The opening week of the 2025-26 women’s college basketball season is in the books. Fans and media members don’t have to predict and project any longer — we finally have some real games to reflect on and some hard data to look at.
AP Top 25 Poll: SEC team still tops one voter’s women’s college basketball ballot
South Carolina still tops Mitchell Northam’s AP Top 25 ballot, while USC, Oklahoma State and Kansas State all climbed.
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Mitchell Northam is a Senior Writer for SB Nation, covering women’s college sports at Breakaway.
There wasn’t many ranked-on-ranked matchups in Week One, but the few that we were presented with were pretty exciting. N.C. State was the only preseason AP Top 25 team to open its season with two fellow ranked opponents, and the Wolfpack got mixed results. They topped then-ranked No. 8 Tennessee in Greensboro thanks to Zam Jones’ heroics, but then on Sunday in Charlotte saw their 11-point lead against No. 18 USC collapse. The latter result said more about what the Trojans are than what the Wolfpack aren’t. USC should still be considered as a team capable of contending, even without JuJu Watkins.
Elsewhere on Tobacco Road, Duke was upset in Paris by Baylor behind a strong effort from Taliah Scott. Until highly touted freshman Emily Skinner enters this Blue Devils’ lineup, there’s reason to be concerned about Duke’s offense.
In other ranked-on-ranked matchups, Texas comfortably beat Richmond, and UConn easily pulled away from Louisville in Annapolis.
Here’s what my AP Top 25 ballot looks like after Week One of the season…
Just missed: Louisville, Richmond, Michigan State, Princeton, Ohio State
25. Fairfield
24. Stanford
23. Vanderbilt
22. Notre Dame
21. Iowa
20. Ole Miss
19. Michigan
18. Kansas State
17. TCU
16. Maryland
15. Iowa State
14. Oklahoma State
13. Duke
12. Kentucky
11. Baylor
10. Tennessee
9. North Carolina
8. N.C. State
7. Texas
6. Oklahoma
5. USC
4. UCLA
3. LSU
2. UConn
1. South Carolina
A few thoughts and takeaways
- I was one of the handful of people to vote South Carolina No. 1 in the AP Preseason Poll and I’m sticking with it until the Gamecocks prove to be unworthy of it. I went and watched Dawn Staley’s team open their season at home against Grand Canyon, and while they don’t have their typical dominant center, they do have three elite guards. The Gamecocks are going to be just fine.
- USC checked in at No. 8 in my preseason poll, and my suspicions about the Trojans proved to be true: They’re going to be alright without JuJu Watkins. Jazzy Davidson and Kennedy Smith are promising young talents and Londynn Jones provides the veteran leadership they need in the backcourt. We’ll learn more about Lindsay Gottlieb’s team when they host South Carolina this weekend, but their victory over N.C. State in Charlotte was impressive.
- I wanted to rank Oklahoma State even higher, but the fact is — in my best Paul Finebaum caller voice — the Cowgirls ain’t played nobody yet. Still, they’re 4-0, shooting the lights out of the ball, and newcomers like Lena Girardi, Haleigh Timmer and Amari Whiting are already making big impacts. Their games at St. John’s and against Miami in the Cayman Islands later this month are worth paying attention to.
- Kansas State is another Big 12 team worth monitoring as the Wildcats opened the year by obliterating Omaha and then pulled off a narrow road win at SMU. Taryn Sides and Nastja Claessens have led the way so far in the post-Ayoka Lee and Serena Sundell era.
- I replaced Richmond and Louisville on my ballot with Fairfield and Stanford. While the Spiders and the Cardinals can certainly work their way back into the mix, the Staggs and Cardinal just had better opening weeks. Fairfield, powered by junior road runner Meghan Andersen, notched two double-digit wins — one on the road at a Big East program, and another against a team that made the NCAA Tournament last season in Lehigh. Meanwhile, Stanford is 3-0 with an average margin of victory of 33.6 points. Through three games, freshman Lara Somfai is averaging a double-double.
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