No. 1 South Carolina women run AP Top 25 streak to 36 weeks

After a week of upsets that saw 15 ranked teams lose, SouthCarolina remained the lone unbeaten school.

The Gamecocks ran their streak to 36 consecutive weeks atop TheAssociated Press Top 25 women’s basketball poll to match LouisianaTech for the second-longest run in the history of the poll thatdates to 1976.

South Carolina (29-0) finished the regular season unbeaten andwas back to being a unanimous choice at No. 1 in national mediapoll released Monday. The Gamecocks only trail UConn (51 weeks) forthe longest consecutive streak atop the Top 25.

“There’s definitely no relief” after their flawless regularseason, South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston said. “Now, were into theseason where winning is the only option.”

While the Gamecocks won both of their games last week and enterthe SEC Tournament as the No. 1 seed, the rankings got a bigreshuffling. The 15 ranked teams losing at least one game was byfar the most Top 25 schools to lose in the same week this season;11 had lost in the same week a few times earlier this season.

Indiana, which lost at the buzzer to then-No. 6 Iowa on CaitlinClark’s 3-pointer on Sunday, remained No. 2. Utah jumped up fiveplaces to No. 3 after beating then-No. 3 Stanford to clinch a shareof the Pac-12 title. It’s Utah’s best ranking ever. The Cardinaldropped to sixth.

LSU and Maryland rounded out the top five.

Iowa was seventh with Virginia Tech eighth. UConn fell fivespots to ninth after losing to St. John’s. Notre Dame was 10th. TheIrish lost guard Olivia Miles to a knee injury in Sunday’s win overLouisville.

Villanova jumped four places to 11th. It’s the Wildcats bestranking since the team finished the 2003 season in the same spot.Texas made the biggest improvement, climbing seven spots to12th.

Most of the Power Five conferences enter tournament play thisweek. The Big 12 Tournament is next week ahead of Selection Sundayand the beginning of March Madness.

BACK IN THE RANKINGS

South Florida re-entered the Top 25 at No. 25 after winning 15of its last 16 games. The Bulls have one conference game left, atCincinnati on Wednesday. South Florida was ranked for two weeksearlier this season. Florida State dropped out of the rankings.

FALLING ARIZONA

The Wildcats dropped seven places to No. 21 after losing atOregon and Oregon State over the weekend. Arizona is 12-3 at homebut 7-5 on the road.