This past week saw the ACC-SEC Challenge take place, and the SEC came out on top by a wide margin. Out of the 16 games, the SEC teams won 13 of them. The only ACC teams to win were SMU, Syracuse and Virginia Tech, which means every ranked ACC team lost its matchup. Yikes. It continues a worrisome trend this season, which is that the ACC as a whole has fallen off a cliff. Something is wrong with one of the preeminent women's basketball conferences.
Here's my projection of what Monday's AP Top 25 poll will look like after a week that saw the SEC dominate the ACC. And remember: this isn't what my ballot would look like, but a projection of what I expect the AP poll itself to look like.
Projected AP Top 25 women's college basketball rankings
1. UConn
2. Texas
3. South Carolina
4. UCLA
5. LSU
6. Michigan
7. Maryland
8. TCU
9. Oklahoma
10. Iowa State
11. Iowa
12. USC
13. Vanderbilt
14. Baylor
15. North Carolina
16. Ole Miss
17. Kentucky
18. Tennessee
19. Notre Dame
20. Ohio State
21. Oklahoma State
22. Louisville
23. Washington
24. Nebraska
25. Michigan State
LSU proves itself
Okay, so beating Duke obviously means less right now than we thought it would mean coming into the year, but LSU deserves credit for finally playing a power conference team.
Coming into the Duke game, the Tigers were 8-0 but hadn't played a single team from a major conference. Their best opponent by Her Hoop Stats rating was Tulane, which comes in at No. 116 in that stat. Thanks to the ACC-SEC Challenge, though, the Tigers finally have a win over a "good" team.
LSU dug itself into a very early first-quarter hole, but the Tigers turned on the jets from there, outscoring Duke 31-19 in the second quarter. Six Tigers scored in double figures. Yes, it was against a disappointing 4-6 Duke team, but it was also the first time LSU has been tested at all. The Tigers passed. The next big test comes Jan. 4 against Vanderbilt, though, as LSU reverts back to a relatively easy schedule for a while.
Ole Miss has an uneven week
The good news for Ole Miss: the team beat a ranked Notre Dame team in the ACC-SEC Challenge, winning 69-62 and holding all the non-Hannah Hidalgo players on the Irish roster in check. KK Bransford, for example, scored just two points. Even Hidalgo struggled at times; she scored 28 points, but had six turnovers.
But the Rebels then dropped their next game to unranked Kansas State, losing by a point. Kaitlin Peterson, who was one of the nation's best scorers at UCF over the past two seasons, failed to make a shot, as did Latasha Lattimore, who was 0-for-7 from the floor.
I like the collection of talent that Ole Miss has, but there have been some struggles for it to all gel. Cotie McMahon is as good as we expected, if not better, but the supporting cast's ups and downs have contributed to a couple of near misses against Memphis and Wisconsin before this first loss of the season.
Louisville fought hard against South Carolina
Could the Cardinals move up despite a loss? It's possible, as Louisville played South Carolina close, falling by two points to the No. 3 team in the nation.
Louisville now has two losses to top-five teams, plus a loss to a ranked Kentucky squad. It kind of feels like this is a team with the talent to beat most teams, but the roster consistently comes up a bit short when facing the best of the best. Part of that is its struggles inside the arc on the defensive end — opponents shoot 47.3 percent from 2-point range against the Cardinals.
In a down year for the ACC, Louisville might have what it takes to emerge as the victor. We'll just have to wait and see on that.