Arizona women move up one spot to No. 14 in AP Top 25; Houston leads men's poll

The Arizona women’s basketball team rose one spot in The Associated Press Top 25 after sweeping the Oregon schools over the weekend.

The Wildcats are ranked 14th in the poll, which was released Monday. After losing at No. 2 Stanford at the start of last week, Arizona defeated Oregon State and then-No. 18 Oregon at McKale Center.

The Wildcats are 14-2, 4-1 in the Pac-12. They have sole possession of second place in the conference, a half-game behind the Cardinal (16-1, 4-0).

Arizona visits Colorado (13-3, 3-1) and No. 10 Utah (14-1, 3-1) this weekend.

Illini crack Top 25

Off to one of the best starts in school history, Illinois cracked the AP Top 25 women’s basketball poll for the first time in 23 years.

The Illini (14-3) are ranked No. 24 in their first Top 25 appearance since Nov. 27, 2000. It’s been a remarkable turnaround under first-year coach Shauna Green. The team was 7-20 last season and just 1-13 in the Big Ten. Illinois hasn’t had a winning season since 2012-13.

“It means a lot. I understand how far we’ve come in a really short time,” said Green, who came to Illinois after a successful run coaching at Dayton. “Most of the kids weren’t alive the last time we were ranked. I was a sophomore in college.”

South Carolina remained the No. 1 team, garnering all 28 votes from a national media panel. The Gamecocks have been No. 1 for 29 consecutive weeks. They were followed in the poll by Stanford and Ohio State, which rallied to beat Illinois on Sunday.

UConn moved up one spot to fourth. The Huskies had their game against DePaul on Sunday postponed when they had only six scholarship players available because of injuries.

LSU moved up two spots to fifth. It’s the first time the Tigers have been that high since Dec. 14, 2009, when they were also fifth. LSU (16-0) is off to the best start in school history, besting the mark held by the 2002-03 team that won its first 15 games.

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South Carolina, Ohio State and LSU are the only remaining unbeaten teams in the country. The Gamecocks and Tigers meet on Feb. 12 in South Carolina.

Houston tops men’s poll

Houston is back at No. 1 in the AP Top 25 men’s college basketball poll for the second time this season, while Kansas State continued its unexpectedly strong start by leaping from unranked to the verge of the top 10.

The Cougars received 34 of 60 first-place votes in Monday’s poll to return to the top after a two-week stay there earlier this season. Kansas was second and had 22 first-place votes, while Purdue fell from No. 1 to No. 3 and got the other four first-place votes after suffering its first loss at Rutgers last week.

Before this season, the Cougars (16-1) hadn’t been No. 1 since the high-flying “Phi Slama Jama” days of the 1980s.

“Every team, you just have to bring them along because they’re all different,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said after Sunday’s win at Cincinnati. “Our DNA remains the same, but the faces change. … As the season goes on, guys get better and better.”

Kansas State jumped to No. 11 after an impressive week with two road wins against ranked opponents under first-year coach Jerome Tang. Picked to finish last in the 10-team Big 12, the Wildcats scored 116 points at Texas then edged Baylor 97-95 in overtime.

That helped Kansas State (14-1) match its best start since the 1958-59 season, while bringing the Wildcats back into the AP Top 25 for the first time since the end of the 2018-19 season.