Vanderbilt and Kentucky’s entrance to the top 10 was historic as it gave the Southeastern Conference five of the first seven teams in The Associated Press women’s basketball poll.
It’s the first time that’s happened in the poll’s 50-year history. The seventh-ranked Commodores pulled off their first win over a top-five program since the 2008-09 season when they edged then-No. 5 LSU.
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Texas is second, South Carolina third and Oklahoma is fifth. Kentucky moved up to No. 6.
It may be tough for the conference to keep all those high rankings as many of those teams will face each other over the next few weeks. Kentucky next hosts Oklahoma.
“It’s insane if you haven’t been in our conference or know our conference,” Vanderbilt coach Shea Ralph told the AP in a phone interview. “You’re going to have to come through the SEC To win a national championship. It is the best conference in college women’s basketball and it has been for a long time.”
It’s not just the top teams that have been successful so far this season. Both Georgia and Alabama came into last week undefeated before losing for the first time. In all seven previously unbeaten teams lost last week.
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“I think it’s a sign of parity, for sure. I think that when you get into conference, we know each other so well,” said LSU coach Kim Mulkey, whose team also suffered its first losses of the season. “You take away all the things that you do good, and you have to go to your second, and your third, and your fourth option, and then it gets physical. And you know, it’s just the way it is in conferences.”
While the SEC controls the top of the poll, the Big Ten once again has nine teams ranked in the Top 25 for the third time this season. They are the only conference to achieve that feat this year.
NET rating
With teams having most of last week off for the holidays, there wasn’t much change in the NET ratings. UConn still holds the top spot with UCLA, South Carolina and Texas next. LSU is fifth.
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Princeton and Fairfield are the top mid-major teams coming in at 38 and 43 respectively.
The NET is just one tool the NCAA selection committee uses to figure out which teams make the NCAA Tournament and where they are seeded. It has predicted the winner pretty accurately since it first was used in 2021. Four of the five national champions were No. 1 in the NET on Selection Sunday.
Game of the week
No. 22 North Carolina at Notre Dame. Both teams struggled last week and desperately could use a victory to avoid already having three conference losses. The Irish fell out of the poll for the first time since 2021.
