South Carolina women's basketball relinquishes stranglehold on top spot in rankings following ugly loss
South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley has said repeatedly this preseason that what her team accomplished last year was more special than most people realize. “Going undefeated is hard,” she often said before this season began. Following a tough Sunday, the Gamecocks proved their head coach right.
For the first time since the 2022-2023 Final Four, the South Carolina Gamecocks lost. In fact, for the first time since the 2018-2019 Sweet Sixteen, USC lost by 15 points. In Los Angeles, the UCLA Bruins came to play, and Cori Close’s No. 5-ranked squad dethroned the top-ranked Gamecocks. The game was never in doubt as the Bruins comfortably topped the Gamecocks 77-62.
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The loss doesn’t give South Carolina women’s basketball fans any reason to panic, though. The college basketball season is a long one, and the first two Staley-led National Champions had defeats along their title journeys. In fact, those teams lost six times combined. However, Sunday’s loss did remove Carolina from the No. 1 spot in the AP Poll.
For the first time since week 2 of the 2023-2024 season (the Gamecocks moved from preseason 6th to No. 1 after a strong start to last year), a team other than South Carolina sits atop the AP rankings.
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When the new AP Top 25 dropped around 1:00 p.m., the Gamecocks learned they had fallen to No. 4. In all, USC fell just three spots. Replacing the defending champions at the ranking’s summit are the same UCLA Bruins that knocked them off on Sunday.
The entire AP Poll can be seen below (first-place votes in parentheses):
- UCLA Bruins (20)
- UConn Huskies (9)
- Notre Dame Fighting Irish (3)
- South Carolina Gamecocks
- Texas Longhorns
- Southern Cal Trojans
- LSU Tigers
- Oklahoma Sooners
- Kansas State Wildcats
- Maryland Terrapins
- Ohio State Buckeyes
- West Virginia Mountaineers
- Duke Blue Devils
- Kentucky Wildcats
- Iowa State Cyclones
- North Carolina Tar Heels
- TCU Horned Frogs
- Ole Miss Rebels
- Illinois Fighting Illini
- NC State Wolfpack
- Oregon Ducks
- Iowa Hawkeyes
- Alabama Crimson Tide
- Louisville Cardinals
- Nebraska Cornhuskers
Because Coach Staley likes a tough schedule, the road won’t get much easier for South Carolina. Over the next few days, the Gamecocks will return home before traveling to Florida for the Fort Myers Tip-Off. There, USC will play the No. 15 Iowa State Cyclones and then the 4-1 Purdue Boilermakers. The ISU game (1:30 p.m. on Thursday) will be on Fox and the FoxSports app, while the Purdue matchup (11:00 a.m. on Saturday) will be on the Women’s Sports Network.
Following the Fort Myers Tip-Off, South Carolina has two more ranked matchups. The Gamecocks will play the No. 13 Duke Blue Devils in the SEC/ACC Challenge. Then, they will travel to Fort Worth, Texas for a road contest against No. 17 TCU.
