Hawkeyes drop to No. 5 in AP Top 25

A week after hopes to become No. 1 were dashed, the Hawkeyes held on to a top 5 spot in The Associated Press women’s basketball poll after their first loss of the season.

Iowa, who followed up a perfect 3-0 start with a 1-1 performance in its second week, lost all of the 13 first place votes it earned in last week’s poll after dropping a game at home to Kansas State, which jumped from unranked to 16th after a 4-0 start.

With the Hawkeyes’ loss and fourth-ranked Utah dropping its first game of the season, eight of the preseason top 10 teams have lost at least once already this season.

It’s the most losses for the preseason top 10 in the first two weeks of the season in the past 20 years. In 2004-05, seven of the original top 10 lost in the first few weeks.

South Carolina scooped up the rest of the first-place votes this week to remain the No. 1 team — this time as a unanimous choice. The Gamecocks now have the second-longest streak in the poll at 209 straight weeks, behind only UConn’s streak of 567 weeks, after Maryland’s 13-year run came to an end.

The Terrapins had been ranked for 251 consecutive weeks — the second longest active streak behind No. 6 UConn — before falling out on Monday.

Maryland had been in every poll since the start of the 2010-11 season, but lost to the Huskies by 32 on Thursday before edging Syracuse on Sunday. It was the sixth-longest run ever in the AP Top 25.

UCLA moved up one spot to No. 2, the highest ranking in program history.

UCLA is the only other original member of the top 10 besides South Carolina not to lose yet. The Bruins face UConn on Friday at a tournament in the Cayman Islands.

Colorado, Stanford and Iowa rounded out the top five. It’s the Buffaloes’ best ranking since the final poll of the 1995 season when the team was No. 2.

Reigning national champion LSU was seventh. followed by USC and Virginia Tech. Utah and North Carolina State were tied at No. 10.

Mississippi State re-entered at No. 25 while Creighton joined Maryland in falling out of the poll.

MOVING ON UP

Baylor jumped up seven spots to No. 14 after knocking off Utah last week. It was the first time the Bears had beaten a top-four team since defeating No. 1 UConn in 2020. It was the first win against a top four team at home since 2019 (also UConn).

FEAST WEEK

With Thanksgiving this week, many of the top teams are headed playing in tournaments. UCLA, UConn, LSU and Virginia Tech are all in the Cayman Islands; only UCLA and UConn will play each other. Colorado and N.C. State are in the U.S. Virgin Islands and will face off on Saturday. USC is in the Bahamas for another tournament.

Ryan Jaster of Hawkeye Headquarters contributed to this report.