South Carolina women's basketball: Gamecocks top preseason AP Poll
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South Carolina topped the AP Preseason Poll for the fourth time in the past five seasons.
South Carolina got 27 of 30 first-place votes. UConn got two and Southern Cal got one. The top five is South Carolina, UConn, Southern Cal, Texas, and UCLA.
Other notable teams are LSU at 7, Iowa State at 8, NC State at 9, Oklahoma at 10, and Duke at 11. South Carolina plays each of those teams, along with no. 20 Ole Miss, no. 22 Kentucky, and no. 24 Indiana.
The Gamecocks have held the top spot in the AP Poll all but once in the past three years.
South Carolina went wire-to-wire atop the poll in 2021-22 when the Gamecocks went 35-2 and won their second national championship. In 2022-23, South Carolina was ranked no. 1 in every poll during its undefeated regular season before losing in the Final Four. That streak of 38 weeks is the second-longest streak in poll history.
The AP did not release a postseason poll, so the Gamecocks didn’t get bumped down until the 2023-24 preseason poll. By the first poll of the season, South Carolina was back at number one.
In total, the Gamecocks have been ranked first in 58 of the last 59 polls. This is the 84th time the Gamecocks have been ranked No. 1, which is third-most of any program in history.
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In September, Dawn Staley talked about whether it makes a difference starting the season ranked first.
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“Not for us in our preparation, maybe for the players in their psyches,” she said. “I don’t really ask that question. I don’t want to know. I just want to get down to the meat and potatoes of what we do. All the other peripheral stuff, I couldn’t care less. I don’t care if we’re number one. I don’t care if we’re number 10. It means nothing. Today it means nothing. What I do care about is if we’re number one at the end of the season.”
The Gamecocks have not been ranked outside the top ten since the 2018-19 season. They began that season at No. 10, fell as low as No. 25, and then finished the season at No. 15.
The last two times the Gamecocks weren’t ranked first in the preseason, they finished the year atop the polls. It happened last season and in 2019. That season, South Carolina began the season ranked eighth and finished ranked No. 1. The AP released a special postseason poll because the NCAA Tournament was canceled, and the Gamecocks claimed the top spot then.
South Carolina has been ranked in every AP poll since December 17, 2012, a stretch of 228 consecutive polls. That is the second-longest active streak and the ninth longest all-time.
The Gamecocks have been ranked in the top ten of every preseason poll since 2014 (2, 2, 4, 4, 10, 8, 1, 1, 1, 6, and now 1).
