If the first week of the women’s college basketball season is a harbinger of things to come, then we are in for an incredible 2026-27 season. The biggest story of the week was Michigan — which started the season ranked No. 5 (the team’s highest preseason ranking in program history) — quickly shooting up to the highest regular-season AP ranking in school history after a 77-66 upset of UConn vaulted the Wolverines up to No. 2.
The Huskies, meanwhile, didn’t fall far, landing at No. 4. While UConn did lose its first regular-season game since Feb. 6, 2025, Geno Auriemma’s squad bounced back nicely on Sunday with a 91-79 win over the No. 10 Iowa Hawkeyes, behind a career-high 39 points from 2026 National Player of the Year Sarah Strong. The Hawkeyes remained at the No. 10 spot, though they now share it with UCLA.
Elsewhere, JuJu Watkins also had a successful return for the USC Trojans after missing all of last season recovering from ACL surgery. The 2025 National Player of the Year is already looking like her old self; through two games, she is averaging 26.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists and shooting 46.3% from the field in 26 minutes of play per game. The Trojans remained at No. 3 in the poll after their 2-0 start and received one of the 33 first-place votes.
All the other first-place votes went to South Carolina, which got off to a great start to the season with a 101-93 win over Maryland in Paris on Monday and an 84-39 win over North Carolina on Sunday in Charlotte at the Ally Tipoff. Maryland looked so impressive in the second half of its loss to the Gamecocks that it actually rose one spot from No. 20 to No. 19, while the Tar Heels fell 11 spots to No. 23 after starting the season 0-2. In addition to the loss to South Carolina, UNC fell to Oklahoma in their season opener. Oklahoma rose seven spots to No. 14.
Here is a look at the rest of this week’s rankings.
AP Women’s Basketball Top 25 week 1 rankings
|
1 |
South Carolina |
2-0 |
823 (32) |
1 |
|
2 |
Michigan |
2-0 |
777 |
5 |
|
3 |
USC |
2-0 |
734 (1) |
3 |
|
4 |
UConn |
2-1 |
733 |
2 |
|
5 |
Duke |
2-0 |
681 |
4 |
|
6 |
Texas |
2-0 |
641 |
6 |
|
7 |
Louisville |
3-0 |
613 |
7 |
|
8 |
Vanderbilt |
2-0 |
609 |
8 |
|
9 |
LSU |
2-0 |
561 |
9 |
|
10 |
UCLA |
2-0 |
469 |
11 |
|
10 |
Iowa |
2-1 |
469 |
10 |
|
12 |
Kentucky |
3-0 |
447 |
14 |
|
13 |
Notre Dame |
2-0 |
430 |
13 |
|
14 |
Oklahoma |
2-0 |
363 |
21 |
|
15 |
TCU |
3-0 |
336 |
15 |
|
16 |
Washington |
2-0 |
314 |
16 |
|
17 |
Ohio State |
3-0 |
282 |
18 |
|
18 |
Minnesota |
2-0 |
268 |
17 |
|
19 |
Oklahoma State |
2-0 |
216 |
22 |
|
19 |
Maryland |
1-1 |
216 |
20 |
|
21 |
Ole Miss |
2-0 |
214 |
19 |
|
22 |
Illinois |
2-0 |
134 |
23 |
|
23 |
North Carolina |
0-2 |
110 |
12 |
|
24 |
West Virginia |
3-0 |
108 |
24 |
|
25 |
Nebraska |
2-0 |
44 |
NR |
Others receiving votes: Baylor (39), NC State (35), Arizona State (18), Virginia (18), Kansas (8), Michigan State (3), Fairfield (2), Colorado (2), Tennessee (1), Princeton (1)
