Arkansas women fall from top 25 for first time this season

Chelsea Dungee drives to the basket during Arkansas' 90-73 win over Missouri Sunday Jan. 12, 2020 at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville. Dungee scored a season-high 38 points against the Tigers

NEW YORK — South Carolina still leads the way in The Associated Press women’s college basketball poll in a week that saw seven ranked teams fall to unranked opponents.

The top of the poll was unscathed with none of the first seven teams losing. The No. 1 Gamecocks clinched their fifth SEC title in seven years on Sunday and received 27 of 30 first-place votes Monday from the national media panel. No. 2 Baylor got two first-place votes and No. 3 Oregon got one.

Stanford stayed at No. 4. Louisville, UConn and Maryland were the next three teams in the poll.

The rest of the rankings got jumbled around, with the exception of No. 20 South Dakota. None of the other teams ranked eighth through 25th were in the same spot as the previous week.

North Carolina State, UCLA and Mississippi State rounded out the first 10 teams in the poll. The Bruins and Bulldogs both lost Sunday.

TCU entered the rankings for the first time in two years, coming in at No. 25, while the University of Arkansas fell out for the first time this season after falling to unranked Florida 83-80 on Sunday. The Razorbacks finished 26th in voting with 44 points, which were 15 points behind No. 25 TCU.

TCU spent three weeks in the Top 25 in 2018, going as high as No. 22. The Horned Frogs have reached 20 wins for three consecutive seasons and are 11-3 in the Big 12 — the team’s most victories in the conference ever. It’s the first time TCU has posted at least 11 wins in conference play since going 13-3 in the Mountain West Conference in 2010-11.

Northwestern climbed four places to No. 14 after routing Rutgers and Wisconsin. The Wildcats equaled their best ranking since 2015.