SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
With only hapless Xavier to play tonight at home in Storrs, the UConn women’s basketball team has lucked out among the top four seeds in the national rankings.
In what has been a topsy-turvy wind-up, even top-ranked, undefeated South Carolina (29-0) had back-to-back struggles in topping unranked Tennessee, 73-68, and unranked Georgia, 73-63.
And on Sunday, once-beaten No. 2 Indiana (26-2) dropped an 86-85 Big Ten buzzer-beater on an Iowa 3-pointer by leading scorer Caitlin Clark. But No. 6 Iowa (23-6) had been run over 96-68 by No. 7 Maryland (24-5) before that.
This past week, No. 3 Stanford (27-4) defeated No. 17 UCLA, 71-66, No. 21 Colorado, 73-62, but then lost to No. 8 Utah, 84-78.
And so UConn, now 25-5, followed up a 69-64 loss to unranked St. John’s, but then got past unranked DePaul, 72-69.
Which has Monday’s current national rankings still in place — South Carolina, Indiana, Stanford, UConn.
No. 5, then once-beaten LSU (27-2) with the huge loss to South Carolina, could possibly have moved up a spot, but didn’t, not even after winning over unranked Vanderbilt, 82-63, and unranked Mississippi State, 74-59.
Iowa answered back from the huge setback at Maryland to take down Indiana, and Maryland remained behind the Hawkeyes by also edging No. 14 Ohio State, 76-74.
One publication said No. 8 Utah (25-3) should be a top four seed after first defeating unranked California,101-76, and then Stanford.
To round out the top 10, there’s No. 9 Virginia Tech (24-4) and No. 10 Notre Dame (24-4).
The top 25 follows with Duke (24-5), Michigan (21-8), Oklahoma (22-5), Arizona (21-8), Villanova (25-5), Ohio State (23-6), UCLA (22-8), Gonzaga (27-32), Texas (22-7), Iowa State (18-8), Colorado (22-7), North Carolina (20-9), Florida State (23-8), UNLV (27-2), Illinois (21-8), and Middle Tennessee (23-4).
