Atlantic Sun knocks 2 teams out of Top 25

The Atlantic Sun Conference doesn’t have any members in the Top 25, but its teams knocked a couple of big-name schools out of the rankings.

Gardner-Webb’s win over Kentucky and Mercer’s victory over Southern California weren’t enough to get them into the Associated Press’ first regular-season poll Monday, although both did receive votes.

Southern California fell from the rankings after it was 18th in the preseason. Kentucky dropped out from 20th place.

North Carolina, which opens the season against Davidson on Wednesday, remained No. 1 as the top seven teams held their places from the preseason poll.

Villanova and Butler opened with wins and moved into the rankings at Nos. 24 and 25.

North Carolina received 29 first-place votes and 1,737 points from the 72-member national media panel. UCLA was No. 1 on 24 ballots and had 1,710 points.

Memphis, which beat Tennessee-Martin and Richmond to advance to this week’s semifinals of the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic, was third with 18 first-place votes. Kansas was fourth.

Georgetown drew the other first-place votes and was fifth, followed by Louisville and Tennessee. Indiana, Washington State, Marquette and Oregon all moved up one spot to eighth through 11th, respectively. Michigan State dropped four places to 12th after losing to Division II Grand Valley State in an exhibition game.

Duke, Gonzaga, Texas A&M, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas, Pittsburgh and Stanford rounded out the top 20. The last five ranked teams were North Carolina State, Kansas State, Southern Illinois, Villanova and Butler.

On the courts

(2) UCLA 83, Youngstown St. 52: At Los Angeles, freshman post Kevin Love scored 21 points, Lorenzo Mata-Real added 14 points and 14 rebounds and the Bruins (2-0) trounced the Penguins in the first round of the CBE Classic.

Mata-Real’s double-double was the second of his career. He and Love, who grabbed nine boards, were often in the lineup at the same time, and the two big men overpowered Youngstown State (0-1).

(8) Indiana 99, Chattanooga 79: At Bloomington, Ind., freshman guard Eric Gordon set his first school record by scoring 33 points in his college debut, and D.J. White added 17 points to help the Hoosiers (1-0) beat the Mocs (1-1).

(10) Marquette 66, Utah Valley St. 55: At Milwaukee, Dominic James scored 13 points, including the 1,000th of his career, Dwight Burke and David Cubillan both added 12 and the Golden Eagles (2-0) shook off a halftime deficit to beat the Wolverines (0-2).

(11) Oregon 97, W. Michigan 88: At Eugene, Ore., senior forward Malik Hairston scored a career-high 29 points and Joevan Catron also tallied a career-best 17 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Ducks (3-0) to a victory over the Broncos in the World Vision Invite.

David Kool had 24 points to lead Western Michigan (1-2), which scored 58 points in the second half to rally from a 16-point halftime deficit.

(13) Duke 86, New Mexico State 61: At Durham, N.C., Jon Scheyer scored 22 points, DeMarcus Nelson scored 14 and Gerald Henderson added 11 to lead the Blue Devils (2-0) in a rout of the Aggies (0-2).

(16) Texas 58, Texas-San Antonio 37: At Austin, Texas, D.J. Augustin scored 19 points and the Longhorns (1-0) overcame first-game shooting struggles with stout second-half defense to pull away from the Roadrunners (1-1), who scored only 18 points in the second half after netting 19 the first half.