We've entered the home stretch. One more week of regular-season play remains before conference tournaments begin, and the jockeying for tournament seeding has reached its height. We saw some major upsets this week, with four top 10 teams losing, including two to unranked opponents.
It will be interesting to see how that impacts the AP poll. It will also be interesting to see how the bottom of the poll looks after five of the last six teams in last week's poll lost games this week. Here's where the WBB AP Top 25 might land on Monday.
Projected AP Top 25 women's college basketball rankings
- UConn
- UCLA
- South Carolina
- Texas
- Vanderbilt
- LSU
- Oklahoma
- Michigan
- TCU
- Iowa
- Louisville
- Duke
- Ohio State
- Maryland
- Michigan State
- Baylor
- Kentucky
- West Virginia
- Ole Miss
- North Carolina
- Texas Tech
- Minnesota
- North Dakota State
- Georgia
- Alabama
Michigan's worst loss of the season
I have been convinced for weeks that Michigan had an outside shot at the title, but those beliefs took a major hit on Sunday against Iowa. The Wolverines didn't just lose to the Hawkeyes; they lost baaaaad.
Michigan had three losses to teams in the current Top 25 coming in, all by three points and all to teams currently in the top five of the poll. Losing to Iowa wasn't out of the question, but it would have been a competitive defeat that went down to the wire, right?
Nah. It was a 62-44 blowout. Michigan — which had been held below 66 points just once coming in — couldn't get anything going. Syla Swords was held to seven points on 27.3 percent shooting. Olivia Olson wasn't much better, scoring 13 on 37.5 percent shooting. The Wolverines turned the ball over 24 times, and Iowa just consistently bullied them inside with the Ava Heiden-Hannah Stuelke duo. It was a nightmare.
Michigan Points | Michigan Record |
|---|---|
70 or more | 22-0 |
Under 70 | 0-5 |
Michigan is now 0-5 when scoring fewer than 70 points in a game. That's really not a good sign for NCAA Tournament success. This team has to figure out how to win not only in close games, but in low scoring games, and it feels like it might be getting a bit too late to figure that part out.
ACC favorites both fall on Sunday
Duke was arguably the hottest team in the nation entering Sunday. Louisville's only ACC loss was to Duke. They were the class of the conference...and both lost to unranked teams that are on the tournament bubble.
Credit to Virginia and Clemson here — both teams were in need of a huge resume-boosting win to elevate their chances of earning at-large berths to the NCAA Tournament, and both got it done.
In the grand scheme of things, this probably doesn't say anything larger about Duke and Louisville. Both games were decided by two points, and both lost to teams that were trending up. I suppose you could take this as evidence that in a down year for the conference as a whole, these losses show that even the conference's best two teams have holes, but I think this says more about how hungry the bubble teams were than anything else.
Something's wrong with Tennessee
An 0-3 week will almost certainly drop Tennessee from the Top 25, even if the field of candidates to move up is slim at the moment.
Questions continue to emerge about Kim Caldwell's system — hockey-style subs, constant starting lineup changes, full-court pressure, quick shots. It worked at the mid-major level, but losing seven of the team's last nine games seems to suggest that it's not working in the SEC.
Even beyond the system concerns, there's a disconnect between Caldwell and the players. She's questioned their effort in press conferences, which just never really seems like the best way to inspire your players, you know? And ultimately, if things are going this awry, isn't it on the coach to figure out how to readjust things?
Because here's the thing: the Volunteers have talent. A roster with the quartet of Talaysia Cooper, Zee Spearman, Janiah Barker and Mia Pauldo should be better than 16-10 on the season. Maybe it's time to slow things down and actually look for the right shot.
Tennessee will drop from the Top 25 this week. The bigger question is if the Volunteers fall on to the bubble. Losses to Vanderbilt and LSU to end the season might be enough to do that.