Huskies rise to No. 7 in rankings
With less than a week until Selection Sunday, the Uconn women’s basketball team moved up two spots in the latest AP Top 25 rankings released Monday.
The Huskies were ranked No. 7 in what will be the second-to-last poll of the season.
Uconn closed out the regular season with a 60-51 win over Xavier to claim sole possession of the Big East regular season championship. The Huskies have had a dominant start to the postseason since, defeating Georgetown, 69-39 in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals on Saturday and then securing a 81-52 victory over Marquette in the semifinals on Sunday.
On Monday night, the Huskies will compete in their 19th consecutive conference tournament title game against Villanova, which moved up to No. 10 in this week’s poll. That is the highest ranking for the Wildcats in program history.
South Carolina held steady as the undisputed No. 1 team in the country, but beyond that there was a ton of movement in the top-10 of the rankings for the second consecutive week.
Iowa moved up five spots to No. 2 after winning the Big Ten Tournament. Indiana fell one spot to No. 3 after being upset by Ohio State in the Big Ten semifinals. Virginia Tech jumped up four spots to No. 4 after winning the ACC Tournament, and Stanford jumped up one spot despite being upset by UCLA in the Pac 12 Tournament semifinals.
Rounding out the rest of the top 10 were No. 6 Maryand, No. 7 Uconn, No. 8 Utah, No. 9 LSU and No. 10 Villanova.
The Wildcats were the only other Big East team ranked, though Creighton continued to receive votes — this time earning 37.
There isn’t much consensus on where Uconn should be seeded for the NCAA Tournament.
ESPN’S Charlie Creme has kept the Huskies projected as a three-seed in his bracketology over the past week. However, most other outlets agree that the Huskies are deserving of a two-seed, including the latest projections from Just Women’s Sports and CBS Sports.
Following some upsets across the power-five conference tournaments, there has been a lot of debate in recent days about which team should take the fourth spot on the one-seed line.