Top 3 in men’s poll remain same for third week

For the third consecutive week, Gonzaga, Villanova and Kansas are the top three teams in The Associated Press Top 25.

It is the fourth week at No. 1 for Gonzaga (28-0), the only unbeaten team in Division I. The Zags received 59 firstplace votes Monday from the 65-member national media panel.

Villanova (26-2) received five first-place votes and Kansas (24-3), which beat West Virginia and Baylor last week, got the other No. 1 vote.

The three teams from the Pac-12 — Arizona, UCLA and Oregon — are fourth through sixth. Louisville is seventh, followed by North Carolina, Baylor and Duke.

Baylor, which lost to Texas Tech and Kansas, dropped five places from fourth.

Wichita State makes its first top-25 appearance since this season. The Shockers replace South Carolina, which fell out after a fiveweek run in the poll.

Kentucky moved up two spots to 11th and is followed by West Virginia, Florida, Purdue, Cincinnati, Wisconsin, SMU, Virginia, Florida State and Saint Mary’s.

The final five ranked teams are Notre Dame, Butler, Creighton, Maryland and Wichita State.

Women

After nearly making the Top 25 a few times during her coaching career at Temple, Tonya Cardoza has the Owls ranked for the first time in 11 years.

Temple entered the AP women’s poll at No. 23. It’s the team’s first appearance since March 13, 2006.

“There have been a few seasons where we’ve had some pretty good teams, flirting with getting into the top 25,” said Cardoza, who took over at the school in 2008. “We never closed the deal that particular week. This year, no one paid attention to it, and it just so happened we eased our way in there.”

At least Cardoza doesn’t have to worry about the ranking generating any added incentive for Temple’s next opponent: The Owls face No. 1 Connecticut Wednesday. The Huskies remained the top team in the poll, receiving all 33 votes from the national media panel. They survived one of the stiffest tests in their 101game winning streak, barely beating Tulane Saturday by three points.

Temple (21-5) lost to Connecticut Feb. 1 at home by 28 points, but the Owls did outscored the Huskies in the second half.