Doug Feinberg | The Associated Press | December 17, 2018

Women's basketball rankings: Stanford slides in at No. 8 in AP poll, Baylor falls out of top 5 after head-to-head battle

Andy Katz chats with Gonzaga's Laura Stockton

NEW YORK — Baylor fell out of the top five for the first time in nearly a year after losing at Stanford.

The Lady Bears dropped from third to sixth in The Associated Press women’s basketball poll on Monday after losing 68-63 on Saturday to the then-No. 11 Cardinal. Stanford moved up to eighth.

RELATED: Stanford holds on for big upset over No. 3 Baylor

Kim Mulkey’s team last was ranked outside the top five on Jan. 1, 2018, when Baylor was No. 6.

UConn and Notre Dame still are the top two teams in the country. The Huskies are the unanimous No. 1 team from the 31-member national media panel. They had the week off for exams. UConn plays its next four games on the road with stops at Oklahoma, No. 14 California, Baylor and Houston over the next few weeks.

Here is the rest of the top 25 for the week of Dec. 17:

RANK	SCHOOL	POINTS	PREVIOUS
1	Connecticut (31)	775	1
2	Notre Dame	738	2
3	Louisville	712	4
4	Mississippi State	681	5
5	Maryland	632	6
6	Baylor	585	3
7	Oregon	583	7
8	Stanford	561	11
9	Tennessee	558	9
10	North Carolina State	510	10
11	Oregon State	429	8
12	Texas	390	12
13	Minnesota	387	13
14	California	386	13
15	Syracuse	337	15
16	Iowa	303	16
17	Arizona State	227	17
18	Kentucky	215	18
19	Marquette	191	19
20	DePaul	185	20
21	Gonzaga	148	21
22	Michigan State	134	23
23	Texas A&M	98	NR
24	Miami (FL)	95	24
25	South Carolina	66	25

Notre Dame routed Binghamton and hosts Western Kentucky on Wednesday before visiting No. 19 Marquette on Saturday.

Louisville, Mississippi State and Maryland round out the first five teams in the poll.

2️⃣7️⃣ assists, 1️⃣ team victory.

All the highlights from the Irish win over Binghamton are IN. ⤵️#GoIrish pic.twitter.com/YsB9CC1t0G
— Notre Dame WBB (@ndwbb) December 16, 2018

Texas A&M re-entered the AP Top 25 at No. 23 after edging Oregon State 76-70 in Hawaii over the weekend. The Beavers fell to 11th. Missouri fell out of the poll after losing to a strong South Dakota squad.

Here are a few other tidbits from the poll:

STAYING ALIVE: South Carolina kept its streak of being ranked going after beating Purdue in double OT on Sunday. The 25th-ranked Gamecocks have been in the poll for 115 consecutive weeks — the fifth longest active streak. That run started on Dec. 10, 2012. Dawn Staley’s squad hosts Temple and Furman before beginning SEC play at Texas A&M on Jan. 3.

GAME OF THE WEEK: Fourth-ranked Mississippi State visits No. 7 Oregon on Tuesday. This will be the third Top 25 team that the Bulldogs have faced in the past four games. They routed Texas before edging Marquette.

MORE: DI women's basketball home | 2018-19 Women's Final Four tickets and info

This article was written by Doug Feinberg from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.