UConn finishes at No. 1 in first post-March Madness AP Top 25 poll after run to repeat NCAA title

UConn finished atop the first Associated Press Top 25 men's college basketball poll to be released after March Madness following its run to the first back-to-back national championship in 17 years.

The Huskies (37-3) topped all 58 ballots Tuesday, coming roughly 12 hours after they beat Purdue 75-60 in the title game. That win allowed UConn to become the first men's repeat champion since Florida in 2006 and 2007, as well as joining the Gators and Duke (1991 and 1992) as the only back-to-back champs since UCLA won seven straight titles under John Wooden from 1967-73.

“I just think it’s the best two-year run I think in a very, very long time just because of everything we lost from last year’s team,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said after the win.

The Boilermakers (34-5) were next at No. 2 as they nearly matched Virginia in 2019 with an incredible turnaround. The Cavaliers became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in UMBC in 2018 before winning the title the next year. Purdue has the only other 16-vs-1 upset loss, to Fairleigh Dickinson last year, but followed that by coming within a win of the title, too.

Houston and Alabama — which reached its first Final Four — were next in a tie for No. 3, followed by Tennessee at No. 5.

UConn ultimately spent eight weeks at No. 1 this season, while its lowest ranking was sixth in the preseason poll.

The Huskies spent six straight weeks from mid-January into late February at No. 1, fell to No. 3 on Feb. 26 after a loss at Creighton, then had two weeks at No. 2 before returning to No. 1 for the final pre-tournament poll on March 18.

Purdue had been within range of the Huskies all season in what became largely a clear top tier. The Boilermakers, led by a two-time AP national player of the year in 7-foot-4 Zach Edey, spent five weeks at No. 1, nine weeks at No. 2 and was never ranked lower than fourth.

Once in the tournament, the Huskies won six tournament games by a combined 23.3 points, with the closest call being a 14-point win against the Crimson Tide in the national semifinals. Ultimately, UConn and Purdue ranked 1-2 six times this season.

Regional finalist Illinois was next at No. 6, followed by North Carolina, Iowa State and Duke — all of which reached the second weekend of the NCAAs. Then came North Carolina State, which rode its first Final Four run since 1983 as an 11-seed to check in at No. 10 after being unranked all season.

The Southeastern Conference led the way with five ranked teams in the final poll, including No. 18 Auburn, No. 20 Kentucky and No. 25 South Carolina. The Atlantic Coast Conference had four, with No. 14 Clemson joining the North Carolina-based trio in the top 10 after its run to the Elite Eight. The Big 12 also had four, including No. 16 Baylor and No. 19 Kansas.

The Big East had three with No. 11 Marquette and No. 13 Creighton joining UConn. The Big Ten, Pac-12, West Coast and Mountain West conferences each had two, while the Atlantic 10 had one.

The poll celebrated its 75th anniversary earlier this year, and this marked the 20th season in which there were at least five different teams to reach No. 1 — the record is seven in 1983 and 2020 — since that January 1949 launch.

Preseason No. 1 Kansas spent three weeks at No. 1, matched by Houston and followed by Arizona with two weeks.

In all, 52 teams were ranked at some point this year, making this only the fourth season in poll history to have at least 50 different teams make the poll. Last year marked the record with 54, while there were 53 in both 2010 and 2015.

AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball

NC State guard DJ Horne (0) shoots as p15= defends during the first half of the NCAA college basketball game at the Final Four, Saturday, April 6, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson )

Alabama guard Aaron Estrada (55) watches the ball fall out of bounds as UConn guard Stephon Castle defends during the second half of the NCAA college basketball game at the Final Four, Saturday, April 6, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson )

Purdue center Zach Edey (15) watches as UConn celebrates their win in the NCAA college Final Four championship basketball game, Monday, April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

UConn head coach Dan Hurley greets fans after their win against Purdue in the NCAA college Final Four championship basketball game, Monday, April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

UConn guard Stephon Castle (5) greets fans after their win against Purdue in the NCAA college Final Four championship basketball game, Monday, April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

UConn finishes at No. 1 in first post-March Madness AP Top 25 poll after run to repeat NCAA title

UConn finishes at No. 1 in first post-March Madness AP Top 25 poll after run to repeat NCAA title

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mixed on Wednesday after U.S. stocks held relatively steady on Wall Street.

U.S. futures and oil prices slipped, while the yen weakened further against the U.S. dollar.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 lost 1.5% to 38,244.76. Nintendo Co.’s share price sank 5.2% after the company’s forecasts disappointed investors and it announced that news of a successor product to its popular Switch device will be made by March 2025.

Market players are watching to see how authorities react to the yen's persisting weakness against the U.S. dollar.

The dollar rose to 155.14 Japanese yen from 154.50 yen. Japanese officials have expressed concern after the yen's value slipped to 160.25 per dollar in recent days, prompting the Ministry of Finance to intervene.

“Exchange-rate moves could have a big impact on the economy and prices, so there’s a chance we may need to respond with monetary policy,” Kazuo Ueda, governor of the Bank of Japan, told lawmakers on Wednesday.

A weak yen helps the profits of Japanese companies that earn much of their revenue overseas, but fluctuations in rates can upend planning and the yen's weakness has severely eroded the purchasing power of both households and businesses, pushing up costs of imports of food and energy, among other things.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index shed 0.4% to 18,410.20 and the Shanghai Composite index also gave up 0.4%, falling to 3,134.75.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was little changed at 7,795.70, while the Kospi in South Korea edged 0.1% higher, to 2,736.20.

Taiwan's Taiex was up 0.1%.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 edged 0.1% higher, to 5,187.70. It was a quiet day following three straight leaps for the index of at least 0.9%.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1%, to 38,884.26, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1%, to 16,332.56.

Kenvue, the company whose brands include Band-Aids and Tylenol, rose 6.4% after topping analysts’ forecasts for both profit and revenue in the latest quarter.

The Walt Disney Co. sank 9.5% despite reporting stronger results for its latest quarter than analysts expected. Its revenue fell a bit shy of forecasts, and it expects its entertainment streaming business to soften in the current quarter.

They’re among the tail end of companies reporting their results for the first three months of the year. Most companies have beat their forecasts for earnings, but they’re not getting as big a boost to their stock prices afterward as they usually do, according to FactSet. Not only that, companies that fall short of profit expectations have seen their stock prices sink by more the following day than they have historically.

That could suggest investors are listening to critics who have been calling the U.S. stock market broadly too expensive following its run to records this year. For stock prices to climb further, either profits will need to grow more or interest rates will need to fall.

Wall Street still considers the latter a possibility this year following some events last week that traders found encouraging.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank remains closer to cutting its main interest rate than hiking it, despite a string of stubbornly high readings on inflation this year. A cooler-than-expected jobs report on Friday, meanwhile, suggested the U.S. economy could pull off the balancing act of staying solid enough to avoid a bad recession without being so strong that it keeps inflation too high.

In other trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil fell 33 cents to $78.05 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 10 cents on Tuesday to $78.38 per barrel.

Brent crude oil, the international standard, declined 38 cents to $82.78 per barrel.

The euro dropped to $1.0742 from $1.0755.

AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.

The New York Stock Exchange is shown on May 7, 2024, in New York. Wall Street shifted between small losses and gains before the opening bell as more corporate earnings arrive during what is otherwise expected to be relatively quiet week. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

People stand in the rain near an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in the rain near an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person walks in the rain near an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)