Women's college basketball rankings: Projected AP Top 25 after South Carolina defeats Texas

It was a strange week in women's college basketball, with 14 losses during the week by ranked teams. Some of those came against other ranked opponents, but some — like both of No. 23 Iowa's losses — came against unranked teams.

That's led to a number of shake ups in this week's projected AP Top 25, though the top four spots remain the same. The first change comes at the fifth spot, with an undefeated team moving up a spot following a loss by the current No. 5 team.

Below is a projection of what Monday's AP Top 25 poll will look like.

Projected AP Top 25 women's college basketball rankings

1. UCLA
2. South Carolina
3. Notre Dame
4. USC
5. LSU
6. Texas
7. UConn
8. Ohio State
9. Maryland
10. Kansas State
11. TCU
12. Oklahoma
13. Kentucky
14. Duke
15. Tennessee
16. North Carolina
17. Georgia Tech
18. West Virginia
19. Alabama
20. California
21. Michigan State
22. NC State
23. Utah
24. Minnesota
25. Michigan

South Carolina takes down Texas

Sunday featured a huge matchup between a pair of top five teams as South Carolina played host to Texas. There was plenty of hype coming into the game, but the Gamecocks quickly shut that down.

Texas has been one of college basketball's better offenses this season, but anyone who's watched this program over the past few years knows that the Horns are capable of producing a couple of real stinkers at any time. This was one of them.

SC held Madison Booker to seven points on 3-for-19 shooting and held the Longhorns to just 50 points as a team, its lowest mark of the year and only the second time the team scored below 70 points all season.

No Bueckers, no problem for UConn ... yet

The Huskies have been without star guard Paige Bueckers for the last two games but it didn't end up mattering, as the team beat Xavier by 54 and Georgetown by 18.

UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said earlier in the week that Bueckers should be back from her knee sprain soon, so UConn might have gotten out of this little stretch unscathed. It helps that the team has someone as good as freshman star Sarah Strong to pick up some the slack while Bueckers is on the sidelines.

Cal is on the move

It was a strong week for the Golden Bears as the team defeated ranked NC State and a Florida State team that received the most votes of any unranked team in last week's AP Top 25 poll. The team is now 7-2 against teams with a Her Hoop Stats rating in the top 100.

Cal is winning because the team is shooting the ball well, ranking in the top 25 in both two-point and three-point field goal percentage. It's still the first half of January and Cal is just three wins from tying last year's total. The move to the ACC has been a rewarding one for the Golden Bears.

Kansas State or TCU — who's the Big 12 favorite?

TCU and Kansas State both went 2-0 this week, but the strength of Kansas State's wins is going to help the Wildcats move ahead of the Horned Frogs in the latest AP poll.

TCU beat Kansas and Texas Tech this week, both of which are good basketball teams, but K-State had one of the most impressive wins in the nation this week, dominating a ranked Utah team 71-47.

Every Kansas State win this season has been by double digits, with the lone blemish on the resume being a loss to Duke. TCU has played a few more close games and lost by 33 to South Carolina.

Honestly, it's hard to rank these teams against each other because they're both really talented basketball teams. And if I had a vote of my own in the poll, I'd have both at least a couple spots higher.

Georgia Tech's fall

One week ago, Georgia Tech was 15-0. Now, the team is 15-2, losing to Virginia Tech and Louisville this week.

The Yellowjackets already weren't getting much poll respect, sitting at No. 13, lowest of any undefeated team and behind three different two-loss teams. Now with these losses to a pair of unranked programs, Georgia Tech is set to fall. How far will the team drop? My prediction is 17th, but it wouldn't shock me if the voters drop them even more than that.

Hello, Minnesota!

With Iowa going 0-2 this week and both losses coming to unranked teams, the Hawkeyes are set to fall out of the the Top 25 again.

There are a few teams that could take their place, but Minnesota looks like the best option. The Golden Gophers sit at 16-1 on the year and have the nation's best scoring defense, giving up an average of 50.8 points per game.

Minnesota beat a really good Illinois team this week, then went on to stomp Rutgers by 26. A 19-point loss last month to Nebraska is a mark against the team, but there's no reason Minnesota shouldn't be ranked at this point.