Top 5 unchanged; Utes join rankings

Chuck Schoffner

Monday, Dec. 18, 2000 | 10:08 a.m.

Utah was the lone newcomer today in the Associated Press women's basketball poll, which had Connecticut leading a top five that was unchanged from last week.

With most schools in the midst of final exams, it was a light week for games. Connecticut (7-0), which did not play at all, was a unanimous choice at No. 1 for the seventh time in as many polls and was followed by Tennessee (9-0), Notre Dame (8-0), Georgia (7-2) and Iowa State (8-0).

Notre Dame and Georgia also did not play during the past week.

Utah (9-0), which leads the nation in scoring defense and field goal percentage defense, joined the poll at No. 25, its first appearance since the week of March 3, 1998. The Utes were in the Top 25 for nine weeks that season, the only time in school history they have been ranked.

Connecticut, which has not had a game closer than 24 points this season, received all 40 first-place votes from a national media panel and had 1,000 points.

Tennessee had 959 points -- 30 more than Notre Dame. It was a week of contrasts for Tennessee, which routed Memphis and then needed to score the final 12 points of the game to beat then-No. 15 Stanford 63-58.

No. 6 Duke and No. 7 Rutgers moved up one spot each and were followed by Purdue, Auburn and Louisiana Tech. Purdue fell two spots after losing to LSU. Auburn and Louisiana Tech stayed the same.

Texas Tech remained at No. 11 and LSU went from 20th to 12th for the biggest jump within the poll. Penn State was tied with LSU, and then came Stanford, Texas and Florida, followed by North Carolina State, Southwest Missouri State, Mississippi State and Oklahoma.

Xavier, Vanderbilt, Oregon, Wisconsin and Utah completed the Top 25.

Virginia (7-3), which did not play last week, dropped out after being 25th in the previous poll.