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Carolina blues Tar Heels' 172-week run in AP poll ends
Posted: Monday January 24, 2000 04:27 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- It's the powder blues these days at North Carolina. The Tar Heels (11-8), ranked as high as No. 2 earlier in the season, fell out of The Associated Press college basketball poll for the first time in a decade Monday. "We have never been concerned about national rankings, whether we were ranked high or not," North Carolina coach Bill Guthridge said. "I am concerned, however, that we're losing games." The Tar Heels lost to Virginia and Florida State last week, extending their losing streak to four, dropping them out of the rankings from No. 21. It was the first time since the preseason poll of 1990-91, a stretch of 172 consecutive polls, that North Carolina was not ranked. Last week's ranking put the Tar Heels second on the consecutive poll streak, one better than their run from 1972-1982, but short of UCLA's 221 consecutive rankings from 1966-1980. Kentucky had a run of 164 consecutive polls ended last month. The longest current streak belongs to Arizona, which has been in 83 straight, a streak that began with the first regular-season poll of the 1995-96 season. Stanford and Duke are tied for second at 66, runs that began with the preseason poll of 1996-97. The Tar Heels are shooting over 50 percent to lead the Atlantic Coast Conference, but have lost six of their last nine games because of poor ballhandling and a porous defense. North Carolina entertains No. 22 Maryland Wednesday night, hoping to avoid its first five-game skid since the final five games of the 1952 season. "If there was any magic solution, I'd sure like to find it," Guthridge said. "We've had good practices. We just have to get over this losing and start winning again. We're a good team. We're not a great team." Meanwhile, Cincinnati remained a runaway No. 1 in the poll.
The Bearcats (18-1), who easily beat Memphis and Marquette last week, were atop the poll for the third straight week and eighth this season, receiving 66 of 70 first-place votes from a national media panel. Fourteen ranked teams lost a total of 17 games last week. That was reflected in only Cincinnati and No. 20 Vanderbilt keeping the same places as last week and three teams dropping out of the Top 25. Stanford (15-1), No. 1 for three weeks this season, received two first-place votes and moved up one spot to No. 2. Duke, which has won 15 straight after opening the season with two losses, jumped from fifth to No. 3 after setting an ACC record with 28 consecutive regular-season victories. Syracuse (15-0), the only unbeaten team in Division I, moved from sixth to fourth. Arizona (16-3), which followed a win at UCLA with a loss at Southern California, dropped from second to fifth. Syracuse and Arizona each received one first-place vote. Connecticut, the preseason No. 1, moved up two spots to sixth and was followed by Auburn, Ohio State, Michigan State and Florida. Tennessee led the Second Ten and was followed by Kansas, Tulsa, Indiana, Oklahoma State, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah and Vanderbilt. The final five ranked teams were North Carolina State, Maryland, Southern California, Temple and St. John's. North Carolina State (13-3), ranked for one week earlier in the season, Southern California (12-5), which hasn't been in the Top 25 since the final poll of the 1991-92 season, and Temple (12-4), which has been in and out of the rankings the past three weeks, were new to the Top 25 this week. In addition to North Carolina, DePaul (12-6), which lost to Louisville and Saint Louis last week, and UCLA (11-5), which lost to Arizona, then beat Arizona State, dropped out of the rankings. St. John's, which fell from 19th to No. 25, also lost twice last
week, to Seton Hall and Ohio State.
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