Women’s college basketball rankings: Updated top-25 with Maryland on the rise, Duke and Baylor fall
The women’s college basketball season is off and running with some big upsets and standout performances from freshmen.
After the first week of NCAA women’s basketball, the AP top 25 finally has game footage to support rankings. Below you can see the full rankings, and we break down the biggest headlines from the first week of play:
AP top 25 women’s college basketball rankings for week one:
- South Carolina
- UConn
- USC
- Texas
- UCLA
- Notre Dame
- LSU
- Iowa State
- Oklahoma
- Kansas State
- Maryland
- Ohio State
- NC State
- North Carolina
- West Virginia
- Duke
- Baylor
- Louisville
- Ole Miss
- Kentucky
- Nebraska
- Alabama
- Illinois
- Stanford
- Oregon
Others receiving votes:
Iowa 60, TCU 55, Florida St. 42, Michigan 36, Utah 32, Michigan St. 18, Vanderbilt 13, Fairfield 11, South Dakota St. 9, Mississippi St. 7, Arizona 6, Creighton 5, Tennessee 3, Harvard 3, Indiana 3, Middle Tennessee 3, Miami 2.
B1G Upsets
In the now 18-team Big Ten conference, teams created upsets and surprisingly close results. It started on the first night of the season, when the unranked Michigan Wolverines took on the No. 1 South Carolina Gamecocks. Michigan entered the season without any votes in the top 25, but took on the 38-0 National Championship-winning Gamecocks and kept it close until the final whistle.
Wolverines’ freshman guard Syla Swords scored 27 points with 12 rebounds in a game where Michigan led South Carolina at halftime. The Gamecocks pulled away late to win 68-62, but Michigan showed that with Swords, the Wolverines could surprise teams. Voters gave the Wolverines 36 points in the poll, moving them into contention for a spot in the coming weeks.
South Carolina responded in their second game, playing in one of four games between ranked sides in the first week, beating the No. 9 NC State Wolfpack 71-57.
Friday night, the Big Ten were on both sides of upsets. The No. 25 Indiana Hoosiers welcomed the Harvard Crimson to Assembly Hall but were shocked by the Ivy League school 72-68. The loss knocked the Hoosiers out of the top 25.
In neighboring Illinois, the Fighting Illini were the ones causing the upset, defeating No. 19 Florida State 83-74 behind a 20-point performance by Illinois guard Makira Cook. The win sent Illinois from a team receiving votes from Associated Press voters to No. 23, the first time the Big Ten side had three seasons in a row getting into the ranking since the 2000-01 season.
In the AP top 25, four ranked teams fell to unranked sides. Oregon was the last team to pull out an early upset, defeating the No. 12 Baylor Bears in Eugene. The Ducks added former UNC guard Deja Kelly in the offseason, the three-time First Team All-ACC star led Oregon with 20 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists in the victory, trying to return the Ducks to prominence after missing the NCAA tournament for two straight seasons.
Voters rewarded the Ducks’ for their upset win and 3-0 start to the season with a spot at No. 25. Another former Pac-12 side, Stanford, also snuck into the rankings after a preseason snub, joins the weak one top 25 as the No. 24 seed.
Ranked Matchups
Outside of South Carolina and NC State battling, three other games of the week featured top 25 teams from the preseason poll facing off.
Monday, four top teams started the season in Paris, France. In the first of two games in Europe, the No. 3 USC Trojans needed all 40 minutes to defeat No. 20 Ole Miss.
The new star duo of JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen both had double-doubles in the win. Watkins, preseason Big Ten Player of the Year, had 27 points and 10 rebounds, while the Stanford transfer Iriafen had 22 points and 13 rebounds, and the two most important points of the game. Iriafen earned a trip to the line and hit both free throws to give USC the 68-66 win.
Despite the foreshadowing of a dangerous duo at USC, the Ole Miss defense proved more difficult for the Trojans who are adjusting with new arrivals from the transfer portal and freshman class.
No. 5 UCLA followed USC’s lead, bringing the Big Ten its fourth win over ranked sides in the week, defeating the No. 17 Louisville Cardinals 66-59, also in Paris.
Sunday, it was a reunion between former ACC sides in College Park, Maryland. For the first time in 10 years, the No. 18 Maryland Terrapins faced the No. 11 Duke Blue Devils.
Maryland head coach Brenda Frese brought in four key transfers in the offseason, and they didn’t need too much help adjusting. Former Villanova forward Christina Dalce had 12 points and 14 rebounds, seven on the offensive boards. In-conference transfer Kaylene Smikle, who moved from Rutgers to Maryland, led the Terps with 23 points in the wire-to-wire victory over the Blue Devils.
Freshmen Debuts
Swords wasn’t the only highly-touted freshman making a mark in their first NCAA game. No. 1 overall recruit Sarah Strong debuted starting for the No. 2 UConn Huskies and scored 17 points alongside teammate Paige Bueckers. Strong had 30 points in two games against unranked mid-major sides.
No. 2 ranked freshman guard had only one game in week one, but it was one No. 14 Ohio State fans won’t soon forget. Point guard Jaloni Cambridge broke a school record for most points in a freshman debut, scoring 31 points with 6 rebounds, 6 assists and 5 steals on 12-for-14 shooting. That was in 26 minutes against the Cleveland State Vikings, the reigning Horizon League regular season champions.
South Carolina’s Joyce Edwards came off the bench in the win over the Wolverines, but started for head coach Dawn Staley against NC State. In Edwards’ first start, the freshman had eight points and four steals against the Wolfpack.
Plus, in Los Angeles, Kennedy Smith slid into the Trojans starting lineup to play alongside former high school opponent Watkins, scoring 22 points in two starts.
The No. 6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish have a freshman star of their own in Kate Koval. The former high school teammate of Swords started both lopsided wins for Notre Dame over Mercyhurst and the Purdue Boilermakers. In Koval’s debut against Mercyhurst, the forward had 18 points, 7 rebounds and 5 blocks, but most Irish fans were talking about somebody else.
Olivia Miles’ Big Return
In the final game of Notre Dame’s 22-23 regular season, star guard Olivia Miles tore her ACL. The injury not only ended that season but the entire 23-24 campaign.
Monday, Miles returned and picked up where she left off. Miles had her fourth NCAA career triple-double, playing in her first game alongside AP All-American First Team point guard Hannah Hidalgo.
Miles had 20 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in 32 minutes for the Fighting Irish and made Notre Dame look like a team poised to stay near the top of the ranking. Their first test comes Nov. 23, when the Irish travel to USC. It’s the first of three games against teams in the top 10, before the start of the conference season. The Irish play the UConn Huskies and No. 4 Texas Longhorns in the span of seven days to start December.
With Miles and Hidalgo, the Fighting Irish hope to return to the Final Four for the first time since 2019. In the past five seasons, Notre Dame made three NCAA tournaments, but lost in the Sweet Sixteen in all three years,