Where AP voters ranked South Carolina women's basketball following second week of 2025-2026 season

On Monday, the AP top 25 dropped. South Carolina women’s basketball sat in the No. 2 spot in the rankings once again. Just as they were in the preseason poll and the first updated poll of the year, the Gamecocks were behind only the UConn Huskies, the team that also knocked them off in the title game this spring. However, USC now has three first-place votes to its credit.

All 31 AP voters included Dawn Staley’s team in their top four. 30 of them listed Carolina among the top three overall teams. All but 11 put USC in the top two. One voter placed the Gamecocks below the Texas Longhorns, indicating a lower spot for South Carolina in the SEC hierarchy.

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17 voters listed South Carolina at No. 2, and all but one of them had them behind UConn.

The one voter who slotted UCLA at No. 1 also put South Carolina at No. 2, ahead of UConn.

Three AP voters ranked the Gamecocks at the top of their ballots. Two put UConn at No. 2, but one had UCLA in that slot and UConn at No. 3.

10 voters slotted USC at No. 3 (UConn was No. 1 on all but one of those lists, with UCLA coming in at No. 2 on all of them). One voter picked USC as the No. 4 overall team in the country, putting UConn at No. 1, Texas at No. 2, and UCLA at No. 3.

Below are the South Carolina votes from the 14 total voters who put the Gamecocks somewhere other than No. 2.

No. 1: Joe Vozzelli (News-Gazette; Champagne, Illinois)
No. 1: Khristina Williams (iHeartRadio Women’s Sports; New York, New York)
No. 1: Mitchell Northam (WUNC; Chapel Hill, North Carolina)

No. 3: Alexa Philippou (ESPN; Bristol, Connecticut)
No. 3: Ben Pickman (The Athletic; New York City, New York)
No. 3: Carl Adamec (The Journal Inquirer; Manchester, Connecticut)
No. 3: Caroline Makauskas (Lexington Herald-Leader; Lexington, Kentucky)
No. 3: Eden Laase (HoopsHQ; Los Angeles, California)
No. 3: Jeff Linder (Cedar Rapids-Gazette; Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
No. 3: Madeline Kenney (NY Post; New York, New York)
No. 3: Percy Allen (Seattle Times; Seattle, Washington)
No. 3: Sabreena Merchant (The Athletic; New York City, New York)
No. 3: Sam McKewon (Omaha World-Herald; Omaha, Nebraska)

No. 4: Robert Cessna (Bryan-College Station Eagle; College Station, Texas)

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South Carolina did not move up in the AP hierarchy this week. However, the Gamecocks picked up an additional first-place vote and slid back to third on several other ballots.

In an incredible statistical and voting oddity, last week was the first time since the 2019-2020 season that South Carolina was not the No. 1 team in the country after the first week of the season.

Before next week’s poll comes out, Dawn Staley’s team will hit the court twice against two schools that are a short drive up I-77 from Columbia.

First, on Wednesday, Colonial Life Arena will host the Winthrop Eagles at 7:00 p.m. SEC Network will handle the broadcast, while the ESPN app streams the on-court action

Then, on Sunday, the Queens Royals will drive down from Charlotte to Columbia for a 2:00 p.m. That game will not be on traditional television but will stream on SEC Network+.

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