Eight straight Big Ten wins has the Illinois women's basketball program in a good place entering the final two weeks of the regular season.

A place good enough for the Illini to find themselves ranked again in the Associated Press Top 25 poll that came out Monday morning, with Illinois checking in at No. 25.

Illinois (21-5, 11-4 Big Ten) will have its work cut out this week, though. A trip to Los Angeles to play two top-five teams is on the schedule, with the Illini playing at No. 3 UCLA (24-1, 12-1) at 8:30 p.m. Thursday and then playing at No. 4 Southern Cal (23-2, 13-1) at 3 p.m. Sunday.

Notre Dame (22-2) is the new No. 1 team after UCLA sustained its first loss of the season last Thursday against USC, with Texas (26-2) moving up one spot to No. 3. Connecticut (24-3) rounds out the top five at No. 5.

Illinois is one of six Big Ten teams ranked, with the aforementioned UCLA and USC. Ohio State (21-3) is No. 8, Maryland (19-6) is No. 21 and Michigan State (19-6) is No. 22.

The Illini beat Nebraska 77-68 on Sunday evening at State Farm Center in Champaign for their program-record eighth consecutive Big Ten win. The winning streak started on Jan. 23 with an 85-60 victory at Northwestern and has also included a 74-38 home win against Purdue on Jan. 27, a 69-65 overtime win at Rutgers on Jan. 30, a 66-65 win at Maryland on Feb. 2, a 73-60 home win against Northwestern on Feb. 6, a 74-51 at Wisconsin on Feb. 9, a 67-55 home win against Penn State last Thursday night.

Matt Daniels is sports editor at The News-Gazette. His email is , and you can follow him on Twitter ( @mdaniels_NG ).