The ASU women's basketball team rings the victory bell after defeating WSU on Monday, Jan. 5, 2015, in Tempe. (Logan Newman/The State Press)The UA women's basketball team (7-8, 0-4 Pac-12) did not not have a good week.
The Wildcats lost two rivalry games to ASU (15-1, 4-0 Pac-12) by a combined 64 points and they have lost their past four games.
But in the AP Top 25 poll, UA received 10 votes, an eerie choice that likely comes from two possible unforgivable mistakes.
The only two plausible explanations are A) some voters confused UA with ASU, which subsequently knocked a couple points off ASU, or B) someone confused the women’s basketball team with men’s.
The former, which is the most likely scenario, a voter may have confused the Tempe school with the Tucson. Although Arizona showed good aggression and defense in the first half of Saturday’s game against ASU, it doesn’t make up for the 47-point defeat they suffered on their home floor, and in the second half of Saturday’s game, it was all ASU.
The latter one is unlikely, but if a voter read the slip wrong, it may have resulted in accidental points for the women’s team instead of the men’s.
Either way, the UA did not deserve votes.
Pac-12 in the AP poll
With three teams now in the top 15, the Jan. 12 AP Poll update represents how strong the Pac-12 may be.
It starts with OSU. The Beavers dominated a relatively easy Pac-12 slate with wins against UCLA, USC and Oregon twice. This, along with their strong defense, jumped them up from No. 11 to No. 9 in the poll.
Stanford and ASU are very nearly equal, rising to the No. 13 and 14 spots, respectively. Both teams defeated both of the Washington schools, but ASU’s two victories over UA weren’t enough to boost it over Stanford.
ASU could have come closer to the Cardinal’s total, though.
Around the rest of the conference, Washington had 24 points and Cal had five.
Conference players of the week
For the second week in a row, a Pac-12 player of the week honor was rewarded to a Sun Devil. Sophomore forward Sophie Brunner scored 20 second-half points on Saturday, earning the reward as she led ASU to a victory over rival UA.
This comes a week after senior guard Promise Amukamara won player of the week in large part because of her defensive efforts against Washington.
AP Top 10:
1. South Carolina
2. UConn
3. Baylor
4. Louisville
5. Texas
6. Tennessee
7. Notre Dame
8. Maryland
9. Oregon State
10. Kentucky
Coaches Poll:
1. South Carolina
2. Connecticut
3. Texas
4. Notre Dame
5. Baylor
6. North Carolina
7. Louisville
8. Texas A&M
9. Tennessee
10. Maryland
Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow @Logan_Newsman on Twitter.
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