Kelvin Sampson’s first Indiana team is where most of his Oklahoma squads spent quite a bit of time.

The Hoosiers moved into the Associated Press’ Top 25 for the first time this season Monday, riding a five-game winning streak to No. 23 in the poll.

“It does and it doesn’t,” Sampson said when asked if being ranked really matters in this age of making the NCAA tournament being all that matters to the bigger programs.

“I might be wrong, but it seemed we were ranked every week for the past five or six years at Oklahoma and when you are good you take it for granted. With this team it does matter. It gives our kids confidence.”

Sampson wasn’t far off on his Oklahoma teams being ranked. The Sooners missed only 20 weeks in the polls from 1999-2000 through last season, and they were in the Top 10 for a good portion of that.

He was at Oklahoma for 12 years and took over at Indiana this season, succeeding Mike Davis, the man who followed Bob Knight. Davis resigned during the season and the players went through a rough time of deciding whether to stay for another coach or transfer.

The Hoosiers (14-4) were one of three teams to move into the rankings this week, joining Washington State (16-3), back in at No. 20 after one week out of the poll, and Southern California (15-5), which is in for the first time this season at No. 25.

The top four of Florida, Wisconsin, UCLA and North Carolina held steady from last week. Kansas University, No. 5 last week, dropped to eighth after losing Saturday to Texas Tech.

Ohio State moved up two places to No. 5 and was followed by Texas A&M, Oregon, Kansas, Pittsburgh and Duke.

Memphis, which jumped six spots, was 11th, followed by Alabama, Oklahoma State, Butler, Marquette, Air Force, Arizona, Nevada, Clemson and Washington State.

The last five ranked teams were LSU, Notre Dame, Indiana, Virginia Tech and Southern California.