Women’s college basketball power rankings: What’s troubling Duke on road trips?

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One of the difficulties of evaluating teams during the nonconference portion of the season is that many top programs load their schedules with home games. Sure, multi-team events like the Thanksgiving Feast Week tournaments feature games on neutral sites, but the ratio of home games to true road contests is heavily tilted toward the former. And road games truly reveal the mettle of the best teams in the country.

USC proved itself in a boisterous environment in Hartford, Conn., staving off a late rally from UConn to extend its seven-game winning streak. TCU continues to rebound from its blowout loss to South Carolina, starting Big 12 play with a bang at UCF. LSU had a pseudo road game, traveling to Aneesah Morrow’s hometown of Chicago and winning convincingly at UIC to remain one of Division I’s eight undefeated teams.

Other squads fell short in their away tests, even against unranked opponents, and will have to sit with those results for a long time, as every team takes the week off for the holidays before conference play resumes over the weekend. Until then, let’s take stock of which teams are worth celebrating and which have been inflating their success by padding their resumes at home.

Three rising teams

UCLA’s defensive gains

Technically, the Bruins can’t rise any higher in the ranking from the top spot, but kudos to UCLA for maintaining a strong run of play despite missing Lauren Betts, the team’s fulcrum on both ends of the floor. The Bruins are a massive, athletic team that suffocates opponents regardless of who is available. Against Creighton, which gave UCLA difficulty in the second round of last season’s NCAA Tournament, the Bruins were quicker to the spot every time the Bluejays moved the ball, vaporizing openings before they appeared.

With two big guards in the starting lineup in Kiki Rice and Elina Aarnisalo, and three mobile frontcourt players, there are no mismatches to be found. Even 5-foot-4 Londynn Jones fills her role by using her speed to stay…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/women-college-basketball-power-rankings-101610284.html

Author : The Athletic

Publish date : 2024-12-23 10:16:00

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