Women’s college basketball rankings: Notre Dame moves up, Georgia Tech’s record start

Three top-25 matchups highlight week six, with more conference play on the horizon.

Conference play is here in NCAA women’s basketball, and week six featured ranked in-conference matchups for a handful of the top-25 teams. In Chapel Hill, the surprise ACC team of the season controlled the Tar Heels, Sparty survived the Hawkeyes and the marquee matchup of the week grabbed attention, despite it missing some of its star power.

Here’s how this and more impacted the weekly AP poll.

AP top 25 women’s college basketball rankings after week six:

1. UCLA
2. South Carolina
3. Notre Dame
4. UConn
5. LSU
6. Texas
7. USC
8. Maryland
9. Duke
10. Oklahoma
11. Ohio State
12. TCU
13. Kansas State
14. West Virginia
15. Michigan State
16. Kentucky
17. Georgia Tech
18. Tennessee
19. North Carolina
20. Michigan
21. NC State
22. Iowa
23. Nebraska
24. Cal
25. Ole Miss

Others receiving votes: Alabama 51, Iowa St. 33, Illinois 28, Utah 15, Vanderbilt 14, South Dakota St. 9, Richmond 5, Creighton 4, Oklahoma St. 3, Harvard 3, Mississippi St. 1.

Georgia Tech’s Historic Season

Last week, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets made the top-25 for the first time this season, and the first time since February of 2022. Despite beating two SEC teams and a then ranked Oregon Ducks, it took a program record 10-0 start before Georgia Tech got the attention of voters.

It’s getting harder to overlook the Yellow Jackets after Sunday.

Playing in their first ACC game of the season, No. 25 Georgia Tech traveled to Chapel Hill, NC to face the No. 16 North Carolina Tar Heels.

North Carolina started strong, scoring seven of the first nine points, but the Yellow Jackets flipped a seven-point deficit into a nine-point lead before the end of the first quarter and never looked back.

The Yellow Jackets shot 56.3 percent from the floor and out rebounded the Tar Heels 15-7, with six offensive rebounds, in the first quarter, a microcosm of how Georgia Tech handled North Carolina all game.

UNC head coach Courtney Banghart tried all she could to adjust, going from man coverage to zone and increasing defensive pressure but regardless of what North Carolina did, Georgia Tech thrived, even with an injury scare to standout point guard Tonie Morgan.

In the second quarter, Morgan tried running around a screen when contact made the junior land hard on her knee, bending the knee awkwardly. Morgan was walked off the court in the second quarter and it was unsure if she’s see the court again today or even for the foreseeable future.

Freshman Dani Carnegie stepped up in her absence, scoring 22 points in the game and leading Georgia Tech with nine rebounds, playing a much more mature style of basketball for a first year player.

Fortunately for the Yellow Jackets, and unfortunately for North Carolina, Morgan returned out of the halftime locker room and played all 20 minutes of the second half. In that time, Morgan and Georgia Tech increased their lead to a game-high 23 points. In the fourth quarter, the Tar Heels tried mounting a comeback but ran out of time, falling 82-76.

Georgia Tech dominated, out rebounding the Tar Heels 41-24 with four players grabbing at least five rebounds, plus 51.7 percent shooting. Also, Morgan’s second quarter injury only seemed to motivate the guard, leading the game with 23 points on 8-of-11 shooting.

The victory not only increases an already program record start to the season but it puts Georgia Tech firmly in the conversation as a top team in the highly competitive ACC. Before full conference play starts, the Yellow Jackets have one more test this week against a ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers, this time at home.

UConn and Notre Dame in South Bend

Over the past four years, the story surrounding the UConn Huskies includes injuries. Between injuries to Paige Bueckers and Azi Fudd, UConn rarely plays at full strength and Thursday had another unfortunate chapter on the wrong night.

On Dec. 7, Fudd injured her knee in a lopsided victory over the Louisville Cardinals. While head coach Geno Auriemma didn’t say the injury would take Fudd out long term, it still meant the former No. 1 freshman recruit would miss a top-10 game against the No. 8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

That meant Bueckers and No. 1 2024 freshman recruit Sarah Strong had to carry the load against a Notre Dame team that looks fully recovered from a two-game losing streak back in late November. After defeating the No. 4 Texas Longhorns in the SEC-ACC Challenge, the Irish had a boost of confidence and momentum that was almost early in the first quarter of Thursday’s game against UConn.

Notre Dame guard Olivia Miles, who missed last season recovering from an ACL tear, suffered a hard ankle roll that took her out of the game. They still had point guard Hannah Hidalgo.

The sophomore guard had 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists, a respectable stat line any college player would love, but oh yeah that was only in the first half.

With two minutes remaining in the first quarter, UConn looked like they could overcome the Fudd absence with Strong scoring consecutive baskets to put the Huskies ahead, their first and last lead of the game.

Hidalgo responded with two three-pointers, part of a nine-point run that put the home side ahead. UConn trailed for the first time this season in the second quarter of a game and an 11-point quarter by Hidalgo increased the deficit further going into halftime.

UConn surged in the third quarter, cutting the Notre Dame lead to one point with 21 seconds remaining, enough time for Hidalgo to hit a three-point shot at the buzzer, starting a nine-point run that Miles took over the finish line in the fourth.

Returning to play 27 minutes in the win, Miles led the Irish with nine fourth quarter points and Notre Dame defeated the Huskies 79-68. Hidalgo had a career day, scoring a new personal record six shots from beyond the arc in a 29-point, 10-rebound and eight-assist game. Fellow guard Liatu King had her sixth double-double of the season with 16 points and 12 rebounds.

It’s only the second time in the historic rivalry where the Irish have three straight wins over the Huskies, and the first time since 2013.

Following the loss, Fudd was upgraded to day-to-day, but didn’t play in UConn’s 79-44 rout over the Georgetown Hoyas to start Big East play. The Huskies aren’t full in conference mode yet, welcoming the Iowa State Hawkeyes to Connecticut Tuesday.

Michigan State Comeback

Joining Georgia Tech in the record starts to the season were the Michigan State Spartans. For the third time in Spartans basketball history, men or women, head coach Robyn Fralick’s side started the season a perfect 10-0, but getting there was hardly perfect against the No. 21 Iowa Hawkeyes.

Fresh off a Cy-Hawk win over the Iowa State Cyclones on Wednesday, the Hawkeyes traveled to East Lansing, Michigan for their first Big Ten game of the season. This time, instead of Iowa State’s Audi Crooks bringing physicality in the paint, the Hawkeyes had to contend with a duo of mobile forwards in Grace VanSlooten and Julia Ayrault.

The Spartans and Hawkeyes played a first quarter that looked more like a stereotypical Big Ten football game — low scoring and physical.

Each team brought defensive intensity, resulting in 48 combined fouls in the game and four players fouling out. At the end of the first quarter there were five lead changes with the two Big Ten teams figuring out a way to pull ahead.

Iowa did just that in the second quarter. Following an 0-of-5 start for Iowa transfer guard Lucy Olsen, the former Villanova star figured out hr shot and when they began to fall, so did any kind of Michigan State momentum.

Olsen hit the final shot of the first half and a three to start the third quarter, putting the visitors up eight points early in the second half. Poor shooting plagued the Spartans, going 35.5 percent from the floor in the third quarter and nobody on Michigan State took the game into their hands, until the fourth quarter.

It wasn’t VanSlooten or Ayrault either but guard Nyla Hampton. The former Bowling Green Falcon, who played under Fralick at the MAC school until she moved to the Big Ten, came into Sunday’s ranked matchup averaging 4.6 points in her first year at Michigan State.

In the fourth quarter she scored 13 points.

Down nine points with 8:28 remaining, Michigan State went on a 14-point run, with eight of those points coming from Hampton. It swung the game into Sparty’s favor and with three minutes remaining, Michigan State had a seven point lead to protect.

Iowa went on a six-point run and had to foul the home side to slow the game down and hope for misses under the pressure of holding onto the lead. It worked with the Spartans missing three free throws in a row, with a fourth going into the hoop but waved off due to a lane violation.

Up one point, Michigan State had to stop Iowa on their final possession to win the game, and the ball went to the hands of Olsen. Under duress from Michigan State’s defense, Olsen’s shot missed and Hampton grabbed her most important rebound of the game, part of a team-leading four rebounds in the final quarter, securing the victory.

The 68-66 win wasn’t an offensive explosion for either team, but it previewed what’s setting up to be an exciting conference schedule in the Big Ten.

Other Stories of the Week

• No. 19 Tennessee scored a whopping 139 points in a 139-59 win over 0-11 NC Central. The reason it made headlines wasn’t simply due to its lopsided nature of the scoreline but the Vols hitting an NCAA record 30 three-point shots. Guard Samara Spencer set a new Tennessee school record with nine shots made from deep.
• No. 22 NC State survived against Davidson 59-57, but responded in a big way defeating the formerly ranked Louisville Cardinals 72-42 on Sunday.
• Louisville has lost all five games against top-25 opponents this season, winning each of their six games against unranked teams.