Women’s basketball rankings: Texas is the new No. 1 in the AP Poll, while Louisville deservedly enters

For the second week in women's college basketball, the first place team fell. In many ways, it felt like the best game of the season. Notre Dame The 19-game winning streak was snapped with double overtime by the NC State, packed with Reynolds Coliseum.

Notre Dame's loss came third in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll released Monday afternoon, but NC state was paid to rank ninth. It's the first time since 2004. At the time, Jodie Conratt's team acquired a Vic Shafer team that season led by Madison Booker and Lori Harmon and Co. At least this year it looked good to go to.

Promoted to Texas' top spot marks the first time since the 2020-21 season, where at least four teams rank first in one campaign, talking to women's college basketball equality this year It's been done. Anyone can get it, as shown on Sunday.

It's also the third consecutive week that another team has been ranked No. 1, the fifth time it has happened since 2001.

Florida And Louisville jumped in. Georgia Institute of Technology And Illinois fell.

Here is this week's complete Top 25 AP poll.

1. Texas
2. UCLA
3. Notre Dame
4. USC
5. uconn
6. South Carolina
7. LSU
8. North Carolina
9. NC status
10. TCU
11. Tennessee
12. Ohio
13. Oklahoma
14. Kansas
15. Kentucky
16. Duke
17. Baylor
18. West Virginia
19. Maryland
20. Alabama
21. Oklahoma
22. Clayton
23. Michigan
24. Florida
25. Louisville

Others who have been voted:

Georgia Tech 32, 22 South Dakota Avenue, 19 Utah, 14 Illinois, 12 Richmond, 7 California, James Madison, 5 Mississippi, 4 Iowa, 2 Harvard, 1 Fairfield.

Don't count Notre Dame yet

I didn't vote for Notre Dame No. 1 this week. Because voting in AP Top 25 votes is a weekly rating, and winners should be rewarded and losers should often be dictated.

But if you ask me who you thought was my favorite of today to win the national championship, I would still argue in favor of Notre Dame.

The NC needed a lot to go their way to defeat combat Ireland on Sunday. The Wolfpack required Zoe Brooks to play the best game of her career. They needed Asiaha James and Sanya Rivers to continue doing Asiaha James and Sanya Rivers at a high level. They needed Olivia Miles and Hannah Hidalgo to post during the worst shooting performance of the season. From the free throw line, they needed the support of one of the best home court crowds in the sport.

To mention all of this is not an attempt to distrust NC's performance and how well it worked. Wolfpack has won the incredible game behind extremely talented players and excellent coaching, but he says what it takes to beat a team like Notre Dame. What if Miles made some of the nine 3-pointers she missed? What if Brooks misses some of those free throws? What happens if this game is played on a neutral court?

You may find the answer to the latter's question within less than two weeks at the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Despite losing to NC State, Notre Dame still looks like the top candidate as the Irishman looks like the best team in the stacked meeting. They are still the only team in the nation winning at USC, Texas, UCONN and North Carolina – all with double numbers – and while NC can bet their claims in this debate, Notre Dame Still have the best security trio of countries, two of which could be the top five WNBA April draft picks.

Louisville deserves ranking

Photo: Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire by Getty Images

Cardinals has returned to AP Top 25 votes for the first time since December 2nd.

Louisville played the country's 17th toughest schedule this season. Looking out, it seemed like manager Jeff Waltz, who scheduled himself instead of delegating to assistants, but this was to try and prepare a young, new look team for the hard ACC slate. I did this intentionally. Louisville has nine freshmen on the roster this year.

And the first few months were rough. The Cards were defeated by UCLA, Kentucky, Oklahoma, UCONN and NC. However, since losing to Wolfpack in December, Walz's team has won 13 of 13 games, including a signature victory at Duke last Thursday. The Cardinals handed the Blue Devils the first home loss of the season and five steals from Jada Curry behind 24 points.

Following his victory at Florida State, it was Louisville's second consecutive victory on the road against a ranked team. It felt like the culmination of the tough scheduling that Waltz had done on non-conference slates, and prepared for his team for the Gauntlet, the ACC.

But if he could do it again, Walz would have done things differently.

“In fact, it was pretty stupid on my part,” Walz said with a laugh. “It was really stupid. And we didn't have much ball games in non-meetings where you could have an extension of the time you wanted to do earlier this year, so you're 30 years old. It wasn't like it was and everyone can play. So, that's the area I'm going to work on scheduling next year… it's called job security. Schedule too hard And that's not really smart.”

But what has been done is done, and Louisville seems better to do these difficult tests early. Despite losing to North Carolina by just four points on Sunday, the Waltz Cardinals are in a position to take the top four seed and double-by in the ACC tournament. Eight of Louisville's losses are ranked in ranked teams.

The Cardinals are again rocking to make their 16th NCAA Tournament at the helm of the Waltz season. And just in time for the insanity of March, he found a way to maximize the roster with so many new faces.

“We play really good basketball at the right time,” Waltz said. “When we were 6-5, everyone passed us off the list, but it's people who don't know much about our games. We didn't play bad schedules. Our freshman They play a lot and they're getting better and better. It's fun to see them. We took lots of punches in our mouths.”

Louisville's most consistent rookie this season is Tasiana Roberts, the only freshman in the ACC, averaging at least 13 points, three rebounds and two assists. She should make all the rookie teams at the meeting, and if Louisville dances during the madness of March second weekend, she will probably be a big reason.