Look, if you haven’t checked the college basketball rankings women in the last week, you’re basically walking into a different sport. Seriously. Usually, by mid-January, we’ve got a pretty good idea of who’s who, but the 2025-26 season is currently a beautiful, chaotic mess.
UConn is back at the top. Unanimous.
Geno Auriemma’s squad just grabbed all 32 first-place votes in the latest AP Poll, which honestly feels like a throwback to five years ago. But behind them? Absolute carnage. We just saw four of the top ten teams go down in a single week. If you’re trying to make sense of the bracketology right now, good luck. It’s shifting faster than a JuJu Watkins crossover.
The Week That Broke the Top Ten
People love to talk about "parity" in the women’s game, but this year it’s not just a buzzword. It’s a reality. Texas was sitting pretty at No. 2 until they ran into Kim Mulkey and LSU. That 70-65 Tigers win didn't just help LSU jump six spots to No. 6—it completely reshuffled the deck for the SEC.
Right now, the SEC is basically a gauntlet. They have nine teams in the Top 25. Five of the top seven teams in the nation are SEC schools. It’s getting ridiculous.
- South Carolina is currently No. 2, having climbed back up after a weird little slide.
- Vanderbilt is at No. 5. This is their highest ranking since like 2002. Think about that.
- Kentucky is hovering at No. 7, even after a loss to Alabama.
Honestly, the "Game of the Week" on Thursday between No. 4 Texas and No. 2 South Carolina is going to be a bloodbath. They already played once this year—Texas won by two in a Thanksgiving tournament—but Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks are playing different ball at home.
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Where Did USC Go?
This is the question everyone’s asking. USC was a lock for the top five all season. Then the wheels kind of fell off. JuJu Watkins, the heart and soul of that program, is dealing with an injury, and the Trojans have plummeted. They actually fell out of the AP Poll entirely this week.
That snapped a 51-week streak of being ranked.
It’s a harsh reminder of how fragile these college basketball rankings women can be. One rolled ankle or a bad week in the Big Ten (which also has eight or nine teams ranked depending on the day) and you’re suddenly "Receiving Votes" instead of hosting a regional.
The New Blood Stepping Up
While the blue bloods scramble, we’re seeing some familiar names return to the spotlight in weird ways.
- Notre Dame is back in at No. 23. Hannah Hidalgo is a human highlight reel, leads the country in steals, and is basically single-handedly keeping the Irish relevant while they deal with their own roster turnover.
- Illinois broke into the poll at No. 25. People forget the Illini have been lurking, but their win over Iowa (the post-Caitlin Clark era version) proved they belong.
- Texas Tech is the sleeper. They are 18-0. Read that again. They are No. 17 in the country and haven't lost a single game, yet they're still stuck behind teams with two or three losses because of "strength of schedule" arguments.
Why the NET Rankings Matter More Than the AP
If you’re a casual fan, you probably just look at the AP Top 25. But if you want to know who’s actually going to get a No. 1 seed in March, you have to look at the NET.
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As of mid-January 2026, the NET loves UConn (shocker), but it actually has UCLA at No. 2, even though the AP voters have them at No. 3. Why? Because the NET values margin of victory and "quality" losses. UCLA’s only loss was a tight one, and they’ve been blowing teams out in the Big Ten.
Then you have a team like Iowa State. They were 14-0 and looked like world-beaters. Then they lost three straight. They dropped nine spots to No. 19 in the AP. The NET is even meaner to them.
It’s brutal.
Real Talk: The Players Changing the Polls
We can’t talk about rankings without talking about the people actually putting the ball in the hoop. The Wooden Award midseason list just dropped, and it explains a lot about why certain teams are sticking.
LSU has three players on that list: Flau’jae Johnson, Mikaylah Williams, and MiLaysia Fulwiley. When you have that much talent, you can survive a shaky start to the season and still climb back to No. 6.
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And then there’s Jaloni Cambridge at Ohio State. She just dropped 28 points to upset Maryland. That single performance moved the Buckeyes up five spots to No. 14. In this era, one superstar freshman can shift the entire national landscape in 40 minutes.
What You Should Actually Watch For
Don't get too attached to the numbers next to the team names. The gap between No. 5 and No. 15 is basically non-existent right now.
If you're looking for value or just want to be the smartest person at the sports bar, keep an eye on these things:
- The Mid-Majors: Princeton and North Dakota State are the only "small" schools cracking the top 50 in the NET. They are dangerous.
- The Injury Reports: Watch USC. If JuJu comes back at 100%, they aren't a "unranked" team. They are a Final Four team in disguise.
- The Big Ten/SEC Power Struggle: Both conferences are trying to claim they are the best in America. The rankings are basically a proxy war for that argument.
The most important thing to remember about college basketball rankings women is that they are a snapshot, not a prophecy. We’ve still got two months of conference play left. Teams like UConn look safe, but as we saw with Texas and Oklahoma this week, "safe" doesn't exist in 2026.
Your Move:
Stop just checking the Top 10. Go look at the "Others Receiving Votes" and the NET rankings for teams in the 30-50 range. That’s where the NCAA Tournament upsets are currently hiding. If you’re filling out a bracket in a few months, those are the teams that will ruin your pool. Focus on teams with high "Strength of Schedule" (SOS) even if they have 4 or 5 losses—they’re battle-tested and often more dangerous than an undefeated team from a weak conference.