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Zags drop to No. 7

Brigham Young center Corbin Kaufusi (44) gets a hand on the ball as Gonzaga center Przemek Karnowski (24) shoots the ball in the first half of Saturday's game at McCarthey. (Colin Mulvany)
Staff and wire service report
Brigham Young center Corbin Kaufusi (44) gets a hand on the ball as Gonzaga center Przemek Karnowski (24) shoots the ball in the first half of Saturday's game at McCarthey. (Colin Mulvany)
Gonzaga dropped to seventh in the rankings following its first loss since early December. The Zags (29-2) slipped four spots in the AP poll and five spots in USA Today. BYU ended the Zags’ unbeaten run through the WCC and their 41-game home winning streak with a 73-70 upset on Saturday. GU’s previous loss was in overtime to current AP No. 5 Arizona. Top-seeded Gonzaga will open the WCC tournament Saturday at 6 against the winner of Friday’s No. 8 San Francisco-No. 9 Pacific game at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. GU won the WCC regular-season title by four games. The stability of AP poll these past several weeks blew up during a tumultuous week of big victories and upsets. Kentucky, Division I’s only undefeated team, remained entrenched at No. 1 after two routs. The Wildcats (29-0) were a unanimous choice for the fifth straight week after receiving all 65 first-place votes from a media panel Monday. Two more weeks on top and Kentucky will become the eighth team and first since UNLV in 1991 to go wire-to-wire in the AP poll. Virginia (27-7) held at No. 2 following two lopsided wins. Then the fun begins. This was a week in which 15 of the 25 teams from the previous poll lost, including two that lost twice. Gonzaga and Wisconsin both lost, so the next three teams behind them moved up: Duke one place to No. 3, Villanova and Arizona each up two spots. The Badgers fell to sixth after losing to Maryland and the Bulldogs dropped four spots to No. 7 after losing to BYU. No. 8 Wichita State moved back into the top 10 after winning its Missouri Valley Conference showdown with Northern Iowa. Kansas dropped a spot to No. 9 after losing to Kansas State. Maryland’s wins over Wisconsin and Michigan moved the Terrapins into the top 10 for the first time since 2003. Northern Iowa’s first trip to the top 10 lasted one week; the Panthers were down to No. 11 after the loss to the Shockers. Notre Dame also fell out of the top 10, down three spots to No. 12 after losing to Syracuse. Despite all the changes, the top seven — in various orders — have remained the same for seven straight weeks. It’s the first time that’s happened since the 1992-93 season, when the top seven held up for eight straight weeks. Got all that? And that was just the top 10. The rest of the poll was just as chaotic, with only three teams holding steady from last week: No. 13 Utah, No. 18 Arkansas and No. 20 West Virginia. All three teams lost. There’s only two weeks left until the final poll March 16, but with the conference tournaments coming up, quite a few more changes could be on the way.