First it was the Hoosiers. Then the Bruins. And now, the Huskies.

The Connecticut Huskies men's soccer team took over the top spot in the NSCAA/adidas top-25 poll this week. UCLA had held the top spot since Sept. 4, but suffered its first loss, 1-0, to Stanford on Sunday to drop to 8-1-0.

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Connecticut, at 9-1-0, edged Indiana by 62 points for the top spot. The Hoosiers were the preseason No. 1, but quickly dropped of the top after opening the season with back-to-back losses.

The Huskies have spent much of the year in the top five of both polls, last week checking in at No. 2. The last time Connecticut held the No. 1 ranking was a four-week stay on top in 1998.

The Huskies have won nine consecutive games since dropping losing their season opener 2-1 in overtime to then-No. 11 Wake Forest.

Making Pac-10 history
For the past eight years, men's soccer teams from Pac-10 schools competed in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

This season, however, five schools -- UCLA, Cal, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington -- have combined for the inaugural Pac-10 season.

The Huskies and Beavers met in the historic first match, with Washington capturing a 1-0 home victory.

"There are a lot of reasons why this move made sense," UCLA coach Todd Saldaña said. "For one, we never had an automatic bid (to the NCAA Tournament). Playing in the Pac-10 also will help our strength of schedule."

According to Saldaña, leaving the MPSF has allowed all five teams to play tougher schedules, which should strengthen their position once tournament bids are handed out. Despite holding the No. 3 national ranking and a 16-2 record heading into the NCAA Tournament last season, UCLA not only was unseeded in the tournament, but also had to play on the road in the second and third rounds.

The sixth-ranked Bruins had been No. 1 in the NSCAA/adidas poll for five weeks before suffering their first loss of the season -- to Stanford on Sunday in UCLA's first-ever Pac-10 contest.

In the preseason Pac-10 coaches' poll, UCLA was picked to win the conference's inaugural title. Stanford and Washington tied for second place in the balloting.

Incidentally, UCLA also produced the first-ever Pac-10 men's soccer player of the week. Senior midfielder Shaun Tsakiris won the award on Sept. 5 and Oct. 3. Teammate McKinley Tennyson Jr. also is a two-time winner, picking up the award in back-to-back weeks (Sept. 12 and 19).

Panther freshman rules the pitch
You won't find Eastern Illinois in the polls, but Jason Thompson's name can be found all over the NCAA men's soccer statistical charts -- at the top of them, that is.

Thompson, a freshman forward who was named this week's Missouri Valley Conference offensive player of the week, leads the nation with 18 goals in 11 games, good for a 1.64 goals-per-game average. Thompson, who has notched five assists, also leads the nation in points per game at 3.73 (41 total).

Thompson scored 10 goals in two games over the weekend. He tallied six goals -- which broke the MVC record and a 27-year-old school record for goals in a game -- in Eastern's 8-1 win at Belmont on Friday.

Sunday, Thompson scored the first four Panther goals in a 5-1 win over Vanderbilt. The victory marked Eastern's first win against its conference foe in five tries.

At the other end of the field, San Jose State's Chris Humphreys boasts the nation's top goals against average (0.19). The senior has allowed just two goals in 966.5 minutes of action.

Melanie Jackson is the college sports editor at ESPN.com.