Women’s college basketball power rankings: How far does USC fall after upset loss?

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The calendar has turned to February, which means there is one month left of the regular season and fewer than six weeks until Selection Sunday. It is officially the home stretch. Every game takes on extra importance with dwindling opportunities remaining to beef up a team’s NCAA Tournament résumé.

For now, let’s take a look at the power conference standings as the regular-season title races come into clearer focus.

In the Big Ten, UCLA can all but wrap up its first league crown in the next 10 days with wins over Ohio State and USC. That would put the Bruins two losses ahead of their closest competitors with the tiebreaker on both.

In the ACC, NC State and Duke face each other Monday night; the victor will emerge with one loss in conference play and theoretically be the team best suited to challenge undefeated Notre Dame.

TCU and Kansas State both have one Big 12 loss, giving the winner of Wednesday’s clash a leg up on the eventual conference crown. (It’s a shame Ayoka Lee is out with a broken foot against arguably the most dominant big in the conference, Sedona Prince.)

Finally, in the SEC, South Carolina naturally sits atop the standings with an unblemished league record, but it has its toughest remaining game at Texas. The Longhorns never quite recovered from a disastrous first quarter in Columbia and need to win on their home court to stay alive in the SEC race. A Texas win would also give hope to LSU and Kentucky, each of which has one loss in conference play.

Although the work of getting into the tournament and earning a hosting seed will carry through March, this could be a decisive week for the eventual conference champs. It’s an early preview for the single elimination that awaits.

Three teams rising

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The Tigers got right back to business after losing to South Carolina, edging Texas A&M in a defensive slugfest, outlasting Oklahoma in a track meet and then meeting in the middle to comfortably take down Mississippi State — an opponent…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/women-college-basketball-power-rankings-101608091.html

Author : The Athletic

Publish date : 2025-02-03 10:16:00

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