South Carolina tops women’s AP Top 25; Ohio State tumbles

It was a rough week for Ohio State, which lost all three of itsgames and tumbled down the AP Top 25 as a result.

The previously unbeaten Buckeyes fell from second to 10th in TheAssociated Press women’s basketball poll released Monday afterlosing to Iowa and Indiana, two top 10 teams, as well as Purdue.Ohio State fell two games back in the Big Ten Conferencestandings.

South Carolina remained No. 1 for the 32nd consecutive week. TheGamecocks, who were again a unanimous choice from the 28-membernational media panel, have the fourth-longest streak ever atop thepoll. Only UConn (51 and 34 weeks) and Louisiana Tech (36) have hadlonger runs at No. 1.

Stanford moved back up to No. 2 in the poll and the Cardinalwere followed by LSU, Indiana and UConn in the top five. LSU is theonly other undefeated team in women’s basketball besides SouthCarolina, which visits UConn for a top-five showdown on Sunday.

Iowa jumped out four spots to sixth with Utah, Maryland andNotre Dame coming in ahead of Ohio State. The Hawkeyes started theseason No. 4 in the poll.

The Fighting Irish split a pair of games last week againstranked opponents, routing Florida State before falling to N.C.State.

“There’s a lot of parity right now, which is great, great forthe game,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said. “The game is growing,which is what you want. But yeah, I mean, every night, especiallythe ACC, the ACC is the strongest league and, you know, we havejust a tough stretch every night.”

One week after falling out of the rankings, Texas re-entered thepoll at No. 24. The Longhorns routed then-No. 14 Oklahoma andOklahoma State last week. South Florida also came in at No. 25.Colorado and Illinois fell out of the poll.

RISING BULLS

No. 25 South Florida continued its streak of being ranked for atleast one week every season since the Bulls entered the poll forthe first time in 2015.

“For us not being in a so-called football five conference,that’s a huge accomplishment,” South Florida coach Jose Fernandezsaid. His team has won 10 consecutive games and has 20 victoriesthis season. The team’s four losses have all come against rankedopponents (Michigan, Villanova, Ohio State and N.C. State).

“This group has been fun to coach. We always play a greatnon=conference schedule,” Fernandez said. “We won on the road atTexas, beat Alabama, beat Arkansas. We challenged ourselves inNovember and December.”

RECORD PERFORMANCES

Cameron Brink carried Stanford to a win over Oregon with atriple-double that included 10 blocks. It was the firsttriple-double in NCAA Division I women’s basketball featuringdouble-digit blocks since Tamari Key did it for Tennessee in anovertime win against Texas on Nov. 21, 2021.

No. 20 Oklahoma’s Taylor Robertson set the all-time NCAA women’scareer record for 3-pointers when she hit her 498th in a loss toIowa State on Saturday. Robertson has 503 entering this week. Theall-time NCAA record, men or women, is held by Antoine Davis ofDetroit Mercy, who has 534 and counting.