The women's college basketball season has officially come to an end, and it was one to remember. It ended with Paige Bueckers leading the UConn Huskies to a national championship after they managed to get revenge against the South Carolina Gamecocks.
With the season now officially over, the final AP Top 25 rankings for women's college basketball were revealed on Monday. Unsurprisingly, the Huskies find themselves at the top of the food chain coming off their national championship win. The order of the teams directly behind UConn, though, is hard to justify.
The USC Trojans being ranked No. 5 overall feels particularly appalling and disrespectful to what they were able to accomplish.
Final women's college basketball rankings disrespect Lindsay Gottlieb and USC
- UConn Huskies
- South Carolina Gamecocks
- UCLA Bruins
- Texas Longhorns
- USC Trojans
While there's no shame in being considered one of the five best teams in the country after the season, the Trojans being ranked as low as they are is really tough to get behind.
The Trojans had an unbelievable year, going 31-4 overall and 17-1 in Big Ten play. They were rewarded for their outstanding regular season by being given the No. 1 seed in the Spokane Regional 4. In fact, they were given the No. 1 seed in the same conference UConn was in. The Huskies were the No. 2 seed.
Expectations were high for the Trojans given their high seed and sure enough, they sleepwalked their way to the Round of 32. In that second-round game, though, star guard JuJu Watkins suffered what wound up being a season-ending ACL tear. Trojans fans had hoped that the injury wasn't quite as bad as it had looked when it first happened, but she was ruled out for the remainder of the NCAA Tournament.
The Trojans wound up surviving longer than anyone could've realistically expected without Watkins, one of the best college basketball players in the country. They took care of business against No. 9 Mississippi State, survived a scare against No. 5 Kansas State to advance to the Elite Eight, and played the eventual champion Huskies really tough with a trip to the Final Four on the line. They wound up losing by double figures, but the Trojans were within five points at the end of three quarters. They had a legitimate shot of defeating the eventual champions even without their best player.
The game might've been decided by double figures at the final buzzer, but USC was the only team that the Huskies did not beat by 20 points or more. In fact, the Huskies wound up defeating two teams that ranked higher than USC on the AP poll by over 20 points to finish off their NCAA Tournament win.
The Trojans being ranked below teams that fared worse against UConn than they did even without their best player is a slap in the face. Had the Trojans had Watkins, perhaps they would've been the ones cutting down the nets. The supporting cast certainly played well enough without her to warrant that debate being had.
In no way should the Trojans be ranked ahead of UConn given the fact that they did just win it all, but considering what they were able to accomplish without Watkins and how well they played all year with her, being ranked as low as they are in the final AP poll does not make much sense. It is nothing but disrespectful for the job Lindsay Gottlieb did with this program.
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