Women’s college basketball rankings: South Carolina continues tear, Tennessee is back in AP top 25

Week five of NCAA women’s basketball saw the top-25 teams inch closer to full conference play.

In a week that featured seven matchups between ranked sides, the Big Ten and ACC gave a brief preview of upcoming conference play, the SEC and ACC played 16 games to showcase the sport and the South Carolina Gamecocks kept making the nation forget about an early season stumble.

AP top 25 women’s college basketball rankings after week five:

1. UCLA
2. UConn
3. South Carolina
4. LSU
5. USC
6. Texas
7. Maryland
8. Notre Dame
9. Duke
10. Oklahoma
11. Ohio State
12. TCU
13. Kansas State
14. North Carolina
15. West Virginia
16. Kentucky
17. Michigan State
18. Iowa State
19. Tennessee
20. Michigan
21. Iowa
22. NC State, Ole Miss (tied for 22)

24. Nebraska
25. Georgia Tech

Others receiving votes: Alabama 73, Illinois 69, California 23, Stanford 18, Vanderbilt 15, Utah 14, Louisville 9, Richmond 8, South Dakota St. 8, Creighton 5, Oklahoma St. 4, Harvard 3, Florida St. 3, Texas Tech 3, Baylor 1.

South Carolina Dominance

Sunday night, No. 3 South Carolina and No. 9 TCU met in Fort Worth, Texas in the most anticipated college basketball game of the weekend. The TCU Horned Frogs, led by graduate guard Hailey Van Lith, were fresh off an upset victory over Notre Dame on Nov. 29 and were quickly moving up the rankings.

In the first quarter, the Horned Frogs and Gamecocks were battling when forward Sedona Prince blocked South Carolina forward Ashlyn Watkins. Not a new moment for the top blocker in NCAA women’s basketball, but it set off a series of events that perfectly describes the start of the Gamecocks’ season.

TCU won possession off the block, but Watkins stayed with the play. The junior forward stole the ball back as it crossed half court, ending the play with a dunk over Prince, a forward four inches taller than Watkins.

The early success of TCU in the game was quickly forgotten as South Carolina went on to outscore the Horned Frogs 46-21 over the next two quarters and change, beating TCU 85-52.

South Carolina out rebounded TCU 36-26, holding Prince to two rebounds in 33 minutes. A far cry from the 10.8 rebounds she averaged entering Sunday. The Gamecocks also forced 20 turnovers, turning them into 30 points.

“We’re defending you know like our normal selves,” said head coach Dawn Staley. “We are very probably patient offensive, I mean we know what really works for us offensively. We know when we reverse the ball it increases our shooting percentage you know like it’s unbelievable what it is, like unbelievable.”

South Carolina getting back to their “normal selves” should scare other teams in the NCAA. The last time the Gamecocks lost, they rattled off 43 wins in a row.

Since falling to the No. 1 UCLA Bruins, Staley’s side has three ranked wins against Iowa State, Duke and now TCU, by an average of 28 points.

South Carolina has a brief reprieve before SEC play begins Jan. 2, playing mid-major sides until the turn of the calendar. When it does, don’t be surprised if the Gamecocks are at the top of the conference, even with ranked games early in the conference slate against Texas, Oklahoma and LSU.

SEC-ACC Challenge

It wasn’t only the Gamecocks defeat of Duke that caught the collective attention this week, with four of the 16 SEC-ACC challenge games featuring games between top-25 schools. The SEC won the annual tournament 9-7, with a comeback win for the No. 11 Sooners over No. 22 Louisville, and an overtime win for No. 5 LSU against an unranked, yet dangerous, Stanford Cardinal team.

The game of the tournament though was No. 10 Notre Dame vs. No. 4 Texas. Rori Harmon and Madison Booker led the Longhorns into South Bend, Indiana for a matchup against Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles.

A star-studded game was as advertised, with Harmon and Miles trading game-altering shots in the final seven seconds of the game. Notre Dame was no match for Texas in overtime, defeating Texas 80-70. The Irish outscored the visiting Longhorns 12-2 behind five points from Hidalgo, part of a team-leading 30-point performance with eight rebounds and four assists.

It was an upset in terms of position in the top-25 rankings, one of four games where the lower or unranked side defeated a higher positioned opponent.

These games have a way of helping teams build momentum as the non-conference season winds down, and conference games get closer. The Tennessee Volunteers are a good example of it.

Tennessee came into this season unranked for only the third time since 1981. Heading into the challenge, the Vols were 5-0, but didn’t have any wins over power conference opponents. First year Vols head coach Kim Caldwell welcomed the Florida State Seminoles to Knoxville on Wednesday, beating the formerly ranked side 79-77, thanks to a game-winning jumper from Zee Spearman with 24 seconds remaining and a follow-up rebound to seal the victory.

On Sunday, Tennessee’s next test was bigger, playing the No. 17 Iowa Hawkeyes in Brooklyn, New York. In the fourth quarter, down three points, the Vols went on an 11-point run where they forced four turnovers, resulting in nine points.

Iowa scored one point in the final 3:48 of the game and the Vols pulled away with a 78-68 win. A victory that puts Tennessee in the top-25 for the first time this season, coming in Monday’s rankings at No. 19.

Buckeyes Stand Out in Conference Play

ACC and Big Ten teams in the top-25 played some of their first conference games of the season, a quick weekend in-league before going back to non-conference games.

In the now 18-team Big Ten conference, the matchup of the weekend pit the No. 12 Ohio State Buckeyes against the No. 21 Illinois Fighting Illini. Illinois went to Columbus already with a marquee win over then-ranked Florida State to start the season.

Even though the Illini fell to the Kentucky Wildcats at the end of November, forward Kendall Bostic’s history against Ohio State, averaging over 15 points and rebounds per game in four previous matchups, meant there was a chance to take down the higher ranked Scarlet and Gray.

Plus, the Buckeyes lost three starters to NCAA eligibility ending and Sunday was their first game against a power conference or ranked opponent. Fortunately for Ohio State they still had forward Cotie McMahon.

After missing four games with an injury, it wasn’t certain that McMahon would see the court against the Illini, but she returned in a big way.

McMahon led all Buckeyes with 25 points in the 83-74 victory. The forward was fouled eight times and there was no hesitancy in her game, despite it being her first game back following a lower leg injury.

What made McMahon’s 33 minutes more important was the absence of point guard Jaloni Cambridge. It wasn’t an injury that kept the No. 1 ranked freshman point guard out of the game, but foul trouble. In the first quarter, Cambridge picked up two fouls but was brought back in for the second quarter where she picked up a third.

Cambridge went on to get two more in the second half, playing less than 10 minutes of the remaining 20 minutes. Even so, the play of McMahon and strong interior play against Bostic by forward Ajae Petty helped confirm Ohio State’s place in the top-25.

Other Stories of the Week

• North Carolina were the other big winners in the SEC-ACC Challenge, handily taking care of the No. 14 Kentucky Wildcats 72-53 at home.
• Louisville continued to slip after falling to the Oklahoma Sooners Wednesday, taking on the No. 2 UConn Huskies Saturday night in an 85-52 loss