By J-W Staff And Wire Reports     Mar 15, 2004

Despite losing to Texas on Saturday, KU jumped two spots to No. 16 in Monday’s Associated Press poll. Illinois-Chicago, KU’s opponent in Friday’s opening round of the NCAA Tournament, is unranked.

Other ranked Big 12 teams are No. 4 Oklahoma State and No. 12 Texas.

Stanford returned to No. 1 Monday for the final AP men’s college basketball poll of the season.

The Cardinal (29-1) had been on top for three weeks before giving way to Saint Joseph’s for one week.

The poll and the NCAA tournament selection committee disagreed on the top teams. Stanford and No. 2 Kentucky were both No. 1 seeds for the upcoming tournament, but the other No. 1s — Saint Joseph’s and Duke — were fifth and sixth, respectively, in the vote of the national media panel.

Gonzaga and Oklahoma State, both No. 2 seeds in the NCAA tournament, were third and fourth in the poll.

Utah State, which was passed over for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, finished tied for 25th with Boston College. The Aggies will be the first ranked team since UNLV in 1993 to not participate in the NCAA tournament.

Stanford received 55 first-place votes and 1,771 points, 150 more than Kentucky (26-4), which was No. 1 on nine ballots.

Gonzaga (27-2) had two first-place votes, while Oklahoma State (27-3) had four.

Saint Joseph’s (27-1) dropped from first to fifth after having its shot at a perfect regular season ended with a 20-point loss to Xavier in the Atlantic 10 tournament quarterfinals. The Hawks had one first-place vote.

Duke was sixth, followed by Connecticut (27-6), which had one first-place vote, Mississippi State, Pittsburgh and Wisconsin.

Cincinnati moved up two places to No. 11 and was followed by Texas, Illinois, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, Kansas, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Maryland and Syracuse.

The last six ranked teams were Providence, Arizona, Southern Illinois, Memphis and the tie between Boston College and Utah State.

The Aggies (25-3) finished tied with Pacific for the Big West regular season title then lost to Cal State-Northridge, which was under .500, in the conference tournament semifinals.

UNLV was 25th in the final poll in 1993 but the Runnin’ Rebels were on probation and could not play in either the NCAA tournament or the NIT. UNLV was in the same situation the previous year, when it was seventh in the final poll.

Maryland (19-11) jumped into the rankings at No. 19 after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament by beating the top three seeds — Duke, North Carolina State and Wake Forest. The Terrapins had been ranked for two weeks earlier in the season.

Boston College (23-9) moved into the rankings for the first time this season after losing to Pittsburgh in the semifinals of the Big East tournament. That loss ended a seven-game winning streak by the Eagles.

Air Force (22-6) was ranked last week for the first time in school history, but the Falcons fell from 25th after losing to Colorado State in the quarterfinals of the Mountain West Conference tournament.

Six teams held the No. 1 ranking this season with preseason choice Connecticut spending the most time there at eight. Duke and Stanford were each on top for four weeks, while Kansas, Florida and Saint Joseph’s were all No. 1 for one week.

Forty-two schools were ranked during the season with Iowa, Creighton, LSU, Air Force and Boston College each making an appearance for just one week.

Fourteen schools were ranked from the preseason poll through the final Top 25 but only Connecticut and Duke spent the entire season in the Top Ten.