Blanca Millan of the University of Maine was named the America East player of the week for the sixth time this season. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

University of Maine senior Blanca Millan was named the America East women’s basketball Player of the Week for the sixth time this season.

Millan helped the Black Bears earn a weekend sweep of UMass Lowell, averaging 26.5 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.5 steals. She had 26 points, six rebounds, four steals and three assists in a 81-49 win Saturday. She added 27 points, eight rebounds and three steals, and blocked the final shot of the game as the Black Bears held on for a 53-51 win.

Millan has won the award 14 times in her career at UMaine, three shy of Cindy Blodgett’s school record of 17.

UMaine is 14-1 this season and plays a two-game series against Stony Brook this weekend.

AP TOP 25: Coach Dawn Staley has South Carolina back where her team started the season: No. 1 in The Associated Press poll.

The Gamecocks regained the top spot on Monday, receiving 29 of 30 first-place votes from a national media panel. They likely won’t stay there long. The Gamecocks fell 63-59 in overtime Monday night to No. 2 UConn in the 60th matchup ever between the top two teams in the poll. It was only the second overtime game in those meetings.

UConn moved up one spot to No. 2 on Monday after then-No. 1 Louisville lost at home to No. 4 North Carolina State last Monday. The Cardinals fell to third and the Wolfpack remained fourth. They lost to unranked North Carolina on Sunday.

(2) UCONN 63, (1) SOUTH CAROLINA 59: Paige Bueckers scored 31 points, including her team’s final 13, to lead No. 2 UConn over top-ranked South Carolina.

The freshman scored all of the Huskies’ nine points in overtime, including a 3-pointer that bounced high off the back of the rim before dropping in to give the Huskies the four-point margin with 10 seconds left.

The Gamecocks’ Zia Cooke and Destanni Henderson missed 3-pointers in the final seconds.

The thriller came just hours after the Gamecocks and Huskies earned the top two spots in The Associated Press women’s college basketball poll.

Aliyah Boston had 17 points and 15 rebounds for South Carolina (15-2), which overcame a seven-point deficit in the fourth quarter.

A layup by Aubrey Griffin had given the Huskies a 50-43 lead with just over 8 minutes left, before South Carolina turned up the defense and went on an 11-0 run.

Victaria Saxton’s layup over Nelson-Ododa gave the Gamecocks a 52-50 lead, and Boston’s jumper extended that to 54-50 with just under 2 1/2 minutes to play. But Bueckers hit two straight jumpers to tie the game at 54 with 46 seconds left in regulation.

Henderson missed a fall-away jumper with 4 seconds left and the Gamecocks missed three chances to tip-in a game winner.

South Carolina had its 12-game winning streak snapped.

(10) ARIZONA 79, (11) OREGON 59: Cate Reese scored 25 points and No. 10 Arizona (12-2, 10-2 Pac-12) completed a season sweep of 11th-ranked Oregon (12-4, 9-4) on Monday.

Reese, a 6-foot-2 junior who entered the game averaging 11.3 points, was 11 for 14 from the field while making all three of her 3-point attempts. Sam Thomas scored 14 points and Trinity Baptiste and Aari McDonald each added 13 points as the Wildcats shot 50.8% from the field.

Arizona, which had been off for 17 days with four games postponed because of COVID-19, won consecutive games against the Ducks for the first time since 2011. Coach Adia Barnes dropped her first 10 games against Oregon before this season’s sweep, which kept the Wildcats in second place in the conference.

Nyara Sabally scored 17 points to lead the Ducks, who dropped to fourth in Pac-12. Sedona Prince scored 10 points while Taylor Mikesell and Te-Hina Paopao each had nine points.

FOOTBALL

UMAINE: The school announced a matchup against North Dakota State, the eight-time Football Championship Subdivision champion, for the 2023 season.

The Black Bears will face North Dakota State on Sept. 9, 2023 in the first meeting between the two schools. The programs were scheduled to meet on Sept. 14, 2001, but the game was canceled after the attacks on Sept. 11.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

AP TOP 25: Kansas dropped out of The Associated Press poll for the first time in 12 years, ending the Jayhawks’ record streak of 231 consecutive weeks ranked in the Top 25.

Gonzaga and Baylor held down the top two spots, just as they have all season, with the Bulldogs getting 55 of 63 first-place votes and the Bears getting the other eight. Michigan took advantage of Villanova’s loss at St. John’s to jump into the top three, rival Ohio State climbed three spots to No. 4 and the Wildcats rounded out the top 5.

Illinois gave the Big Ten three teams in the top six after beating Indiana in overtime and pounding No. 21 Wisconsin over the weekend. The Illini were followed by Texas Tech, Houston, Virginia and Missouri, which beat Kentucky and No. 11 Alabama to reach the top 10 for the first time since Dec. 24, 2012.

The real drama came not at the top of the poll, though, but at the bottom of it.

The Jayhawks began their Top 25 streak on Feb. 2, 2009, when freshman guard Bryce Thompson was 6 years old. Their decade-plus of dominance, which began the season after winning the national championship, included 10 consecutive Big 12 regular-season titles, five conference tournament titles, two more Final Four trips and a runner-up finish in 2012.

POSTPONEMENT: The Atlantic Coast Conference announced that Miami’s game on Monday night at North Carolina has been postponed.

The postponement follows a meeting of officials from both schools who concluded the game could not be played, but neither school has publicly disclosed reasons why the game was called off.

Earlier Monday, The Daily Tar Heel student newspaper reported that video had surfaced on social media of UNC players Armando Bacot and Day’Ron Sharpe mingling with multiple other people celebrating Saturday’s win against rival Duke and no one wearing a mask.

On Sunday, the school said it was reviewing complaints of potential violations of student COVID-19 protocols after hundreds of fans flocked to Franklin Street to celebrate the big win.

No makeup date was given. Both teams are following ACC protocols.

Miami was the only ACC team that had not had a conference game postponed or canceled this season.

• No. 2 Baylor has postponed three more games because of COVID-19 issues and won’t play again until at least Feb. 20.

The Bears didn’t play Saturday’s scheduled home game against TCU and had already postponed Wednesday’s game at No. 12 Oklahoma before the latest changes announced Monday.

Now postponed are next Saturday’s home game against No. 7 Texas Tech, then two games next week at No. 14 West Virginia. That includes a Feb. 15 game at Morgantown, and then a Feb. 18 game in Waco that was supposed to be the makeup of a game postponed in January because of COVID-19 protocols in the Mountaineers program.

Baylor’s next scheduled game is Feb. 20 at home against No. 23 Oklahoma State.