Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer stands atop The Associated Press women’s basketball poll with the most appearances all time, breaking a tie with the late Pat Summitt.
VanDerveer’s Cardinal remained No. 2 behind top-ranked South Carolina on Monday, giving her 619 weeks with one of her teams in the AP Top 25: 592 weeks with Stanford and 27 with Ohio State when she was in charge of that program. Summitt’s 618 weeks in the poll all came with Tennessee.
The Hall of Fame coach downplayed the achievement.
“Fortunate to be here for 36 years. We have great players and have been successful,” VanDerveer said. “I don’t pay attention to (records). People bring it up and I’m like ‘OK, great.’”
Louisville fell out of the Top 25 for the first time since 2016, a span of 127 weeks. That was the fifth longest active streak. The Cardinals (5-4) started the season ranked seventh and have struggled to find consistency this year, dropping their last two games to Ohio State and Middle Tennessee.
They are the third preseason top 10 team to fall out of the poll, joining Texas (this week) and Tennessee (last week). Before this year, only 10 preseason top 10 teams had fallen out of the rankings at some point during the year since the AP Top 25 became a writers’ poll in 1994-95.
Even more rare has been a preseason top five school dropping out. Only five teams had done that prior to this year and none before January. Tennessee was the last to do it, starting the 2015-16 season at No. 4 before falling out of the rankings Feb. 22.
Now Texas and Tennessee are both out before the New Year.
“Two factors are at play here. One of them is more parity with more good teams,” said Rebecca Lobo, the former UConn star, ESPN analyst and Top 25 voter. “The other factor at play is the transfer portal. I think those three teams all have multiple players who start who weren’t in their program a year ago. It’s a reflection that you can’t just assemble teams and right away expect them to be good. I think all those teams will in the poll by the end of the season.”
Ohio State moved up to No. 3 after, the Buckeyes’ best ranking since Nov. 30, 2009, when they also were third. Indiana and Notre Dame round out the top five.
UConn fell three spots to sixth with Virginia Tech, North Carolina, N.C. State and Iowa State finishing off the top 10 teams. The No. 7 ranking for the Hokies is the best ever for the school.
RANKED RAZORBACKS
Arkansas (10-0) vaulted into the poll at No. 21. The Razorbacks have a difficult month ahead with games against No. 18 Creighton and a tournament in San Diego that has Oregon, South Florida and Ohio State.
“I do think we know a lot about our team,” Arkansas coach Mike Neighbors said.
He was also happy his team made the poll as every sports team on campus that has played this year has been ranked, including football, men’s basketball, soccer and cross country.
“We didn’t want to be the team that stops that streak,” he said.
FALLING LOUISVILLE
The Cardinals had been ranked every week since Jan. 11, 2016. That was the same season they started the year at No. 8 before falling out on Nov. 30, the earliest a top 10 team had fallen out of the poll until last week. Things got better for Louisville as the Cardinals finished that regular season 24-6 and went 15-1 in the ACC.
HISTORIC WEEK
With Louisville, Texas and Tennessee all out of the Top 25, it marks only the second time in the poll’s history that none of those three teams were ranked. The only other time was the first-ever poll in 1976.
COMING AND GOING
Oklahoma and Kansas State also returned to the Top 25 this week, coming in at No. 23 and No. 24. Marquette dropped out after losing to Seton Hall.
THE TOP 25
1. South Carolina (29 first-place votes) 8-0
2. Stanford 10-1
3. Ohio St. 8-0
4. Indiana 9-0
5. Notre Dame 7-1
6. UConn 6-1
7. Virginia Tech 8-0
8. NC State 7-1
8. North Carolina 6-1
10. Iowa St. 6-1
11. LSU 9-0
12. Arizona 7-0
13. UCLA 8-1
14. Michigan 9-0
15. Utah 7-0
16. Iowa 6-3
17. Oregon 6-1
18. Creighton 7-1
19. Baylor 6-2
20. Maryland 7-3
21. Arkansas 10-0
22. Gonzaga 7-2
23. Oklahoma 7-1
24. Kansas St. 8-1
25. Villanova 7-2
