Top Four Stay Same in Women's Poll

Connecticut led a top four that stayed the same Monday in The Associated Press women's basketball poll, which had a major shake-up in the middle and two newcomers at the bottom. <br><br>No. 23 Xavier

Monday, November 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Connecticut led a top four that stayed the same Monday in The Associated Press women's basketball poll, which had a major shake-up in the middle and two newcomers at the bottom.

No. 23 Xavier and No. 24 Boston College made their first appearance of the season, replacing Old Dominion and North Carolina. Old Dominion is out of the Top 25 for the first time in five years.

Connecticut (1-0), which did not play last week, was a unanimous choice for the third straight week and has been No. 1 in 22 consecutive polls. The Huskies received all 40 first-place votes from the national media panel and had 1,000 points.

Tennessee, which began the season with a 94-52 rout of DePaul, remained second with 959 points. Duke (3-0) was third with 886 points, eight more than No. 4 Purdue (3-0). Purdue will play No. 11 Louisiana Tech in the finals of the preseason NIT on Monday night.

No. 5 Notre Dame and No. 6 Georgia traded places and were followed by Rutgers, Iowa State, Penn State and LSU. Iowa State, which doesn't open the season until Wednesday night at Iowa, and Penn State (2-0) both were up two places.

Louisiana Tech fell three places to 11th after losing to Michigan, but the Lady Techsters (3-1) bounced back to beat Virginia in the NIT semifinals on Sunday.

Oklahoma was 12th and Texas Tech 13th, followed by Oregon, Mississippi State, Virginia, Southwest Missouri State, Stanford, Wisconsin and Auburn.

Illinois, North Carolina State, Xavier, Boston College and Vanderbilt held the final five places.

Oregon made the biggest jump, going from 24th to 14th after starting the season with victories over Wisconsin and North Carolina State. The Ducks proved they could win without guard Shaquala Williams, the Pac-10 player of the year last season. She's sidelined by a torn ACL.

Illinois, an 80-62 winner over Clemson in its opener, climbed four places and Auburn went up three spots even though it has yet to play. Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Mississippi State each moved up two places.

A loss to St. Mary's in its opener sent Stanford from 12th to 18th. Vanderbilt fell five spots to 25th after losing to Xavier. Virginia, Wisconsin and North Carolina State all dropped three places.

Xavier beat Vanderbilt 64-60 in its only game so far. The Musketeers have four starters back from a 26-5 team that was 24th in the final poll last season.

Boston College, 17th in the last poll of the 1999-2000 season, is off to a 2-0 start behind Western Kentucky transfer Rachel Byars. Byars had 44 points, 25 rebounds and eight steals in victories over Tennessee Tech and Michigan State.

Old Dominion, which had been 18th, lost its first two games and ended a string of 91 straight appearances in the poll. The last time ODU was unranked was the second poll of the 1995-96 season.

North Carolina, 22nd last week, lost to Buffalo and beat Syracuse, which had defeated Old Dominion in two overtimes.