South Carolina passed its first Test of the season, and the top-ranked Gamecocks face a tougher challenge. Visiting #2 Stanford on Sunday.
South Carolina went on to be unanimously selected as the top team in the first regular season Top 25 Women’s Basketball Poll by the AP. Texas, Iowa and UConn rounded out the top five in a poll released Monday.
The Gamecocks (3-0) beat the No. at the time. 17 Maryland 81-56 set up a showdown with Stanford last week.
It was the 63rd meeting between the top two teams in the Women’s AP Top 25, and the seventh in November. The final 1-2 matchup was also South Carolina vs. Stanford, and the Gamecocks came back from an 18-point deficit last December 21 with a 4-point win over the Cardinals. The first team holds a 39-23 advantage in meetings.
“I call it a win-win. People have to do the right thing because no matter what happens in the game, they learn more about their team,” said Stanford coach Tara Vanderbier. said. “It’s like a tournament game. It’s a one-on-two matchup. It’s great.”
Before Sunday’s game, Dawn Staley’s team will play at Clemson on Thursday. Stanford will host Cal Poly on Wednesday night.
Ohio made the biggest leap in the new poll, jumping six spots to No. 8 after overturning its previous No. 2 spot. In last week’s season opener he made 5 Tennessee. Lady Vols dropped to his 11th place.
Louisville and Iowa came in sixth and seventh, while North Carolina and Notre Dame rounded out the top ten.
Villanova ranked 24th for the first time since 2018. 24 Princeton. The Tigers fell out of the vote, with Utah coming in at his No. 25 spot and his loss to Clayton replacing No. 23 South Dakota.
cross the century mark
LSU has scored over 100 points in each of their first three games. Combined, 343 points is the most in his first three games of the season by any team in the last 20 years.
“The non-conference schedule was done before we knew Angel Reese and all these transfers were going to be here,” said LSU coach Kim Mulkey. It’s building our confidence that we’ll make mistakes in the game that we can fix when the SEC comes along.
It was the second time in a row that three 100-point games had been played to equal the mark set in the 1995-96 season. The Tigers have a chance to beat it when they host Christian in Houston in a midday game on Wednesday.
rare loss
Tennessee lost to Ohio in the first game since 2008 to a non-ranked or non-top-five team in the polls to No. 3 Maryland. Because the state lost to unranked TCU. ESPN stats and info. The top five teams were 69-0 in those games until last week.
AP Sports writer Ann M. Peterson contributed to this article.
