Stanford, Vanderbilt Crack AP Top 25

For Indiana and Southern California, it was a short stay in the AP Top 25. Stanford and Vanderbilt will try to hang around longer now that they've cracked the rankings for the first time this season.

Tuesday, January 30th 2007, 7:18 am

By: News On 6

For Indiana and Southern California, it was a short stay in the AP Top 25. Stanford and Vanderbilt will try to hang around longer now that they've cracked the rankings for the first time this season. No. 23 Stanford and 24th-ranked Vanderbilt entered The Associated Press college basketball poll Monday and have become surprising contenders in their leagues.

Meanwhile, the Hoosiers and Trojans dropped out of the media poll a week after they made their season debuts. Both lost their first games as ranked teams.

Florida and Wisconsin are Nos. 1 and 2 for a third consecutive week, but the rest of the top five got a slight makeover _ which has become a weekly occurrence.

Heading into Sunday night, it looked as if that the top five teams in the AP poll country would be unchanged for the first time this season. But UCLA couldn't hold a halftime lead and its 75-68 loss at Stanford dropped the Bruins two spots to fifth. No. 3 North Carolina and No. 4 Ohio State each moved up one spot.

Defending national champion Florida received 45 first-place votes out of a possible 72. Wisconsin, 21-1 for the first time in school history, received 24 first-place votes and North Carolina got three first-place votes.

Completing the top 10 were No. 6 Kansas, followed by Pittsburgh, Duke, Oregon and Texas A&M.

The Cardinal's big win over the Bruins completed a weekend sweep of the Pac-10's Los Angeles schools. Stanford routed then-No. 25 USC, 65-50 on Thursday.

It was Stanford's third straight victory and sixth in seven games. The Cardinal have another tough game at home Wednesday night against Gonzaga.

Stanford (14-5, 6-3 Pac-10), picked to finish seventh in the Pac-10 behind the likes of UCLA, Arizona and Washington, is now in the thick of the conference race.

``Obviously we're pretty happy and we have a lot to be happy about,'' second-year coach Trent Johnson said after the UCLA game.

Stanford was last ranked in the first regular-season poll of the 2005-06 season.

The Commodores were picked to finish fifth in the six-team Southeastern Conference East, where Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee rule. They started the season 1-3 and lost starting center Alan Metcalfe to an injury, making a surprising run even less likely.

``It took us a while to adjust to a new way of playing,'' Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said Monday. ``Now that we've adjusted, we're playing with confidence.''

Vandy ran its winning streak to four games, its longest in the SEC since 1996-97, with an 85-80 victory over Mississippi on Saturday.

The Commodores (15-6, 5-2) earlier in the week won 64-53 at LSU, their second consecutive road win over a ranked team and third straight victory overall against ranked opponents. The previous week, Vanderbilt beat Alabama and won at Kentucky.

``I don't know if I even envisioned this type of turnaround,'' Stallings said.

The Commodores, ranked in the AP poll for the first time since January 2004, play at Florida on Wednesday.

USC, after losing to Stanford in its first game as a ranked team in five years, beat California 76-73. But it wasn't enough keep the Trojans in the Top 25.

Indiana also dropped out after a 1-1 week. The Hoosiers lost 51-43 at Illinois and beat Michigan 76-61.

LSU (13-7), a Final Four team last season, also dropped out of the rankings for the first time this season. The Tigers followed up their loss to Vanderbilt by losing 57-54 at Georgia on a last-second 3-pointer. LSU was ranked No. 5 in the preseason and has been in a steady descent ever since. The Tigers have lost three straight for the first time since the 2003-04 season.

Moving back into the rankings was Texas, which fell out of the Top 25 last week for the second time this season.

The 22nd-ranked Longhorns snapped a two-game losing streak by beating Nebraska on the road last week and followed it up with a home win over Baylor.

No. 11 Memphis starts the second 10 in the rankings, followed by Oklahoma State, Butler, Marquette and Nevada.

No. 16 Virginia Tech, two weeks after moving into the poll for the first time in more than a decade, moved up eight spots after beating Miami and Georgia Tech last week.

Air Force, Washington State, Alabama, which dropped seven spots to No. 19 after losing twice last week, and Arizona round out the top 20.

Arizona dropped three spots after a 92-64 loss to North Carolina, the most lopsided home defeat for the Wildcats under coach Lute Olson.

Notre Dame starts the final five, followed by Texas, Stanford, Vanderbilt and Clemson, which fell six spots after losing twice.