Women's ballot breakdown | Illinois back among teams receiving votes

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS TOP 25 The top 25 teams in The Associated Press womens college basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, and total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote and previous ranking.

Rk., Team Rec.

Pts.

Prev 1.

UCLA (32) 21-0 800 1 2.

South Carolina 21-1 767 2 3.

Notre Dame 19-2 737 3 4.

Texas 22-2 688 5 5.

Connecticut 21-2 661 6 6.

LSU 3-1 646 7 7.

Southern Cal 19-2 606 4 8.

Ohio State 20-1 579 8 9.

TCU 21-2 527 9 10.

Duke 17-5 494 10 11.

Kentucky 19-2 486 12 12.

Kansas State 21-2 464 11 13.

North Carolina 20-4 418 15 14.

North Carolina State 18-4 337 17 15.

Oklahoma 16-6 294 13 16.

Maryland 17-5 285 14 17.

Georgia Tech 18-4 262 20 18.

West Virginia 17-4 237 21 19.

Tennessee 16-5 235 18 20.

Michigan State 8-4 230 16 21.

California 19-4 203 19 22.

Florida State 18-4 148 25 23.

Alabama 18-5 101 22 24.

Vanderbilt 18-5 45 23 25.

Oklahoma State 18-4 33 24 Others receiving votes: Creighton 30, Baylor 24, Illinois 13, Utah 12, Mississippi 11, Michigan 7, Minnesota 6, South Dakota St.

6, Harvard 5, Columbia 2, Richmond 1.

THE NEWS-GAZETTES TOP 25 Illinois beat writer Joe Vozzelli is in his sixth season as an AP Top 25 voter.

Heres how his 13th regular-season ballot of the 2024-25 season shook out: RK., TEAM PREV.

1.

UCLA 1 2.

South Carolina 2 3.

Notre Dame 3 4.

LSU 5 5.

Texas 6 6.

Connecticut 7 7.

Ohio State 8 8.

Kentucky 14 9.

TCU 11 10.

Southern Cal 4 11.

Duke 10 12.

Kansas State 13 13.

North Carolina 15 14.

North Carolina State 19 15.

Oklahoma 12 16.

Maryland 9 17.

Tennessee 16 18.

California 20 19.

Georgia Tech 18 20.

Michigan State 17 21.

West Virginia 21 22.

Illinois NR 23.

Alabama 22 24.

Florida State 25 25.

Oklahoma State 23 Whos up Kentucky.

The Wildcats were higher on my ballot than most others.

Its easy to be impressed by the job Kenny Brooks has done in his debut season in Lexington, Ky.

Really the only bad loss on Kentuckys resume is a 61-55 loss at Texas A&M on Jan.

23.

But the Wildcats have since rebounded with three straight wins, including defeating a pair of ranked teams this past week after a home win against Alabama and a road victory on Sunday at Oklahoma.

A 95-86 win over the Sooners that saw veteran point guard Georgia Amoore drop 43 points and add eight assists in Norman, Okla.

Its put Kentucky in a tie for second place in the SEC along with Texas and LSU with those three teams a game back of first-place South Carolina.

Whos down USC.

The Trojans fell out of the top five to No.

7 on Monday for their lowest ranking since the Dec.

16 poll when USC was also the seventh-ranked team in the country following a loss to Notre Dame.

This time, the Trojans took a 76-69 defeat to unranked Iowa on Sunday at a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City (with the Hawkeyes retiring Caitlin Clarks jersey after the game and with the WNBA superstar in the building).

That USC loss snapped a 15-game winning streak and handed Lindsay Gottliebs team its first loss in Big Ten play after a 9-0 start.

Who to watch The Big Ten regular-season title race will begin to come into focus this upcoming week.

That much is clear with Ohio State set to head out west for a Los Angeles two-fer.

The Buckeyes (20-1, 9-1 Big Ten), who are tied with USC (19-2, 9-1) in second place, open with first-place UCLA (21-0, 9-0) at 8:30 p.m.

on Wednesday (Peacock) before visiting the Galen Center for an 8 p.m.

Saturday showdown with the Trojans (Fox).

Closer to home, Illinois which received votes in Mondays poll after a 66-65 upset win at Maryland finds itself in contention for the double-bye at next months Big Ten tournament, with the Illini currently in fifth place and trailing Michigan State in fourth by a game.

The top-four seeds land a double-bye directly into the quarterfinals..

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