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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.

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.

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