We have a boatload of amazing match-ups this week, specifically on Thursday, and wanted to try to do as many match-up analysis as possible. Texas VS Notre Dame is really interesting to me with Notre Dame coming off of 2 losses but a big win over USC on the road and Texas having only faced an untested West Virginia team over the weekend. This will be a match up of two of the best backcourts in the country and for Notre Dame it is feeling as much like a “must win game” as a team can have in early December. 

Backcourt Match-Ups

Notre Dame: Hannah Hidalgo (23.9ppg, 3.3 apg, 4.6 spg, 6 rpg), Olivia Miles (16.7ppg, 6.4 apg, 6.9 rpg) Sonia Citron (12.7ppg, 5.5 rpb), Emma Rische 

Texas: Rori Harmon (9.4 ppg, 6.6apg, 2.7 spg), Madison Booker (16ppg, 5.7 rpg), Shay Holle (7.7 ppg), Laila Phelia 

While I think on paper, Texas has a comparable backcourt as Notre Dame, especially when you factor in their bench players, right now  Notre Dame still has no backcourt peer across the country. I do think Harmon and Booker present a unique challenge to Notre Dame though and this match up will be really fun to watch. Booker has great size and a lethal midrange shot, I imagine Citron or Prosper will get that assignment defensively. Harmon, when fully healthy, is probably one of the only guards that can match Hildago speed wise and Miles with passing but that brace is slowing her down a little so I think Notre Dame will win the battle of the backcourts. Texas really struggles shooting from outside so it will be interesting to see if Notre Dame can exploit that weakness with their famed match up zone defense. 

Frontcourt Match Ups

Notre Dame: Cassandre Prosper (8.4ppg, 4.7rpg) Kate Koval (8.4ppg, 9.9rpg), Liatu King (13.7ppg, 10.7rpg) 

Texas: Taylor Jones (11.4ppg, 5.0rpg), Aaliyah Moore(8.6ppg, 3.7rpg), Justice Carlton (10.7ppg, 4.1rpg), Kyla Oldacre (10.7 ppg, 7.1rpg) 

The heavy advantage here has to go to Texas, they have far more size and depth in the post than Notre Dame. Their game plan 100% should be to just dump it down low and overpower Notre Dame’s biggest weakness. I do think Notre Dame, outside of Koval, has quite a bit of athleticism and quickness downlow that will help defensively. It was a big reason they beat USC, King’s ability to deny Kiki the ball by fronting her and then having Koval there to clean up anything that went through. 

Overall Match-up Analysis: 

Despite Notre Dame seeming very undersized and potentially like the underdog on paper, I think Texas is an ideal match up for them. My hunch so far is that they match up well against teams that prefer to play uptempo with  one-dimensional bigs that don’t stretch the floor, which is Texas right now. Texas’ bigs aren’t going to draw Koval out of the paint on defense and the Notre Dame guards will be able to cheat and help off their man quite a bit because of the lack of overall three point shooting presence on the floor for Texas. This I think will allow Notre Dame to generate steals and play in transition rather than having to defend in the halfcourt and establish a halfcourt offense which is really their achille’s heel right now. I haven’t seen Texas enough to know who they’ll match up well against and poorly against but West Virginia and Notre Dame are built similarly (high tempo, fast guards, good outside shooting)  and West Virginia game them all they could handle. I expect a close match up with Notre Dame potentially pulling away by double digits in the 4th quarter.

Random thought but how well do you guys think Maya Moore would do as a college coach? I was hoping she wouldn’t retire and return to playing, but unfortunately she chose to retire early. I was wondering what her next step would be and coaching always seemed like a potential good fit for her. And what would be a good program? If a spot opens up, then maybe be an assistant coach at UConn, or maybe take a leap to a head coaching spot for a strong mid-major team.

There’s not much on the schedule today, but it’ll definitely start getting better tomorrow. We have four of our remaining undefeated teams playing. The one most in danger of losing is probably Stephen F. Austin, who‘s playing at Texas Tech tonight.

The rankings in the above table are from the  poll, not the AP poll.

• If you'd like to see the rest of today's Division I schedule (on ESPN), you can click here.
• You're encouraged to use this thread to discuss anything you want, not just the day's games.
• If you want a flair on this sub (a favorite team or two next to your name), comment here and ask or message the mods.

Last year, we had the opportunity to play Illinois (coached by one of our program's greatest players of all time), who was ranked at 17 (?) at the time, on their home court. Unsurprisingly, that game was a blowout. Fast forward a year later, and we had the opportunity to play them on our home court - the first time in program history a ranked school has played on our floor.

After celebrating the return of Illinois head coach, a once Canisius great who holds multiple records in program history, the few fans who were in this building had an opportunity to watch a great game. Illinois won this game 68-55, but the game was much closer than the score indicated as Canisius actually got within 5 about halfway through the 4th quarter.

Considering that we have a new head coach, a new roster (save for 3 players - one a walk on and the other two receiving little playing time previously), and a team still building chemistry, I can't help but feel impressed about how this game went. It's always a good sign when a team like that can compete with a vastly superior team (our Men's team played Maryland and was down by FORTY at the half, for comparison). They put up a better fight than last year's squad - that squad was our best team since '09!

Fun night and am looking forward to what's next!

UNI’s record may look mediocre at 4-3, but they have been playing great competition. They beat Iowa State by a solid 12 points, with their leading scorer, Maya McDermott (24ppg, 52% fg%), putting up 37 that game. Northern Iowa then played Auburn and Kansas in close games that they unfortunately ended up losing, where they ended up losing by 1 and 3 respectively. They did end up beating Pitt by 16 the next game, where the team shot 49% from the field and 65% from the three, with Kayba Laube putting up 34 points that game and going 10-15 from the three point line. UNI has a couple of tough teams still to play, with Creighton on Saturday, South Dakota State on the 14th, and Iowa on the 20th. These games will be a strong test to if they can make and succeed in the NCAA tournament!

NCAA Women's Basketball

Follow for news and interesting tidbits around the nation!

St. John's Red Storm vs. (RV) Penn State Lady Lions

Tip-Off: 7PM ET - Monday, December 2nd, 2024

Venue: Bryce Jordan Center University Park, PA

TV: BTN

Streams: BTN+

All-Time Series: Penn State Leads 2-0

Last Meeting: Penn State 69-53

First NET rankings for the 2024-2025 season came out today! Through games of December 1.

Michigan St and Vandy are higher than I was expecting. Them and TCU at #5 might be the real surprises so far.

​Top 16

1. South Carolina
2. Texas
3. UCLA
4. ​UConn
5. TCU
6. Michigan St
7. Vanderbilt
8. LSU
9. Duke
10. West Virginia
11. Kansas St
12. Ohio St
13. Notre Dame
14. USC
15. Maryland
16. Oklahoma

https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-women/d1/ncaa-womens-basketball-net-rankings

Hi! There are barely any games today. Only ten (10) games involve Division I teams. Luckily for us, some of those teams are getting votes in our sub's user poll (which by the way you should vote in - anyone can vote). Also luckily for us (unless you're a Big East fan), we are basically DONE with FloSports for the season! Reminder to cancel your subscription if you haven't. In the meantime, here's what to watch - the best game is most certainly St. John's vs. PSU:

• The rankings in the above table are from the r/NCAAW poll, not the AP poll.
• If you'd like to see the rest of today's Division I schedule (via ESPN), you can click here.
• You're encouraged to use this thread to discuss anything you want, not just the day's games.
• If you want a flair on this sub (a favorite team or two next to your name), comment here and ask or message the mods.

This is not the main NCAAW user ballot, for that ballot go here. The link to vote for this poll is at the bottom of this post.

This poll features the top 20 weekly rankings of all teams excluding those from the ACC, B10, B12, BE & SEC. While the future of the P12 is sorted out, Oregon St and Washington St are also now eligible on ballots, at least for 2024-25, while they are in the WCC.

The "+" in this poll's name is a nod to the varied usage of the term "mid-major", as there are teams in this poll sometimes discussed as outliers, high or low majors etc. and the scope of this poll includes ALL teams outside of the 5 conferences mentioned above. Mid-Major is not an official term used by the NCAA and is not interpreted the same by all. The primary purpose of this poll is for starting conversations about the teams themselves, not the concept of a mid-major. Remember have fun and be courteous to others!

After asking around with some folks who voted last season we are trialing Top 20 rankings, up from 15. If the increase becomes too challenging for voters who have wanted to participate in the past, we may revert back to 15 next season, or if it's a precipitous drop off in participation, sooner if necessary.

This poll utilizes a drop down menu that abbreviates many teams with geographic/compass directions. For example: C. Arkansas for Central Arkansas & W. Carolina for Western Carolina. Some teams won't have these abbreviations and a small number of team names may vary on different websites compared to the ballot list, but hopefully it should be pretty straightforward. If there’s any confusion please feel free to contact me.

Expect for the foreseeable future this will be free to all voters, no application required, just like the main NCAAW user poll. User names are required for submitting ballots, in case any follow up is required, but ballots will be anonymous and not shared with the results for the time being.

I don’t anticipate there to be many voters here that don’t already participate in the main NCAAW user poll. However, if this would be the first poll for any voters and you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section.

Google form link to vote:

https://forms.gle/M4Amy1C61FGUidn68

Like the main user poll:

The poll will lock today, December 2nd, at 10 PM ET. And, please only take into consideration all games through the end of Sunday, December 1st, when filling out this ballot.

This week's ballot box for the Top 25 poll is officially open. I’m not sure how many were able to watch the “game of the day” last night, but it seemed to be a good one. At least this week, we’ll get a number of great matchups on national TV. Now it’s time to get those ballots together and factor in all last week’s results to form your new Top 25.

CLICK HERE to cast your ballot. We’ll close the poll down tonight at 10pm (EST). PLEASE remember to not factor in today's games with your ballot. Those games should be considered for next week’s poll.

Week 4

• Preseason
• Week 2
• Week 3
• MBB Version
• Football Version

This is a series I've been doing on /r/CollegeBasketball and /r/CFB for quite a while now, and I'm doing for WBB for the first time. The post attempts to visualize consistency between voters in the AP Poll in a single image. Additionally it sorts each AP voter by similarity to the group. Notably, this is not a measure of how "good" a voter is, just how consistent they are with the group. Especially preseason, having a diversity of opinions and ranking styles is advantageous to having a true consensus poll. Polls tend to coalesce towards each other as the season goes on.

The AP Poll site issues continue. This graphic shows ballots from the 29 voters I was able to get. 4 do not show up on the AP Poll site: Carl Adamec, Joe Vozzelli, Mark Story, and one unknown voter who joined the poll this week but whose poll has not been published. Carl Adamec independently shared his ballot, so I was able to include it, but the other 3 just aren't here. I've asked the AP Poll and the voters for more information, but given the holiday I don't blame them for not triaging this issue this week. I do have the total votes for the 3 ballots not included here, and will share those in the comments.

Kelly Gramlich was the most consistent voter this week. Matt Dowell, Meghan McKeown, Christy Winters Scott, Marisa Ingemi, and Terrika Foster-Brasby are the 5 most consistent on the season.

Mitchell Northam was the biggest outlier again this week. Jeff Linder is the biggest outlier on the season, followed by Mitchell Northam, Percy Allen, Sabreena Merchant, and Kim Adams.

Hard to believe, but it’s officially the last month of the year. We have 12 undefeated teams putting it on the line today with two guaranteed to lose for the first time. Miami hosts Quinnipiac for the Miami Thanksgiving Tournament Championship and then, #5 Texas takes on #11 West Virginia in the title game of the Gulf Coast Showcase.

The rankings in the above table are from the  poll, not the AP poll.

• If you'd like to see the rest of today's Division I schedule (on ESPN), you can click here.
• You're encouraged to use this thread to discuss anything you want, not just the day's games.
• If you want a flair on this sub (a favorite team or two next to your name), comment here and ask or message the mods.

Weird week for the Utes, shot horribly and lost to an unranked but really solid Mississippi State Team (RV), then got one of the best wins in program history. ND clearly decimated by injury, 7 player rotation on 1 day turnaround.

Why is no one talking about this? After halftime, USC came out with guns blazing and scored 37 points in the 3rd quarter. But St. Louis really held USC back quite a bit… especially in the second quarter. If a team with more height and a deeper bench can take notes on this, then USC might be cooked. What do you all think?

December 5th is gonna have some crazy matchups! This is because we have the ACC vs SEC matchups I believe.

Kentucky vs North Carolina

Texas vs Notre Dame

Ole Miss vs NC State

Duke vs South Carolina

Stanford vs LSU

Cal vs Alabama

As November draws to a close, we've got a few fun matchups today. The Multi-Team Events and Tournaments are fizzling out but that doesn't mean we don't have plenty of action to look forward to this weekend! There are teams looking to bounce back (Notre Dame, Utah, Northern Iowa, Iowa State, Ole Miss), teams looking to get ranked (Michigan, Florida State, Auburn, Virginia Tech), and teams looking to build on great starts (Texas, TCU, Maryland, UCLA, West Virginia), and more! Relax and enjoy the day.

• The rankings in the above table are from the r/NCAAW poll, not the AP poll.
• If you'd like to see the rest of today's Division I schedule (via ESPN), you can click here.
• You're encouraged to use this thread to discuss anything you want, not just the day's games.
• If you want a flair on this sub (a favorite team or two next to your name), comment here and ask or message the mods.