Arizona's men's basketball team continues its rise up the rankings, and Monday it reached its highest point since Nov. 20, 2017. The Wildcats are now the sixth-ranked team in the Associated Press Top 25 poll moving up two more spots this week from No. 8. UA remains unbeaten at 11-0 after wins over Northern Colorado and California Baptist last week.

In addition to moving up two more spots, Arizona received the lone first-place vote to go to a team other than Baylor in the latest poll. The Bears pulled in 60 of the 61 possible first-place votes with the Paul Klee (Denver Gazette) being the one voter to put the Wildcats in the top spot.

Arizona's last two victories, which came by an average margin of 24.5 points, allowed UA to jump over Kansas and Alabama. Now the Wildcats are just one spot behind Pac-12 foe UCLA at No. 5 and two spots ahead of USC (12-0), which moved up two spots to No. 8 this week.

Arizona is scheduled to play both schools over the next two weeks as it opens up the full Pac-12 schedule starting Dec. 30 against the Bruins (9-1) on the road in Westwood.

Before making that trip to Los Angeles, however, UA will visit current No. 19 Tennessee (8-2), which dropped down one spot in this week's AP poll after despite winning its lone game of the week. Tennessee's second matchup last week was canceled when Memphis wasn't able to participate because of COVID-related issues.

UA quickly began turning its attention to the most challenging stretch of its schedule shortly after Saturday's 84-60 win over CBU. Tommy Lloyd's team will be away from McKale Center for over three weeks as it embarks on its upcoming four-game road trip that will end with a matchup against in-state rival Arizona State on Jan. 8.

Lloyd understands the magnitude of the upcoming slate, but he wants his team to remain focused on each game without thinking too much about the road ahead.

"Regardless of what's gonna happen, our mindset has to be we're gonna be better for it," Lloyd said after Saturday's win over the Lancers. "We're not trying to go undefeated. Obviously, we wanna win every game, but we know that that's not realistic. It hasn't been done since 1976. So, we just wanna make sure that we're staying locked in and we have a growth mindset.

"I really just wanna challenge the guys. We've had a couple slow starts in a row. We gotta start out better. We gotta execute the plan better, and I think we've kind of let our guard down a little bit with that. So, hopefully we can tighten that up, because you can't be doing that on the road."

There is a big drop off from the top three teams in the Pac-12 currently with UA, UCLA and USC all in the top 10 but no other school even receiving votes in the latest AP poll. The Wildcats' next three opponents are currently the only three ranked teams left on the schedule for the time being.

UA's matchup with the Volunteers is set for a 5 p.m. MST tipoff Wednesday with the game set to be broadcast on ESPN2.

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