Houston Cougars Move Up in Week 6 AP Poll
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With the Week 6 release of the AP Poll Top 25 on Monday, the Houston Cougars, now at 8-1 on the 2025-26 campaign after an 82-67 win over Florida State Saturday night at Toyota Center, moved up one spot to No. 7 in the poll.
New national polls are out this week...@UHouston at #⃣7⃣ in @AP_Top25...
— Houston Men's Hoops 🏀 🐾 (@UHCougarMBK) December 8, 2025
#⃣8⃣ in @usatodaysports Coaches
AP – https://t.co/1cQUVKnr5e
Coaches – https://t.co/MfkgwpafiR
NEXT – vs Jackson State, 7 pm WEDNESDAY, Fertitta Center#ForTheCity x #GoCoogs pic.twitter.com/KZnXSgPJDf
Though the Cougars have yet to receive first place votes for the first time since the Week 4 release on Nov. 24, the statement neutral site win, mixed with a slight shakeup in results from Saturday across the top 10, helped give them at least the first step towards climbing back within one seed territory despite league play being yet to come and 22 regular season games still remaining.
Not complete, but climbing back up
Redshirt senior guard Emanuel Sharp's season-high 27-point performance on six triples, mixed with freshman guard Kingston Flemings' 21-point, eight-steal outing and freshman forward Chris Cenac's 15-point, 10-rebound double-double, proved that the long break didn't wear Houston down despite the team being outrebounded by a -2 margin, which attributed for lost possessions at times.
Naturally, this prompted coach Kelvin Sampson to give notice that Houston isn't as complete a team yet in terms of better taking care of the basketball, closing out games and avoiding large scoring or shooting droughts.
"This team has a lot of room for improvement," Sampson said. "We're nowhere as close to being as good as I think we can be."
It should come to no shock if an identical corner to last season is turned by the start of Big 12 play in these issues being significantly curbed, though the consensus throughout the college basketball community still indicates that Houston, at 8-1 despite these growing pains, has not reached its full championship caliber ceiling within the season and it being rather a good thing.
Nonetheless, through nine games, it is a significant improvement record-wise with Houston having gone 1-1 through the first Quad 1 opportunities, and with wins over Notre Dame and Syracuse to potentially keep an eye on to morph into quality wins.
How the AP Top 10 fared over the weekend
Of course, Houston's win wasn't the only factor in its bump up, as there were other contributing factors from the Week 5 AP top 10 that formed a slight shakeup.
Michigan State's 66-60 home loss at Breslin Center to Duke on Saturday ultimately dropped the Spartans two spots to No. 9 in exchange for Houston's win and Gonzaga's 109-58 Quad 4 win over North Florida.
NEW: College Basketball AP Poll🏀https://t.co/lq6WmywTB1 pic.twitter.com/Sog8tUpXbS
— On3 (@On3sports) December 8, 2025
However, an awkward precedent was created from the poll, in which three of the top four in the preseason AP Poll now sit at No. 5 through No. 7: Houston, Purdue and UConn.
What raises questions ultimately is how Houston is ranked below Purdue when the Boilermakers suffered their largest nonconference loss as an AP No. 1-ranked team in an 81-58 loss to Iowa State Saturday at Mackey Arena. This was also tied for the worst home loss by a No. 1 team, while Houston has only suffered one loss by a single possession through nine games.
The only case that could help Houston's stance trend upwards compared to the other top five preseason AP programs is to continue taking care of its business and take advantage of the woes undergone by the other teams.
Michael Carrara is a staff writer for Houston Cougars on SI. He attends the University of Houston, where he is a journalism major and a marketing minor. He is also a sports writer and reporter for the Daily Cougar, having covered baseball as an NCBWA member. You can find Michael on all major social media channels, including X on @michaelcoalec.