartTorvik.com (up five), No. 25 on KenPom.com (up four) and No. 27 in ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (up four).