Hoosiers ride winning streak to No. 9 in AP poll

The last of the unbeatens are 1-2-3 in the top 25 – again.\nNorth Carolina, Memphis and Kansas, the only Division I teams yet to lose this season, were the top teams in The Associated Press college basketball poll for a seventh straight week Monday.\nFollowing its 62-58 victory over Illinois Sunday night, IU (14-1) moved up to No. 9 in the poll, its highest ranking of the season.\nNorth Carolina (17-0), which beat North Carolina-Asheville and North Carolina State last week, kept the No. 1 ranking it has held since the preseason poll. The Tar Heels received 45 first-place votes and 1,765 points from the 72-member national media panel.\nMemphis (15-0) beat East Carolina and Marshall in its first two Conference USA games last week and the Tigers were No. 1 on 24 ballots and had 1,739 points.\nKansas (16-0), which defeated Loyola (Md.) and Nebraska last week, received three first-place votes.\nThree teams lost for the first time last week – Washington State, Vanderbilt and Mississippi – and each dropped at least two places in the poll.\nUCLA, which downed Washington State 81-74 on Saturday, moved up one spot to fourth and was followed by Georgetown, Tennessee, Duke, Washington State, IU and Texas A&M.\nMichigan State, which lost 43-36 to Iowa, dropped five spots to 11th and was followed by Butler, Marquette, Dayton, Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Texas and Xavier.\nThe last five ranked teams were Miami, Arizona State, Rhode Island, Clemson and Villanova.\nArizona State (13-2) moved into the rankings on a nine-game winning streak that includes a 3-0 start in the Pac-10. It is only the third time in their 30 years in the conference the Sun Devils have started 3-0 and the first time since 1987-88.\nThe Sun Devils lost their season opener, 77-54 to Illinois at the EA Sports Maui Invitational, and their other loss was in their only true road game of the season, 62-47 at Nebraska. The most impressive wins have been over Xavier, Oregon and Arizona, a 64-59 overtime victory last week.\nArizona State is 11-0 at home this season after finishing 7-11 there last season, coach Herb Sendek’s first in Tempe. The three conference home wins are one-third the total the Sun Devils had in the previous four seasons.\nFreshman James Harden, Arizona State’s first McDonald’s All-American since 1984, leads the Sun Devils in scoring (18.2) and is shooting 54.9 percent from the field, including 44.7 from 3-point range. Arizona State heads to Northern California this week for games against California and Stanford.\nStanford (13-3) dropped out from No. 23 after beating Oregon State 66-46 and losing 71-66 to Oregon last week. The Cardinal were ranked in the preseason poll and the first of the regular season, then fell out for six weeks before returning the past two weeks.