Where South Carolina WBB ranks in Top 25, first NET rankings after Texas loss
South Carolina women’s basketball dropped its first game of the season last week.
Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks are 7-1 on the year after losing 66-64 to Texas in the Players Era Championship in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving.
As such, South Carolina dropped a bit in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll. Here’s where the Gamecocks sit in the rankings following their first loss of the year.
AP Top 25 update
South Carolina has moved in the AP poll for the first time this season. The Gamecocks have been No. 2 each week since the preseason poll was released.
The Gamecocks dropped to No. 3 in Monday’s poll. The Longhorns, who were ranked No. 4 last week, are now ranked No. 2 and receiving 10 first place votes after beating South Carolina and UCLA (then No. 3) last week.
This week’s top five in the AP poll is: No. 1 UConn, No. 2 Texas, No. 3 South Carolina, No. 4 UCLA and No. 5 LSU.
This is the second-consecutive season that South Carolina was ranked No. 2 and then dropped in the rankings following a loss to Texas. Last season, the Gamecocks were ranked second in the country for eight weeks before a 66-62 loss to the Longhorns in February dropped them to No. 4.
NET rankings now available
The first NET rankings of the 2025-26 season were released Monday morning.
As a refresher, the NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) rankings are a metric used to evaluate teams’ resumes for the NCAA Tournament and factors in results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses. The NET Rankings update daily.
South Carolina is currently ranked No. 6 in the seasons’ first NET rankings. This is the first time since the first women’s basketball NET rankings were released in the 2020-21 season that South Carolina is not in the top five.
The top five in Monday’s rankings are: No. 1 LSU, No. 2 UConn, No. 3 Texas, No. 4 UCLA and No. 5 Michigan.
Last season, South Carolina debuted at No. 1 in the NET rankings and never fell lower than No. 2 in the entire year.
This story was originally published December 1, 2025 at 12:00 PM.
