Sports

UConnis No. 1, but SEC rules AP top 25

Womenis Top 25
Christian Schmidt

Itis unanimous. Connecticut is No. 1. The Lady Huskies are still in the midst of a 61-game winning streak, the longest in womenis basketball history. Duke is a close No. 2, while No. 4 Louisiana State has only one loss this season, to No. 13 Arkansas.

The Southeastern Conference has seven teams in the rankings, the most of any conference. No. 3 Tennessee headlines the SEC teams with its 20-3 record.

This was again a week of little change in the rankings, with only one team (Mississippi State, which dropped from No. 12 to No. 16) moving more than three spots in the rankings. The top 11 teams did not lose a single game last week, going 18-0.

Beard takes over

Duke forward Alana Beard couldnit will her team to win two weeks ago against Connecticut, but the All-American wasnit about to let the Lady Blue Devils lose to conference rival Virginia.

Beard scored 24 points en route to a 75-48 win Monday night, the 34th consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference victory for Duke. The Lady Blue Devils have not lost a conference match-up in nearly two years. Beard also had six rebounds and six assists in the contest.

The game was a particularly rough one, with 49 total fouls, 44 free-throw attempts and two Lady Cavaliers fouling out in the contest.

Just canit miss

Itis not everyday a player from Concordia-Moorhead makes national headlines. But thatis just what guard Jamie Visness has done by setting an NCAA all-division record with 68 consecutive free throws made.

Visness has not missed a free-throw attempt since Jan. 28, 2002, 29 games ago for the junior.

Louisiana Tech

The Lady Techsters are looking to set a record of their own, and they will if they win at home against Fresno State Thursday.

Louisiana Tech has played four games in four states in the past 10 days and has spent a total of one day on campus in the past two weeks.

The Lady Techsters are No. 9 in the nation, and have a record of 19-2, 11-0 in Western Athletic Conference play this season.

New Mexico

The New Mexico State womenis basketball team has bigger problems than rebounding from a 68-53 loss to South Alabama on Saturday.

Head coach Nikita Lowry was reassigned Monday to duties as an assistant athletics director, nearly two months after she was put on administrative leave. The reassignment comes after months of accusations about the coachis behavior.

Lowry expressed her anger and disappointment at the decision to reassign her late Tuesday afternoon in a statement to the press delivered through her lawyer.

Several players recently said that Lowry grabbed one player by the hair and made another, who was ill, run stairs until she collapsed and had to be hospitalized.

Elmer Chavez, an assistant menis basketball coach at the school, has taken over the head coaching position on an interim basis.

Bakeris Dozen

Connecticut is holding strong in the DC Bakeris Dozen, where the Lady Huskies were a unanimous No. 1. Texas Tech and Texas are representing the Lone Star State in the top 10, while California-Santa Barbara is the standard-bearer for all the little schools in America with its No. 12 position in the rankings.

1.) Connecticut

2.) Duke

3.) Louisiana State

4.) Tennessee

5.) Texas Tech

6.) Kansas State

7.) Stanford

8.) North Carolina

9.) Louisiana Tech

10.) Texas

11.) Purdue

12.) California-Santa Barbara

13.) Arkansas
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