While Long Beach State was a bit late, its upset of top-ranked Kansas figures to earn the 49ers another shot at a spot in The Associated Press college basketball poll.
The University of Utah Runnin' Utes, meanwhile, used wins over Hawaii and San Diego State last week to climb into the No. 17 position.The Utes, ranked last week at No. 22, have now won nine straight games and are undefeated in the Western Athletic Conference and 14-2 overall.
On Monday night, just a matter of hours after voters ended Long Beach State's one-week stay among the elite, the 49ers beat the Jayhawks 64-49 at Lawrence, Kan. Prior to last week, Long Beach State had not been ranked in 20 years.
The 49ers had just fallen from the 25th position after losing two of its previous three games. Its victory over Kansas left Long Beach State 14-3.
The loss, just the second in 18 games for Kansas, came after the Jayhawks had retained the top spot in the poll.
The only other ranked team in action Monday night was No. 15 Virginia, which needed to go to overtime to barely hold off William and Mary 93-84. The Cavaliers are now 12-2.
The top of the poll stayed the same Monday and the bottom changed quite a bit. What else is new?
All season, the same teams have stayed among the upper echelon of the rankings, and the top five remained the same again this week. Kansas was followed by Indiana, North Carolina, Kentucky and Michigan.
At the other end of the poll, however, the teams just keep going in and out.
There are four new teams this week, and two - No. 24 Marquette and No. 25 Houston - haven't been among the ranked since the days before 3-point field goals. Both Florida State, which came in at 19th after its overtime victory over Duke, and No. 23 Tulane had been ranked earlier in the season.
Other than Long Beach State, others leaving the poll were Michigan State, UCLA and Ohio State. All were in the final five last week.
Kansas was named No. 1 on 49 ballots by the nationwide panel of writers and broadcasters and received 1,603 points. Indiana (17-2) had seven first-place votes and 1,520 points, three more than North Carolina (16-1), which had the other nine first-place votes.
Following Kentucky (13-1) and Michigan (15-2) in the Top Ten were Cincinnati, Duke, Arizona, Seton Hall and UNLV.
Iowa, which didn't play any games last week led the Second Ten and was followed by Vanderbilt, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Virginia, Arkansas, Utah, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Oklahoma.
Georgetown led the final five and was followed by Connecticut and the other three newcomers - Tulane, Marquette and Houston.