UPDATE: Indiana joins Top 25 for first time this season

Kelvin Sampson's first Indiana team is where most of his Oklahoma squads spent quite a bit of time.\nThe 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.\n"It does and it doesn't," Sampson said when asked if being ranked really matters. "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."\nSampson 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.\nHe 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.\n"It's a process," Sampson said of taking over a new program. "It's not a matter of learning winning basketball, it's just playing the right way and understanding that. It was an attitude we had to instill."\nThe 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.\nIndiana's only loss in its last 10 games was at Ohio State. Sampson credits D.J. White, who had 21 points in the Hoosiers' 77-73 win at Connecticut on Saturday, for being a big part of the team's success.\n"Our team is good because D.J. White has allowed me to coach him," Sampson said of the senior forward who leads the Hoosiers in scoring (14.3) and rebounding (7.3) while shooting 53 percent from the field. "I have been harder on him than anyone else in practice and he has never been discouraged. He has only worked harder rather than dropping his head. I can't say enough about him as a person because he has taken the brunt of what I have tried to do as I have tried to coach through him."\nSampson also gave some credit to Davis, who was 115-79 in six seasons at Indiana and is now the coach at Alabama-Birmingham.\n"When you're a coach who takes over a program you don't ever give the former coach enough credit," Sampson said. "Mike Davis brought these kids here and I thank him for that. Mike did a good job of putting them together."\nThe top four of Florida, Wisconsin, UCLA and North Carolina held steady from last week.