South Carolina stays unanimous No. 1 in women’s AP Top 25. West Virginia in, Washington out

South Carolina remained the No. 1 team in The Associated Press women’s basketball poll on Monday.

The Gamecocks received all 36 votes from a national media panel, marking the seventh consecutive week that they’ve been No. 1. South Carolina had a run of 38 straight weeks as the top team over the previous two seasons before LSU was the preseason No. 1 this year.

With most teams having a light schedule last week ahead of the holidays, the top 10 were unchanged. UCLA, North Carolina State, Iowa and Texas followed the Gamecocks.

Southern California, LSU, Colorado, Stanford and Baylor were next.

Ohio State dropped four spots to No. 17 after losing to UCLA by six points.

BIG 12 RISING

West Virginia gave the Big 12 Conference a fifth team in the poll as the Mountaineers entered at No. 25 and Washington fell out. It’s the first appearance since 2021 for WVU. The Big 12 now has Texas, Baylor, No. 11 Kansas State, No. 23 TCU and West Virginia ranked, marking the first time since the 2021-22 season that’s happened. The Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC are the only three conferences to have every school still with a winning record.

TESTS BEFORE THE NEW YEAR

Conference play begins this week for most schools, with a trio of stellar games set for Saturday. UCLA plays USC, Colorado faces Utah and Baylor meets Texas. The next day has a key Big East matchup with Marquette visiting UConn.

HOLIDAY POLL HISTORY

This is the seventh time the poll has been released on Christmas, with the previous one coming in 2017. That year was a notable as Stanford dropped out of the rankings for the first time in 17 years. The other years were 1979, 1983, 1995, 2000 and 2006.

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AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball