Women's Fastbreak On SI

South Carolina Plummets, Notre Dame Claims No. 1 in NCAA Women's Basketball Rankings

There was massive movement among top teams in the most recent AP women's basketball rankings.
Grant Young|
Apr 7, 2024; Cleveland, OH, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley speaks in a press conference after defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes in the finals of the Final Four of the womens 2024 NCAA Tournament at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Apr 7, 2024; Cleveland, OH, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley speaks in a press conference after defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes in the finals of the Final Four of the womens 2024 NCAA Tournament at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

This past week in the women's college basketball world was no doubt the most entertaining and telling week of the season to this point, and conveyed that there is no obvious pick to win the 2025 NCAA National Championship.

Several of the programs thought to be favorites to win the 2025 national title suffered defeats (albeit to other top teams). Among these are the previously undefeated UCLA Bruins, who lost to USC on February 13 after an extraordinary performance from JuJu Watkins, and the South Carolina Gamecocks, who were routed by the UConn Huskies on their home court on Sunday.

This is why the latest edition of the AP Top 25 rankings, which are released every Monday, were going to be extremely compelling. These rankings have just come out and show a ton of movement among the top teams.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have taken the No. 1 spot in the AP poll. The Texas Longhorns, who defeated No. 7 ranked LSU on Sunday, moved up one place to No. 2.

The former No. 1 ranked UCLA moved down to No. 3 after their loss to USC, as the Trojans moved up two spots to right behind them at No. 4.

No. 5 are the UConn Huskies, who moved up two places after beating South Carolina. And the Gamecocks have dropped from No. 4 last week to No. 6 this week after losing two out of their past three games.

All of these major shifts in the rankings go to show that a lot can happen before the final seeds are released for the 2025 NCAA Tournament.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.

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