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Welcome to this week’s installment of our series analyzing the women’s college basketball AP Top 25 poll.
This week wasn’t as upset heavy as the week before, but that doesn’t mean that the AP voters found any more clarity. In fact, this week saw the largest average spread in the top 25 teams this season (more on that later). The obvious second tier we saw last week is no longer as apparent.
NC State, DePaul, and Gonzaga each continued their season-long climbs up the rankings, rising to their highest spots on the season. Mississippi State, Arizona State, and Iowa also reached their highest rankings this week. Northwestern, who has been receiving votes in the last four polls, finally broke through after their win at then-No. 15 Indiana, landing at No. 22.
For the second straight week, removing the outliers by discarding the highest and lowest votes for each team yields a ranking change: No. 10 UCLA, who was left off of a ballot for the first time this season, would jump ahead of No. 9 Mississippi State.
Largest Spread of the Season
We define “spread” as the number of places between a team’s highest and lowest vote. The average spread of the top 25 teams serves as a measure of variance among voters’ ballots.
After hitting its lowest mark two weeks ago, the average vote spread has increased for the second straight week to its highest value of the season at 9.64. Even excluding UCLA’s spread of 21, which is the highest single-team value of the season, the average spread would be 9.17, higher than all but the first poll of the season.
Fun Fact
Missouri State fell out of the poll this week after making an appearance for the first time since 2004, which is also the last year that Arizona was in the poll before this season.
Historical data from acrossthetimeline.com.
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