The 12 College Basketball Teams That Have Spent The Most Weeks Ranked At No. 1 Since The AP Poll Began

There are a ton of different metrics you can harness when trying to determine the best college basketball team in the country, but the weekly poll conducted by the Associated Press is widely viewed as the gold standard.

The Associated Press started conducting a weekly poll to determine the best men’s basketball teams in the country prior to the start of the 1948-49 season (women’s programs would get the same treatment beginning in 1976), and it is still the main metric used to evaluate the nation’s top squads more than 75 years later.

61 different schools have held the No. 1 spot for at least one week as we sit on the cusp of the 1,300 installment of the AP Poll, and with the second-to-last batch of votes set to arrive before the NCAA Tournament gets underway, I figured we’d take a look at the teams that have spent the most weeks at the top since its inception with numbers current as of March 11th and courtesy of College Poll Archive.

1. Duke: 146 Weeks

The top of this list is somewhat obviously filled with the blue bloods that have earned that distinction due in part to their dominance in the AP Poll, and none of them have spent more time at No. 1 than Duke.

Duke has spent a grand total of 146 weeks as the best college basketball team in the country while making the overall cut on 910 occasions, and they had an 18-week streak as the top-ranked team during the 1992 season—although that’s far from the only time a team helmed by Mike Krzyzewski ended up there during his legendary career.

2. UCLA: 134 Weeks

Duke unseated UCLA for the top spot on this list when it seized the top spot in the AP Poll toward the start of the 2018-19 season, and only time will tell if the Bruins will eventually be able to recapture the magic of the John Wooden Era that’s largest responsible for the 134 weeks they’ve spent at No. 1.

Wooden coached UCLA to ten championships in twelve seasons between 1964 and 1975, and in 1971, they kicked off a still unparalleled streak that saw them hold the #1 spot for 46 consecutive weeks before it ended in 1974 (there was another spanning 23 weeks that began in 1967).

However, it’s been close to a decade since the last time they ended up at No. 1.

3. Kentucky: 125 Weeks

There are two coaches primarily responsible for the bronze medal that Kentucky currently possesses: Adolph Rupp and John Calipari.

The man who would eventually lend his name to the arena where the Wildcats play transformed Kentucky into a perennial contender when he took over in the early 1930s, and that was reflected in the dozens of weeks they spent at No. 1 under his watch.

Joe Hall also deserves some credit for his contributions to the cause in the 1970s, but they have nothing on Calipari’s—who was at the helm for a 19-week streak that unfolded in 2015 and another in 2012 that lasted for eight.

4. North Carolina: 113 Weeks

North Carolina is home to two historic college basketball powerhouses, and while the Tar Heels have plenty of work to do if they want to catch up to Duke, they’re still holding their own.

As was the case with Kentucky, UNC largely has two men to thank: Dean Smith and Roy Willaims, both of whom had multiple No. 1 streaks that stretched into double-digits in weeks during their hallowed tenures.

5. Kansas: 81 Weeks

There’s a pretty steep drop-off between fourth and fifth place, and the quartet of teams preceding Kansas are the only schools that have managed to hit triple digits in this particular category.

The Jayhawks extended their lead over the next school on this list by adding five weeks to the ongoing tally at the start of the current season before things took a turn for the worse.

Roy Williams is also partially responsible for many of those appearances thanks to how he fared after replacing Larry Brown in 1988 (he oversaw a 15-week streak in 1997), but Bill Self has been at the helm for around half of the team’s weeks at No. 1.

6. Indiana: 54 Weeks

Indiana is still angling to return to the glory days, and while Tom Crean was able to rack up his fair share of weeks at No. 1 during his nine seasons with the Hoosiers, there’s one man who deserves the bulk of the credit: Bobby Knight.

The infamous skipper was responsible for turning Indiana into a force to be reckoned with after he arrived in Bloomington in 1971 and was there for the majority of the weeks they’ve spent on No. 1—including the streak of 17 that saw the Hoosiers go wire-to-wire while winning a national championship in 1976.

7. Cincinnati: 45 Weeks

We’ve officially exited Blue Blood Territory as we head into the second half of this list, and all of the teams that await us are still hoping to cross the 50-week threshold at some point.

Cincinnati’s appearance stems from what is essentially ancient history: George Smith helped the Bearcats go wire-to-wire during the 1959-60 season before Ed Jucker did the same a few years later, which accounts for 28 of its 45 weeks.

Most college basketball fans associated Bob Huggins with West Virginia, but he initially made a name for himself at Cincinnati and became the first man to get them back to No. 1 in more than 30 years after they landed there in the preseason in 1996—the first of many times they’d end up there during his tenure.

However, the Bearcats are still looking to snap a drought that currently stretches back more than 25 years.

8. Gonzaga: 42 Weeks

Most college basketball fans couldn’t point out Gonzaga on a map before Mark Few took over in Spokane at the turn of the millennium (and many of them still can’t after he turned them into the team to beat in the West Coast Conference for the past 25 years).

The Bulldogs had never even been ranked in the AP Poll before Few took over, and they ended up at No. 1 for the first time during their stellar season in 2013.

Close to half of the weeks they’ve spent at the top come courtesy of the 20-week streak that began at the wire-to-wire season that started in 2020 and ended a few weeks into the ensuing one.

9. Arizona: 39 Weeks

Unlike a lot of the programs on this list, Arizona can credit a few different coaches for the 39 weeks it’s spent at No. 1 over the decades.

Tommy Lloyd got in on the action for the first time last season to join the late, great Lute Olson and Sean Miller on the list of Wildcats coaches who’ve been able to check that box.

However, Olson is responsible for the lion’s share.

10 (Tie). UConn: 37 Weeks

If recent history is any indication, it’s probably only a matter of time until UConn takes sole possession of 10th place when it comes to finishing in first place in the AP Poll.

Based on what UConn has become, it’s kind of wild to think they spent decades as a wildly irrelevant program before Jim Calhoun changed that in a big way after taking over in Storrs at the end of the 1980s.

The vast majority of weeks the team has spent at No. 1 came under his watch, but Dan Hurley was able to add eight more to the pile and tie Ohio State during the team’s national championship run last season.

10 (Tie). Ohio State: 37 Weeks

As was the case with Indiana and UCLA, Ohio State is a program that earned a spot on this list while mostly resting on its laurels.

The Buckeyes boast the second-longest No. 1 streak in college basketball history thanks to the 27 consecutive weeks they spent there beginning in 1960 in the wake of the national championship Fred Taylor brought back to Columbus in 1959.

Thad Matta can claim the other 10, but Ohio State hasn’t reigned supreme since he helped them finish at the top at the end of the season in 2011.

12. UNLV: 32 Weeks

This is another situation where a single streak ends up being responsible for the bulk of the total, as UNLV was ranked No. 1 for the entirety of the 1990-91 season that ended with a loss to Duke in the Final Four.

Jerry Tarkanian was the head coach that year and the man responsible for every single week the Runnin’ Rebels have been the best team in the country—something they’ve been unable to claim since the aforementioned streak.