[81alum]

kal moved from #7 to #6.  None of Duke, Kentucky, or kal lost any games in the last week (but kal did have a couple of close ones, including an OT game).

Kentucky did lose to South Carolina on January 24, and since they had also lost to Baylor earlier in the year, that is why they fell so far.  Plus we beat both of the teams that beat Kentucky.

Passing Duke is not quite as obvious, but fair.  Their only loss was to UConn, and by a similarly egregious amount as our loss.  They beat Cal, while we are 1-1 against Cal--so Duke should have the edge over us there.  But as has been pointed out, we have beaten a whole bunch of ranked teams while Cal is the only ranked team Duke has beaten.  They have Maryland and North Carolina coming up twice--so they could improve their strength of schedule.

I do wonder whether NCAA seeding will have anything to do with these rankings, though.  We have repeatedly seen in the women's game that other considerations can trump rankings.  Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, our team needs to prove that it can sweep two very good teams in LA and then beat Cal in Seattle--neither of which should be taken for granted.

[81alum]

kal moved from #7 to #6.  None of Duke, Kentucky, or kal lost any games in the last week (but kal did have a couple of close ones, including an OT game).

Kentucky did lose to South Carolina on January 24, and since they had also lost to Baylor earlier in the year, that is why they fell so far.  Plus we beat both of the teams that beat Kentucky.

Passing Duke is not quite as obvious, but fair.  Their only loss was to UConn, and by a similarly egregious amount as our loss.  They beat Cal, while we are 1-1 against Cal--so Duke should have the edge over us there.  But as has been pointed out, we have beaten a whole bunch of ranked teams while Cal is the only ranked team Duke has beaten.  They have Maryland and North Carolina coming up twice--so they could improve their strength of schedule.

I do wonder whether NCAA seeding will have anything to do with these rankings, though.  We have repeatedly seen in the women's game that other considerations can trump rankings.  Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, our team needs to prove that it can sweep two very good teams in LA and then beat Cal in Seattle--neither of which should be taken for granted.