THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
7B
NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL
Kevin Rivoli/ASSOCIATED PRESS
For the first time since Jan. 5, 1982, Wichita State is ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 basketball poll. Wichita State defeated Syracuse 64-61 on Saturday.
Wichita State makes Top 25
Ten losses cause rearrangement of top AP teams BY JIM O'CONNELLI ASSOCIATED PRESS
UCLA and Pittsburgh held onto Nos. 1 and 2 in The Associated Press' college basketball poll released Monday. The following three spots, however, were reshuffled by upsets.
Ohio State, Florida and Kansas tumbled from their respective 3-4-5 slots following losses last week, while Oklahoma State and Xavier made their season debits in the Top 25. North Carolina took over No. 3. Alabama moved into fourth and the Buckeyes slid to fifth.
Nine ranked teams lost a total of 10 games this week. In the previous week,10 members of the Top25 lost at least one game.
Wichita State, which won 64-61 at Syracuse on Saturday, made it into the Top Ten, something that hasn't happened since Jan. 5, 1982, when the Shockers were No. 9.
The Bruins (6-0) staved on top for a second straight week, receiving 55 first-place votes and 1,781 points from the 72-member national media panel. UCLA celebrated its first No. 1 ranking since 1995 with victories over Long Beach State and UC Riverside.
Pittsburgh (8-0), which beat Robert Morris and won at Auburn, was No. 1 on 15 ballots and had
1,713 points.
North Carolina (6-1) jumped from seventh to third after beating then-No. 3 Ohio State 98-89 on Wednesday. The Tar Hfeels received the other two first-place votes.
Alabama jumped from sixth to fourth, while Ohio State, which welcomed back heralded freshmen center Greg Oden on Saturday after recovering from wrist surgery, dropped two places.
Texas A&M moved up three places to sixth.
Kansas, which knocked Florida out of the No. 1 spot two weeks ago, fell from fifth to 12th following a 64-57 loss at DePaul.
Florida, which lost 70-66 to Florida State on Sunday, dropped from fourth into a tie for seventh with Duke.
LSU rounds out the Top Ten.
Oklahoma State (9-0) moved in at No. 22, its first ranking since the final poll of 2004-05. The Cowboys' biggest wins were on the road against Auburn and Missouri State.
Xavier (6-1) came in at No. 24, the first time the Musketeers appeared in the poll since the close of the 2002-03 season. Their lone loss was to Alabama in the championship game of Paradise Jam and that followed their biggest win, against Villanova in the semifinals.
The Musketeers had the top seven players back from a team that won the Atlantic 10 championship in going 21-11 last season, losing to Gonzaga in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
After a home game with Detroit
Wisconsin moved up one spot to 11th and was followed by Kansas, Washington, Arizona, Butler, Memphis, Marquette, Gonzaga, Connecticut and Nevada.
on Tuesday, Xavier has road games against Creighton, on Saturday, and crosstown rival Cincinnati on Dec. 16. The Musketeers will also play Arizona State, Bucknell and Illinois in December.
Syracuse, Oklahoma State Maryland, Xavier and Georgia Tech were the last five ranked teams.
Rice. A&M's fall came just one week after the Aggies reached the top 10 for the first time.
Mitchell wanted to drum up support for her team after the Golden Eagles' runner-up finish in the WNIT last March, so she spent an October afternoon talking to passers-by on a Milwaukee street corner. She spent that night at the student union, toasting marshmallows around a fire. Mitchell had wanted to sleep in a tent, but she had back surgery Aug. 28 and chose a camper instead.
Maryland, North Carolina and Oklahoma remained 1-2-3, but there was some shuffling after that in the top 10 following two games between highly ranked teams — North Carolina's victory against Tennessee and Connecticut's win against Purdue.
Marquette's only other appearance in the poll came the weeks of Feb. 14, 21 and 28 in 2000.
NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Winning streaks adjust rankings
Tennessee slipped from fourth to sixth following its 70-57 loss at Chapel Hill. Purdue's 66-55 loss at Connecticut knocked the Boilermakers down one spot to 10th and Texas A&M fell from 10th to 15th after losing to unranked
Coach Terri Mitchell camped out at the Marquette student union, before this season, trying to draw attention to her women's basketball team. A six game winning streak has put the Golden Eagles in the Top 5.
BY CHUCK SCHOFFNER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mexico returned after a two week absence. BYU, Kentucky and Texas Tech dropped out.
Nebraska, which also has won six in a row, made its debut this season at No. 25, while No. 23 New
Marquette joined The Associated Press poll at No. 24 on Monday, its first appearance since late in the 1999-00 season and just its fourth overall.