It’s a busy week ahead in women’s basketball with a few top matchups on the schedule that may go a long way in determining conference regular season winners and top seeds in the NCAA Tournament.
The NCAA selection committee will make its first top 16 reveal before No. 4 South Carolina hosts seventh-ranked UConn. That game most likely will be the Huskies’ last chance to beat a top team and leave a strong impression on the committee. So far they’ve lost to No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 6 USC and No. 15 Tennessee.
The Gamecocks enter the game after seeing its 57-game regular season SEC winning streak end at Texas.
While the South Carolina-UConn game won’t effect conference standings, No. 1 UCLA visits USC in the first of two matchups between the schools.
The two teams are currently 1-2 in the Big Ten in their first year in the conference. While the Bruins are unbeaten, the Trojans have one conference loss after losing at Iowa on Caitlin Clark’s jersey retirement day.
This game will feature two of the top players in the country with UCLA center Lauren Betts and USC guard JuJu Watkins.
Two other top 10 teams will square off with No. 5 LSU visiting third-ranked Texas. The two teams are tied with South Carolina atop the SEC with all three of them having 10-1 records.
The Longhorns visit No. 8 Kentucky. The Wildcats earned their highest ranking in the poll since they were seventh on Dec. 8, 2015. Kentucky went out and lost at Ole Miss. The Wildcats have a difficult schedule the rest of the way in the regular season with games against No. 3 Texas, No. 5 LSU and No. 15 Tennessee at home, capped by the season finale at No. 4 South Carolina.
Ivy rankings
Columbia has won its first eight Ivy League games for the first time in school history and sits alone atop the conference standings. The Lions, whose previous best start was 7-0, have a one-game lead on Princeton and two on Harvard. Columbia next hosts Harvard. The Lions and Tigers play on Feb. 22.
NET ratings
The NCAA’s weekly NET rankings — one of the tools the selection committee uses to determine the NCAA Tournament bracket — has an unchanged top three, with South Carolina still at No. 1, followed by UConn and Texas. Despite not losing a game still, UCLA dropped to fifth behind Notre Dame. The Bruins were hurt early on by their non-conference strrength of schedule which was the lowest of the five teams.
