Final Four feel in Las Vegas: Top teams clash in women’s basketball
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Many women’s basketball eyes will be on Las Vegas this week when three of the top four teams in the country play in the Players Era Women’s Championship.
No. 2 South Carolina, No. 3 UCLA and No. 4 Texas are joined by Duke in the two-day tournament that has the feel of a Final Four.
Three of the participants reached the national semifinals last season and have a good shot at returning this year.
The Gamecocks will face the Blue Devils on Wednesday with the Longhorns playing the Bruins in the other opening-round matchup. The winners will tip off on Thursday as will the first-round losers.
“It will be a great test and we’re excited about the opportunity,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said.
He’s not too worried about the outcome as the Longhorns have a difficult nonconference schedule left before playing SEC games.
“We have three more monsters after we have these two,” he said.
The games will be played at the home of the Las Vegas Aces and the players will have the chance to earn NIL money.
The contests will serve as a chance for Duke to right itself after losing three games already to Baylor, West Virginia and South Florida.
Las Vegas isn’t the only hot spot for games this Thanksgiving week. Teams will head to Cancun, Mexico; Puerto Rico; Florida; and the Caribbean.
The only top team not playing this week is No. 1 UConn. The Huskies just wrapped up winning the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase with a narrow victory over No. 6 Michigan and a rout of Utah. Geno Auriemma’s team doesn’t play again until Sunday when it visits Xavier to open Big East play.
Struggling ACC
Duke isn’t the only ACC team that has underachieved so far. Notre Dame suffered one of its worst defeats in awhile with a 39-point loss to Michigan. N.C. State had an early win over Tennessee only to fall to Rhode Island. It was the first time that the Wolfpack have lost at home to a non-Power Five school in nearly a decade. On the positive side for the conference, Stanford has started 7-0 and has a big game against Tennessee coming up next week.
Happy anniversary to the poll
The women’s basketball Top 25 turns 50 this week as the original poll debuted in 1976 with Delta State as the No. 1 team in the country. No team has appeared in it more than Tennessee, which has been ranked for 798 weeks. Texas and Stanford are next at 646. UConn has been the top team more than anyone else appearing at No. 1 255 times.
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Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball