Arizona rises to No. 1 in AP Top 25 men's college basketball poll - ESPN

It is Arizona's turn to sit atop The Associated Press Top 25 men's college basketball poll.

The Wildcats rose to No. 1 in Monday's poll for the first time in nearly nine years, making Tommy Lloyd's squad the third team to hold the top spot this season. Last week's No. 1 team, Purdue, slid after an overtime loss at Northwestern.

Arizona claimed 59 of 63 first-place votes to move up one spot, putting the Wildcats comfortably ahead of preseason No. 1 Kansas. The Jayhawks rose three spots to No. 2 with a win against last season's NCAA champion, UConn.

Arizona hasn't been No. 1 in the AP Top 25 since an eight-week stint that ended in January 2014 under former coach Sean Miller. Lloyd is in his third season after a long run as an assistant at Gonzaga, and his first two teams each spent multiple weeks inside the top five.

«I know when I came to this program, my dream is to make it one of the best in the country,» Lloyd said of the possible rise to No. 1 after a weekend win against Colgate. «If you're one of the best in the country, you're going to stumble into being No. 1 once in a while. So you know what? Handle it. And that'll be the message.»

First-place votes in parenthesis:

It was a busy day for the poll: No team in the Top 25 was in the same spot it was a week ago.

Houston rose three spots to No. 3, while the Boilermakers fell to fourth after the Northwestern loss. UConn slid only one spot to No. 5 after the loss at Kansas, followed by Baylor.

Gonzaga and North Carolina cracked the top 10 for the first time this season.

The Bulldogs jumped four spots to No. 7 after a neutral-court win against USC. The Tar Heels jumped eight spots to No. 9 after beating Tennessee in the ACC/SEC Challenge, followed by a home comeback win