The Guru Report: Impressive History Goes to LSU and UConn With Their 1-2 Rankings in the AP Women’s Poll

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

 

Just two days after historic women’s basketball numbers were produced in gate receipts off the sellout crowd of 17,000 for WNBA Finals Game 3 in Brooklyn and the 55,000 in Iowa’s football stadium for a preseason game with DePaul, the Associated Press’ 48^th preseason poll was released Tuesday afternoon offering its on major historical notes.

 

Always targeted since the end of the Women’s Final Four that champion LSU and heavyweight UConn would be a powerful 1-2 punch at the outset of NCAA competition for 2023-24 that gets under way November 6^th, the duo’s rankings of first for the Tigers from the Bayou State and second for Geno Auriemma’s Huskies head a top five of the 25 that earned milestone moments.

 

In week 844 of the rankings that began in The Philadelphia Inquirer in the bicentennial year of November, 1976, under the headline “Move Over Guys Here Comes Another Poll,” though fate caused UConn to end incredible streaks, one has gone on through good and bad times.

 

This is the Huskies’ 545^th straight appearance, a streak that began in the preseason vote of 1993-94 and has continued 30 seasons and the first week of 31.

 

Having arrived on the scene, a decade and a half behind the powerhouse Tennessee program built by the late Pat Summitt, the Huskies have caught the Lady Vols and in a few weeks after the next poll they will own the achievement themselves and will keep extending it every week of voting for the foreseeable future.

 

This timeline has seen the accumulation of 11 NCAA titles and a slew of other achievements.

 

Meanwhile, with LSU’s No. 1 ranking, a first in the preseason vote for the Tigers, coach Kim Mulkey, at the outset of her third season since returning to her home state to revive the program becomes the first coach to have two No. 1 squads overall and in the preseason category, the other being Baylor.

 

This is Mulkey’s 399^th appearance with a team while off previous past stewardships led by the late Sue Gunter and Van Chancellor this is LSU’s 398^th appearance which is 15^th on the all-time list.

 

“Wow!” Mulkey texted back after sending her the news.

 

Mulkey is 7^th on the overall list and third on the active while Auriemma with 598 appearances third overall and second on the active behind Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer, who is at 634. 

 

When Summitt retired to battle Alzheimer’s disease she finished at 618 missing only 14 rankings in the entire poll history at that point.

 

Stanford, normally a top 10 operation, many times top 5, is starting at 15, lowest since 15 in the final poll of 2018.

 

Should the Cardinal not perform well, Auriemma, with 1,180 wins, trails VanDerveer’s record total of 1,186 by six so he could easily catch her and then the two will just keep overriding each other.

 

Third in the preseason poll is Big Ten favorite Iowa, runnerup to LSU in the title game and returning national player of the year Caitlin Clark.

 

Fourth and fifth from the PAC-12, whose demise lies at the end of the season, are UCLA and with its highest ranking —mUtah, which visits Saint Joseph’s here in Philadelphia early in the season, though the conference coaches reversed the two in their league forecasts.

 

The rest of the top 10 portion of the 25 are led by No. 6 South Carolina, which went No. 1 in the voting wire to wire last season but then was upset by Iowa in the national semifinals. Ohio State is seventh, national semifinalist Virginia Tech is eighth, Indiana is ninth and Notre Dame tenth.

 

The top 15 are rounded out by Tennessee, Ole Miss, Texas, Maryland and Stanford while the next five to make it 20 are North Carolina, Louisville, Florida State, Baylor and Colorado.

 

Southern Cal, Creighton, Illinois, Washington State, and Mississippi State complete the Top 25.

 

For the first time since early last season, the power 5 leagues with the Big East monopolize the poll and if this was next season after realignment, it would be the Power Four.

 

UCLA and Southern Cal are Big Ten bound, Utah and Colorado go to the Big 12, Texas is headed to the SEC and Washington State’s fate is unknown.

 

For now the PAC-12 leads all with six reps - UCLA, Utah, Stanford, Colorado, USC and Washington State.

 

Five each are from the Big Ten (Iowa, Ohio State, Indiana, Maryland and Illinois), ACC (Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Louisville, and Florida State), and SEC (LSU, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State) while Texas and Baylor are a duo from the Big 12, the Big East has UConn and Creighton).

 

Eight teams are gone from the final poll of 2023 – Villanova T-10^th, Duke 13, Oklahoma 16, Iowa State 17, Michigan 18, Gonzaga 19, UNLV 22, and Arizona.

 

UNLV is picked to win the Mountain West, likewise Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference.

 

Some traditional teams who fell out return among the eight replacements — Ole Miss – 12 and a first ranking for coach Yolet McPhee-McCuin, Louisville – 17, Florida State 18, Baylor 19, Southern Cal 21, Creighton 22, Illinois 24, and Mississippi State, giving Sam Purcell his first ranking.

 

Tennessee, which had streaks of 82 – missing just the first ever poll, and 43, had a ten-week gap before launching the run on Feb. 17^th and lasting until Feb. 15^th, 2016, across 32 seasons. 

 

UConn has done it in 31 because there were more weeks in polling seasons at times. The record would have happened earlier had not 2020-21 started late after Covid and thus was just 17 weeks of polls.

 

After Baylor fell out last year Maryland took over second on current streaks and this is the Terrapins’ 250^th  week across 11 seasons, followed by South Carolina at 207 across nine seasonsand Stanford at 103 across four.

 

Then a big drop to Indiana at 75, Notre Dame at 36 returning after losing a long one several years ago, and LSU at 35.

 

Tennessee still leads most Top 10s at 627 to 547 off its history jump start followed by Stanford at 483 and for not much longer Summitt has the most overall rankings at one school at 618 but VanDerveer (606), who previously had coached at Ohio State, and Auriemma are closing in quickly.

 

Thanks to Michelle Watsky on the NCAA WBB communications staff of Rick Nixon, who can really handle the excel program, the Guru now has a streak index file for overall, preseason, and final polls showing each team’s best, current, top 10, top 5, and no. 1 in each category.

 

Tennessee at 45 of 48 has missed only three preseasons but two are recent and the Lady Vols missed the very first one.

 

Texas is next at 38, followed by Maryland and Stanford at 36; Connecticut at 34, and Georgia at 33, Louisiana Tech from glory days at 27, then a three-way tie of 25 among NC State, Penn State and Rutgers.

 

The current preseason poll streak leaders are Connecticut (34), Stanford (24), Baylor (20), Maryland (14), Louisville (12), and South Carolina (11).

 

Connecticut dwarfs everyone with a current preseason top 10 streak of 30.

 

Back with more notes in the next several days.