Unbeaten Marquette Takes 25th Spot

Marquette squeaked into the No. 25 spot of the AP’s college basketball poll this week, but Coach Mike Deane said Monday he isn’t certain his team belongs there.

“We aren’t a great team or a spectacular team, but we played well to date,” Deane said of his team, which has won its first eight games. “I don’t think of us as a top-25 team, but the games we won we did so in pretty good fashion. We can beat any team on a given night.”

In the latest poll released Monday, North Carolina easily held the No. 1 spot, receiving 69 first-place vote and 1,749 points from a 70-member media panel. It was the third consecutive week North Carolina has been top-ranked under first-year Coach Bill Guthridge.

Kansas held second with 1,646 points, 16 more than Duke, which had the other first-place vote. Utah and Purdue both jumped two spots to fourth and fifth respectively, while Kentucky, which lost at home to Louisville, fell two places to sixth.

The next three spots were held by Pac-10 teams--Stanford, Arizona and UCLA--while Connecticut rounded out the Top Ten.

Marquette’s spot at the bottom of the poll “puts a target” on the players’ backs for fans and the media, Deane said. The team was ranked for three weeks last season, peaking at No. 24.

In its last two games, Marquette beat Central Florida and Illinois Chicago.

After Wednesday’s home game against St. Peter’s, Marquette embarks on a difficult trip against Conference USA favorites Louisville, Cincinnati and North Carolina Charlotte.

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In the women’s AP poll, Tennessee remained a unanimous No. 1, and the Lady Vols did it the easy way--by not playing.

Only 13 ranked teams did play in the past week and just one lost to a team that wasn’t ranked, so there were few changes in the top 25. The top seven were unchanged and the poll had the same teams as last week.

Tennessee, which next plays on New Year’s Day against No. 25 Arkansas, received all 38 first-place votes. The Lady Vols have been No. 1 all season and have been a unanimous choice for the last six weeks.