South Dakota women ranked for first time
NEW YORK — South Dakota has been on the rise since moving up to Division I in 2008.
Now the Coyotes can add an appearance in The Associated Press women’s basketball poll to their achievements.
Riding a nine-game winning streak, coach Dawn Plitzuweit’s team entered the AP Top 25 at No. 25 on Monday for the first time in school history.
“Certainly it’s an exciting day for our team and program, our fans and our university,” Plizuweit said. “It speaks volumes to the hard work our young ladies have done to get to this point. It’s certainly not the end goal of our program.”
The Coyotes (22-3), who are off to their best start as a DI school, have five consecutive 20-win seasons. The team is 74-19 in Plizuweit’s three years at the school. She took over a team that won the WNIT title in 2016.
“When you receive a ranking like this it speaks volumes to the young ladies and coaches that have been there before and what they did to build the program.” She said
The Coyotes’ first game as a ranked team will be on Saturday at Western Illinois. The team was off from practice Monday.
“Today we can celebrate it without focusing on being on the court then get back to work,” Plizuweit said. “This group is really hungry and on a mission right now to be the best they can be.”
South Dakota already has win this season over Iowa State and Missouri when the Tigers were ranked.
Notre Dame fell out of the first five for the first time in 31 weeks. The Irish were last out of the top group on Nov. 20, 2017, when they were also sixth.
Men’s Poll
The NCAA Division I Basketball Committee slated Duke as the No. 1 overall seed in its initial tournament rankings over the weekend. Voters in the AP Top 25 stuck with Tennessee as their top team.
The Vols received 40 of 64 first-place votes from a media panel in the poll released Monday, remaining ahead of Duke for fourth straight week. The No. 2 Blue Devils had 24 first-place votes.
No. 3 Gonzaga and No. 4 Virginia, the other top seeds in the NCAA’s initial rankings on Saturday, rounded out the top five with Kentucky.
Tennessee (22-1, 10-0 SEC) moved to the No. 1 spot in the AP poll after Duke (21-2, 9-1 ACC) lost to Syracuse on Jan. 14.
Duke won both of its games last week, rolling over Boston College by 25 before winning a rematch with Virginia 81-71 on Saturday.
Virginia dropped one spot from No. 3 after losing to the Blue Devils.