Published: February 10, 2009 12:32 am      

Tennessee slides to lowest ranking in 23 years

Women's Top 25 Poll

Not even Tennessee coach Pat Summitt’s 1,000th career victory could prevent the Lady Vols from dropping to their lowest Top 25 ranking in 23 years.

Tennessee fell three spots to No. 15 in the latest AP women’s college basketball poll after losing twice last week — to Oklahoma and Florida — and beating Georgia for Summitt’s milestone victory.

Connecticut remained the unanimous No. 1 choice for an 11th straight week, while Oklahoma was an unanimous No. 2.

UConn is 23-0 for the first time since 2002-03. The Huskies face St. John’s on Wednesday before hosting No. 19 Pittsburgh on Sunday.

California was third, with Duke and Auburn rounding out the top five. The Blue Devils lost 75-60 to No. 8 North Carolina on Monday night.

The last time Tennessee was ranked so low was the final ballot of the 1985-86 season.

Stanford was No. 6, followed by Baylor, North Carolina, Florida and Louisville. Stanford plays California on Saturday with the Pac-10 title likely on the line.

Florida moved into the top 10 for the first time since Feb. 12, 2001. It was only the Gators’ third win in 40 games against the Lady Vols.

“I’m excited for our team to be getting that type of recognition because they’ve put in a great amount of work to get to where we are right now,” Florida coach Amanda Butler said. “At the same time, we’re more interested in winning our next SEC ballgame and continuing to climb in those standings.”

Louisville dropped five places after losing at home to West Virginia on Saturday.

The Cardinals were followed by Maryland, Texas A&M, Texas, and Florida State, which reached its highest ranking ever at No. 14.

The Lady Vols lost at No. 2 Oklahoma last Monday before the win over Georgia on Thursday. Florida then stunned the Lady Vols on Sunday.

One of the 45 voters — Jim Massie of the Columbus Dispatch — dropped Tennessee from the Top 25, the first time the Lady Vols don’t appear on every ballot since the media starting voting in 1994.

Earlier this season, the Lady Vols saw their record run of top-10 appearances end at 211.

Buoyed by a rout of then-No. 10 Texas A&M, Iowa State made the biggest jump — five places to No. 16. It’s the Cyclones’ highest ranking in four years.

They were followed by Virginia, Ohio State, Pittsburgh, and Kansas State.

Xavier, Notre Dame, South Dakota State, Vanderbilt, and DePaul finished out the poll. For the second week in a row, no team fell out of the Top 25.