Stanford’s 17-year run in women’s poll halted
Stanford’s 17-year run in the Top 25 is over.
The Cardinal on Monday fell out of The Associated Press women’s basketball poll for the first time since 2001, ending a streak of 312 consecutive ranked weeks.
The run started with the 2001-02 preseason poll and ended on Christmas. Stanford (6-6) lost at home last week to Western Illinois and Tennessee. Five of the Cardinal’s six losses this season have come to teams that were in the top 10 when they played.
Life doesn’t get easier for the Cardinal, who host No. 11 UCLA and Southern California this week to begin Pac-12 play.
Only Connecticut, which remained the unanimous No. 1 team as voted on by a 32-member national media panel, has a longer active streak in the poll. The Huskies have been ranked for 458 consecutive weeks.
Stanford’s streak is tied for third longest in the history of the poll. Tennessee had the longest run at 565 weeks. Stanford’s mark ties it with Duke.
Baylor now owns the second-longest active run in the poll at 267 consecutive weeks. Notre Dame is third with 201, followed by Maryland (142) and South Carolina (100).
Uconn was followed by
Notre Dame, Louisville, South Carolina and Mississippi State. With a light schedule because of the holidays, the top 17 teams stayed the same.
Men’s AP poll
Villanova stayed comfortably at No. 1 in an AP Top 25 poll that offered little change at the top.
The top four teams stayed the same in Monday’s new poll, led by the Wildcats (12-0) receiving 43 of 65 first-place votes to stay at No. 1 for the third straight week.
No. 2 Michigan State (12-1) was second and had 16 firstplace votes, while third-ranked Arizona State (12-0) had six first-place votes to stay ahead of No. 4 Duke (12-1).
Those four teams won their six games last week by an average margin of 39.7 points.
Texas A&M (11-1) climbed to fifth, followed by Xavier, West Virginia, Wichita State, Virginia and Texas Christian to round out the top 10. Those teams all climbed between three and five spots, with TCU holding its highest ranking in program history.
Joining TCU in rising five spots is No. 12 Oklahoma. No. 9 Virginia is up four spots.
Miami and Kentucky fell nine spots to Nos. 15 and 16 in the biggest slides of the week.
Reigning national champion North Carolina fell eight spots to No. 13 after its home loss to Wofford. Now-no. 20 Gonzaga also fell eight spots after its loss to San Diego State.