Associated Press November 13, 2023, 12:28 PM ET4 Minute Read
South Carolina moves up to No. 1 after dominant win over Maryland
South Carolina beats Maryland by 38 points to move to the top of the women’s college basketball rankings.
South Carolina moved up to No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 women’s basketball poll on Monday after a chaotic opening week in which nine of the top 14 teams in the preseason poll lost, including the defending champion and preseason No . 1LSU.
The Gamecocks, who were ranked sixth in the preseason poll, received 23 first-place votes from the 36-member national media panel. With the other 13 first-place finishers, Iowa finished in second place. UCLA, Utah and Colorado rounded out the top five.
LSU fell to seventh place after losing its opening game to then-No. 20 Colorado. The Buffaloes now have their best ranking since finishing the 1995 season at No. 2. UConn fell from second to eighth after losing to NC State, which entered the poll at No. 14.
Despite the loss, the Huskies have now been ranked for 566 consecutive weeks, tying Tennessee for the longest streak ever.
“The consistency we’ve had over these 30 years, despite the major changes in the game, is pretty remarkable,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “I only realize the extent of it when someone points it out.”
This was only the second time in the history of the poll, which dates back to 1977, when preseason 1-2 teams failed to remain in the top two spots in the first regular season poll. This also happened at the beginning of the 1998/99 season. Purdue swept No. 1 Tennessee to open the season and improved from fifth to one the following week. That was the biggest jump to the top until South Carolina’s move this week.
The Gamecocks had impressive wins to start the season, scoring over 100 points in losses to then-No. 10 Notre Dame and then-No. 14 Maryland. The 114-76 victory over the Terrapins was the Gamecocks’ largest victory over a top-25 opponent in school history. The Irish fell to 16th and Maryland to 20th.
South Carolina has been ranked No. 1 in the preseason poll for 38 consecutive weeks. That was the second-longest streak behind UConn’s 51-week run (2008-10).
Stanford climbed to sixth, Virginia Tech to ninth and USC to 10th. This is Southern Cal’s best finish since the last poll of the 1994 season, when the team was ranked seventh. That gave the Pac-12 five teams in the top 10, the first time a conference has accomplished this since the SEC accomplished the feat in the final poll of the 1997 season.
Ole Miss saw the biggest drop in the poll this week, falling from 12 to 23 after losing to Oklahoma. The Sooners came in at No. 25. Mississippi State and Illinois were eliminated from the rankings.
Conference supremacy
The Pac-12 has started the season 28-0, which marks the most wins without a loss by a Division I conference to start the year in the last 25 seasons, according to ESPN. The conference that will change next year with all but two teams joining the ACC, Big 12 or Big Ten, was the last to have three teams finish in the top five in the same week, on Jan. 6, 2020.