Which teams are rising and falling after a month of women’s college hoops?
The madness continues to start the NCAA women’s basketball season, and it’s not even March yet.
A long winter awaits these programs, almost all of which will begin conference play from now until the end of the season.
With that in mind, it’s time to take another weekly look at the NCAAW landscape with a month’s worth of basketball already wrapped up. With most teams having between 8-10 games under their belts, it’s time to take a glance at the women’s college basketball landscape at the quarter-mark of the regular season.
Per usual, we’ll be looking at where the Syracuse Orange women’s basketball team stacks up compared to the rest of the ACC, as well as analyzing the latest AP poll of the week. Additionally, we’ll also look at how the Orange performed this week and what’s up next on the docket for Syracuse in the next seven days.
Let’s cut right to the chase and take a look at the latest in women’s college basketball.
ACC power rankings and a look around the conference
Note: All team records include games from up to and including Monday, December 5.
Things will start to get interesting once conference play kicks off, but for now, all remains fairly calm in the world of the ACC.
As you’ll see, the biggest narrative for the ACC so far is the depth of the conference, with seven teams either landing a spot in the latest AP Poll or garnering some honorable mention consideration. If Syracuse is looking to make a push for the postseason, it appears the conference play will be extremely important once those games begin.
The Orange’s ACC debut looms on the horizon. After back-to-back easy (on paper) matchups, Syracuse will take on Wake Forest on December 18th. For Syracuse, the contest versus Demon Deacons will be an early indicator of how the Orange can fare against its conference opponents.
Here are the current ACC standings, as of Monday night.
For now, the story of the conference to begin the year has to be Louisville’s slow start to the season. After getting the honor of being the favorite team in the ACC to win the conference, the Cardinals find themselves at the bottom of the conference standings.
Outside of that, the standings look more or less what was predicted by the Blue Ribbon Panel. Specifically for Syracuse, the Orange stands in the middle of the pack.
The top of the ACC continues to impress, but some programs (especially Virginia) are playing fairly easy, non-conference opponents. The jury will still be out on how good some of these early-season starts are until conference play gets underway. That will easily weed out teams who are legit and who are just paper tigers.
Here are some notable games to watch for among the ACC teams this week:
- #7 Virginia Tech. (8-0) @ Boston College (7-3) on Wednesday evening
- Louisville (5-4) @ Kentucky (6-1) on Sunday afternoon
- Wofford (6-2) @ #8 North Carolina (6-1) on Sunday afternoon
- South Florida (8-2) @ #8 NC State on Sunday afternoon
- Florida (8-1) @ Miami (7-3) on Sunday late-afternoon
Latest changes in the AP poll
Note: AP top-25 poll information includes games from up to Monday, December 5.
This week, there isn’t much change in the standings outside of a handful of teams.
Here are where things stand, per the latest AP top-25 poll for Week #5:
After being ranked in the middle of the pack in the AP Poll last week, Louisville, Texas, and Marquette all dropped out in this week’s poll. Three teams jumped into the AP Poll after being unranked last week: Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas State.
Four of the top-nine teams in the latest poll are in the ACC, with Notre Dame moving into the top five, while Virginia Tech. and NC State both solidified their standing in the top 10.
Kansas (37 points), Marquette (30 points), and Louisville (28 points) were among the honorable mention candidates. Besides Louisville, Miami (FL), Duke, and Florida State also received consideration for the AP Top 25.
Iowa made the biggest drop of the week in the standings, falling from 10th to 16th. After a strong start, Creighton slipped from 13th to 18th in the latest poll. NC State made the biggest jump of the week, while Michigan continues its strong start at 9-0 on the season and sits at 14th after being unranked in the AP Poll to begin the season.
The Orange this week and next week
Note: All team records include games from up to and including Monday, December 5.
Syracuse (6-2) suited up for just one contest this past week, which was a thrilling road victory versus the Yale Bulldogs. The Orange defeated the Bulldogs 60-58 despite trailing for most of the game.
Syracuse will take on two teams between now and our next weekly look at the NCAAW landscape. On Thursday night, Syracuse will take on Coppin State (2-7) at the JMA Wireless Dome before facing off against Wagner (4-4) Sunday afternoon in another home contest.