The Arizona women’s basketball team remained at No. 18 in the AP Top 25 poll for the third consecutive week while the men’s team dropped to No. 24 in their poll this week.
This marks the first time in the history of the women’s program that it is ranked higher than their male counterparts in the AP Top 25 poll.
The closest the women’s program came to the men’s team previously was in the 1997-98 and 2000-01 seasons.
On Jan. 19, 1998 the women were ranked No. 7 — their highest ranking in school history — and the men were ranked No. 6.
On Jan. 8, 2001, the women were ranked No. 22 and the men were at No. 21.
The women, who have played only two games in the last two weeks (wins over Tennessee State and CS Santa Barbara), are off to the best start in program history at 11-0.
The men are 10-3 following Saturday’s loss against St. John’s at San Francisco. In the last two weeks, they have dropped 12 spots, including after the loss to now-No. 1 Gonzaga on Dec. 14 at McKale Center.
The women are one of five Pac-12 teams ranked in the top 25. The others are No. 2 Oregon (10-1), No. 3 Oregon State (11-0), No. 5 Stanford (10-1) and No. 10 UCLA (11-0).
ASU, which hosts Arizona in the Pac-12 opener for both teams on Sunday, is in the “others receiving votes” category with four votes.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon.
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