Houston, KU stay atop Top 25 while FAU enters for 1st time

Houston and Kansas remained firmly atop The Associated Pressmen’s college basketball poll Monday after a record weekend of Top25 losses, while Florida Atlantic took advantage of the chaos tocrack the ranking for the first time in school history.

Eleven teams in the Top 25 went down on Saturday, tying a recordthat has stood for nearly 12 years, while Connecticut and Marquettealso lost on Sunday to give the AP poll one of its biggest shakeupsin recent history.

The banged-up Cougars, who had to fight off South Florida toavoid their own upset loss, watched their advantage over theJayhawks shrink ever so slightly, pulling in 34 of 60 first-placevotes from a national media panel. Kansas received 23 votes toremain second while Purdue picked up the remaining three to staythird.

Alabama remained at No. 4 while UCLA, riding a 13-game winningstreak, climbed two spots to round out the top five.

“We’ve dodged a lot of bullets this year in terms of injuriesand stuff. Sometimes you just got to get lucky,” Houston coachKelvin Sampson said. “I thought we got lucky (against SouthFlorida). We could’ve lost that game.”

Plenty of other teams weren’t so fortunate.

Tennessee fell four spots to No. 9 after losing to unrankedKentucky; UConn dropped from sixth to No. 15 after falling toMarquette and St. John’s, giving the Huskies four losses in theirlast five games; Arizona fell two to No. 11 after losing to Oregonand Kansas State fell two to No. 13 after losing to TCU; Arkansasplummeted 10 spots to No. 25 after losses to Alabama andVanderbilt; and Missouri and Wisconsin dropped out altogether aftereach lost twice last week.

Kansas may have had the most impressive week, beating Oklahomaon Tuesday before squeaking by Iowa State 62-60 on Saturday —though the Cyclones were notable enough in defeat that theyactually climbed two spots to No. 12 in the poll.

“We can play better, but it was a great week,” Jayhawks coachBill Self said. “I don’t mean to say this in a way that comes offwrong, but people would get fired up to play against Kansas becauseof time, and then you add a national championship onto it, I mean,it’s a big game for folks. Big games for us, too. So sometimes Ithink we look at it like, ‘Well, we should be doing this better,’which is true in some cases, but sometimes we’re getting somepretty good efforts from other opponents.

“So being able to win those games,” Self said, “I think, is amark of a pretty decent team.”

Gonzaga climbed to sixth in the poll Monday and was followed byTexas, Xavier, Tennessee and Virginia. Arizona was 11th, with theCyclones ahead of Big 12 rivals Kansas State and TCU. UConn,Auburn, Miami, Charleston, Clemson and Marquette made the top 20.The final five were Baylor, Providence, Rutgers, FAU andArkansas.

FAU, which has just one NCAA Tournament appearance in threedecades of Division I hoops, continued its rise under Dusty May, aonetime student manager for Bob Knight who also worked for MikeWhite at Florida.

“This group is very poised,” May said of his Owls, who have won15 straight after an early loss to Ole Miss. “Even when there’sfriction, they stay together and love each other and support eachother. That’s a sign of a really good team.”

RISING AND FALLING

Xavier climbed four spots to No. 8 after pushing its winningstreak to 11 games, Charleston also moved up four to No. 18 on theheels of its 17-game winning streak, while Marquette moved up fivespots despite its close loss to the Musketeers.

Arkansas took the biggest tumble, falling 10 spots to No. 25,while UConn dropped nine to No. 15.

IN AND OUT

Clemson debuted at No. 19 after coach Brad Brownell picked uphis 400th victory and the Tigers improved on the best start in ACCplay in school history (7-0) with a 72-64 win over Duke onSaturday. Baylor, Rutgers and FAU also entered the poll at theexpense of San Diego State, Wisconsin, Missouri and the BlueDevils.

“If you’re going to be good, you need to have a superpower,”Brownell said. “Maybe it’s defense, shooting, rebounding — youknow, hopefully it’s multiple things to be really good. I think oursuperpower is our camaraderie. The unity, the genuine care and lovefor one another, is clearly evident. I think that’s why we’rewinning.”

WAITING IN THE WINGS

North Carolina State and Saint Mary’s are the first teams toland outside the Top 25, while North Carolina State went fromreceiving no votes a week ago to nearly making the poll after winsover Virginia Tech and Miami.