LSU WBB drops to No. 7 in new AP Poll

LSU women’s basketball dropped its season-opening game against Colorado on Monday, Nov. 6 in Las Vegas, a surprising result for the returning national champs and preseason No. 1. After the loss, LSU went on to roll pas Queens and Mississippi Valley State, getting to 2-1 on the season.

On Monday afternoon, the latest AP Poll was released, dropping LSU to No. 7 in the rankings. 

The top ten is now 1. South Carolina, 2. Iowa, 3. UCLA, 4. UTah, 5. Colorado, 6. Stanford, 7. LSU, 8. UConn, 9. Virginia Tech, 10. USC.

For head coach Kim Mulkey, being ranked No. 1 was never a priority entering the year. The Tigers’ head coach even went as far as to say her team was not the best team in the country to start the season. With two new transfers and the No. 2 freshman class in the country, it’s a completely new team looking to come together before the start of conference play. A loss did nothing to change LSU’s goals for this year.

“Put us 26th, put us 27th, none of that matters,” Mulkey said. “Polls bring recognition to your institution and your program so you welcome it. You want to be relevant. Polls are someone’s opinion. Connecticut got beat today, where are they going to be? You think Geno is worried about that? I’m not worried about it. I just want us to continue to get better because we have two games this week where people don’t realize [how good the opponent is]. Kent State is going to be quite a matchup for us at 11 in the morning, then Southeastern is already sold out over there. They gave us a great game here last year. I don’t vote on the polls, they are meaningless to me outside of receiving some attention to your program. It doesn’t win any more games for you. If anything, it puts a target on you, but yea I don’t care. Just let us be relevant and I think we’re relevant right now.”

What’s next for LSU?

LSU was not the only ranked team that lost in week one, as UConn, Ohio State, Virginia Tech, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Maryland, and Indiana all suffered a loss early in the year. Mulkey’s team lost two games last year, both to conference foes in South Carolina and Tennessee. The Tigers were 23-0 to start last season, but the first 11 games were against mid-major or low-major programs, allowing the team to get comfortable as the year went on.

This year, LSU jumped into the fire with a challenging ranked game at a neutral site to start the year and was unable to get the win. Now, LSU is 2-1 with 11 more non-conference games, including a ranked matchup with Virginia Tech in the PMAC on Nov. 30.

All eyes are still on the Tigers to see if they can harness all of this talent and build a title contender, but Mulkey continues to repeat that it will take time. This team will remain the hunted this season and we’ll see how they come together.

“You can talk about a target on your back. It’s not like it hasn’t been said, but sometimes you have to have it happen to you to make you listen to your coach,” Mulkey said after the Colorado loss. “It’s like raising a child. ‘Don’t touch that stove, it’s going to burn you.’ and they touch it anyway and they have a scar from the burn. Sometimes they just have to go through it.”