The Thanksgiving week wasn’t kind to everyone in the Associated Press Top 10, but Arizona women’s basketball took care of business in the Paradise Jam. The combination of the Wildcats’ 3-0 week and losses by other teams pushed the team two spots higher to No. 7 in the latest media poll.
Arizona is now one of two Pac-12 teams without a loss. The four teams picked ahead of them in the preseason polls—Stanford, Oregon, UCLA, and Oregon State—all have two losses. Other teams that took losses this week include former-No. 2 Maryland and last week’s No. 4 Indiana.
So far this season, there have been more losses by Top 10 teams than any time in the past 20 years according to ESPN’s Mechelle Voepel. The Wildcats have avoided the upset bug but not by much.
Last week, they needed a buzzer-beater by Shaina Pellington to beat upstart Vanderbilt and a big fourth quarter to defeat DePaul. In their three games in St. Thomas, the only comfortable win was against Rutgers on the final day of competition.
The only other team in the Pac-12 to move up was Stanford, which went from No. 7 to No. 4. Last year’s national champions went 2-1 in their holiday tournament, playing No. 2 Maryland, No. 4 Indiana, and No. 18 South Florida. They defeated Maryland and Indiana.
After getting used to having at least five ranked teams, the Pac-12 has now fallen to just four in the Top 25. Oregon did not play this week, but they fell from No. 15 to No. 18. Oregon State lost both of its games in Daytona Beach and dropped from 16 to 23.
UCLA also lost two games over the course of the week and tumbled out of the poll altogether. Last week, the Bruins were ranked No. 19, but they now stand fourth in the “others receiving votes” list. Colorado, which is the only Pac-12 team besides Arizona to still be undefeated, is just ahead of UCLA in the receiving votes category. Washington State is also still finding its way onto a ballot or two after losing to then-No. 5 North Carolina State.
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