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Welcome to our weekly series analyzing the women’s college basketball AP Top 25 poll. Every week, we look at the voters’ individual ballots and break down each team’s vote distribution.
The final poll of the decade is out, and not much has changed since last week with the top 22 teams staying put. Miami rose one spot to No. 23 while Minnesota leapfrogged Texas into No. 24 and Michigan fell out entirely. At the top of the poll, voters seem to have a bit of disagreement. That’s particularly true of Oregon State, who received five or more votes in each of the first four places.
Overall, however, voters are more in sync than ever. Defining spread as the number of places between a team’s highest vote and lowest vote, the average spread for teams in the top 25 is the lowest it’s been all season.
A Decade of Number Ones
UConn began and ended the decade in a familiar spot: No. 1. The Huskies spent more than half the decade occupying the top spot and were the No. 1 team for at least part of every season except one (2011-12 when Baylor claimed the top spot for the whole season).
Six teams rose to the top of the poll this decade. UConn and Baylor had the most weeks at No. 1 from 2010-2019 followed by South Carolina, Notre Dame, Stanford, and Oregon.
Fun Fact
This season is only the third time in the poll’s history that a third team has been ranked No. 1 before the new year. In the 2012-13 season, UConn was ranked No. 1 on New Year’s Eve - the only poll they topped that season. The 1998-99 season saw a different No. 1 team - Tennessee, Purdue, and UConn - in the each of the season’s first three polls.
Historical data from acrossthetimeline.com.
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