Duke No. 1 Again in Top 25 Poll

Duke is No. 1 again, a familiar place for the Blue Devils. Dayton is back in the Top 25, somewhere the Flyers haven't been since 1974. <br><br>The Blue Devils (5-0), who won the Preseason NIT, moved

Monday, November 27th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Duke is No. 1 again, a familiar place for the Blue Devils. Dayton is back in the Top 25, somewhere the Flyers haven't been since 1974.

The Blue Devils (5-0), who won the Preseason NIT, moved into the top spot in The Associated Press' college basketball poll Monday, replacing Arizona, which lost to Purdue in the inaugural Wooden Tradition.

This is the fourth straight season, and the ninth in Mike Krzyzewski's 21 as coach, that Duke has held the No. 1 ranking. It is the 72nd poll the Blue Devils have led, fourth on the all-time list behind UCLA (128), Kentucky (87) and North Carolina (79).

Duke, which beat Temple 63-61 in the Preseason NIT championship game at Madison Square Garden, received 60 first-place votes and 1,740 points from the national media panel.

Kansas, with one first-place vote, was 157 points behind Duke, followed by Michigan State, which received eight first-place votes, Stanford and Arizona.

Arizona (3-1) held the No. 1 ranking in the preseason poll and the first two polls of the regular season. The Wildcats, who received one first-place vote in the latest poll, won the Maui Invitational with a 79-76 victory over then-No. 8 Illinois, but lost to Purdue after making the trip from Hawaii directly to Indiana.

Three teams made their first appearance of the season in the Top 25: No. 17 Temple, No. 20 Syracuse and No. 24 Dayton.

Both Temple and Syracuse have been regularly ranked over recent years, but Dayton (2-1) used its impressive performance in the Maui Invitational to join the Top 25 for the first time since the final poll of the 1973-74 season.

North Carolina, Tennessee, Seton Hall, Illinois and Florida rounded out the Top Ten.

Notre Dame led the Second Ten and was followed by Wake Forest, Maryland, Oklahoma and Southern California. Connecticut was next, Utah was No. 18, followed by St. John's.

Virginia was No. 21, followed by Cincinnati and Wisconsin. Arkansas was the last ranked team.

Dayton beat then-No. 12 Connecticut 80-66 in the opening round at Maui before losing to Arizona 76-59 in the semifinals. The Flyers bounced back with a 77-71 victory over then-No. 6 Maryland in the third-place game.

Temple (4-1), like Dayton a member of the Atlantic 10, moved into the rankings after the tough loss to Duke. The teams meet again Saturday in Philadelphia.

Syracuse (4-0) moved in after beating DePaul, Ohio State and Missouri to win the Great Alaska Shootout.

UCLA (1-2), which was shocked by Cal State-Northridge at home last week, fell out of the poll from No. 15. Also dropping out were DePaul (3-1), from 21st, and Kentucky (1-3), from 22nd following a 73-68 loss to Penn State.