This post was updated Jan. 13 at 10:27 p.m.

It had been more than a month.

But the Bruins have reclaimed the third spot in the AP poll.

Following its defeat of then-No. 25 Nebraska and then-No. 2 Texas’s loss to then-No. 12 LSU, No. 3 UCLA women’s basketball (15-1, 5-0 Big Ten) now only sits behind only UConn and South Carolina in the AP top-25 rankings.

If UCLA wants to retain its new designation and extend its winning streak to double digits, the squad will have to take care of business against Minnesota (12-4, 3-2) on Wednesday at Williams Arena in Minneapolis.

The contest will also be a homecoming for graduate student guard Gianna Kneepkens, a Duluth, Minnesota local, who will play in her home state for the first time in her five-year collegiate career.

“We’re excited to bring Gianna Kneepkens home,” said coach Cori Close. “Word on the street is we got several busloads of people coming down from Duluth.”

Though the Bruins won last year’s meeting by 26 points, the Golden Gophers have held their own against ranked opponents so far this season. Three of their four losses came against ranked teams, and over those contests, they lost by just 16 combined points.

[Related: UCLA women’s basketball triumphs over Minnesota in return to Pauley Pavilion]

Minnesota will also enter Wednesday’s contest fresh off a 63-62 win against then-No. 21 USC.

“It’s going to be a hostile environment,” Close said. “One of the things we learned last year being No. 1 for fourteen straight weeks is that you’re going to draw everybody’s best.”

The Golden Gophers feature the best defense in the country, allowing just 51.8 points per game this season – the lowest total in the nation.

However, Minnesota might still have a hard time slowing down UCLA’s dynamic offense, which has scored at least 80 points per contest across its current nine-game win streak. And the Bruin offense features multiple scoring threats – illustrated by the squad’s recent 83-point performance against Nebraska, where six players garnered double-digit point totals.

“Once we can get certain aspects of our offense going, it creates so many more looks for us in different areas,” said graduate student guard Charlisse Leger-Walker. “We go to Lauren (senior center Lauren Betts) or any of our bigs inside, and they draw so much attention that now you have the pick of the lottery of who you want to get the ball to.”

This season, Kneepkens, Betts, senior guard Kiki Rice and senior guard Gabriela Jaquez are all averaging double-digit points.

The Bruins are also coming off a game where they held Nebraska – which has shot 50.1% from the field as the No. 17 scoring offense in the nation – to just 61 points on a 37.7% clip from the field.

“Defensively, we came out differently,” Betts said. “That’s something that we worked on all week, and we had a whole week to prepare for this. I’m really proud of how everyone came out defensively.”

After the Nebraska game, Close said she thinks this year’s team is even better than last year’s squad – which earned the No. 1 overall seed in March Madness.

“We have a more complete puzzle,” Close said. “It’s not like we necessarily have more individual talent pieces. We were very talented last year as well, but our puzzle pieces fit a little bit more cohesively this year.”

The Bruins will have many opportunities to prove Close right throughout the remainder of the season, with five ranked teams – and three others currently receiving votes, including the Golden Gophers – still on the docket in Big Ten play.

“We’ll be ready for the challenge,” Close said. “We came off from having four prep days, and now we’re going to have one prep day, so it’s important that we do our work mentally so that we’re ready to compete physically on Wednesday.”