Louisville and the state of North Carolina survived unsuccessful attempts by unqualified teams to remain in the top two in the Associated Press women’s basketball poll, released on Monday.
The No. 1 Cardinals needed a basket from Dana Evans to avoid Wake Forest on Sunday, while second-placed Wolfpack had to recover from a 14-point deficit in the fourth period to defeat Virginia Tech a few hours later.
Louisville received 22 of the 30 first-place votes from a national media panel, while NC State obtained five. The two teams will face each other next Monday in a makeup of their game postponed because of problems of covid-19.
NC State was playing its first game since January 3, after the team was paused because of the coronavirus. Wolfpack still missed his star Elissa Cunane because of the virus. They hope to have it back in early February.
“We are lucky, she is not feeling so bad,” said NC coach Wes Moore.
They were not the only top teams to face tough challenges in the past few days, while third-placed UConn defended themselves then – No. 25 Tennessee and No. 4 South Carolina overcame LSU.
UCLA, which came in fifth, switched places with sixth place, Stanford, after defeating the cardinal on Friday. The ranking corresponds to the highest that the Bruins had in the last 22 years, when they were also in fifth place in 2017. Before that, they had not had such a high ranking since 1999.
The rest of the top 10 remained intact with Maryland, Texas A&M, Baylor and Arizona remaining in place. West Virginia and South Dakota State entered the vote this week at positions 24 and 25, while Iowa State and Syracuse withdrew.
Michigan lost its first game of the season last week, dropping to 12th in the poll, despite Naz Hillmon’s 50-point effort in losing to rival Ohio State. The Wolverines received worse news on Saturday night, when the entire athletic department announced that it was taking a break after several positive tests for the new variant COVID-19 that spreads at a higher rate. The Wolverines will lose at least the next four games.
Arkansas fell four places to 19th after losing 104-82 on January 18 in 4th position in South Carolina.