At the close of one of the wildest nights of ACC upsets last month, I asked Felisha Legette-Jack why she thought the conference was so competitive top to bottom.
Syracuse’s second-year head coach delivered a candid quip on what it’s like to be a coach in such a situation.
“We call it PDL: Pissin’ down leg,” Legette-Jack said after a 79-73 win over then-No. 15 Florida State. “I’m still there [in shock]. I don’t know, I’m just trying to hold on and surviving one day at a time, one game at a time.”
Pac-12 coaches likely feel similar. The two coastal conferences experienced tumultuous weeks again in the Associated Press Top 25 with the standings shifting and reshifting nightly. There are a maximum two games left for teams before conference tournaments. For the Pac-12, it’s the last one before all but two of their teams bolt for other leagues. Stanford and Cal are heading to the ACC.
Three of the five ACC teams in the top 25 lost to unranked opponents this week. Five of the six ranked Pac-12 teams took Ls, though only two were to unranked squads. It created a lot of mini movement.
Stanford stayed at No. 3 in my ballot, because while it lost to Arizona, it happened without Cameron Brink available and the Cardinal bounced back to win at least a share of the last Pac-12 regular season championship. (The Wildcats earned some bubble points with their first Bay Area sweep since 2001.) UCLA moved up after trouncing Utah, 82-52, but the Utes were without Jenna Johnson, so the Bruins’ movement wasn’t monumental.
The largest move came courtesy of ACC action.
Duke, NC State going in opposite directions
There have been spurts of promise for Duke (18-9, 10-6) — namely an overtime loss to Stanford in November — but the Blue Devils haven’t been able to put it together. Last week, they lost to Virginia Tech and Notre Dame by a combined 13 points.
This week, they earned back-to-back Top 25 wins within four days by upending Syracuse, 58-45, at the JMA Wireless Dome where Syracuse had only lost one game prior, and crushing NC State, 69-58. Duke led by as many as 22 points in the game and lit up from 3 for a second signature win.
Duke doesn’t have a ton of signature victories, and will be dinged for bad losses to Davidson and Clemson. Defensively, the Blue Devils are one of the most impressive in the nation. They’ll be a tough out in the ACC tournament, where upsets are all but guaranteed given how this season has gone.
The Wolfpack (23-5, 11-5) were on the wrong end of a sweep last week, first losing to North Carolina, 80-70. The Tar Heels (18-10, 10-6) have been ranked, received votes last week and could are another top-30 range team tied with Duke in the ACC standings. But this isn’t when teams want to be taking losses.
NC State’s loss to Duke was its worst offensive output of the season. The Wolfpack are 1-4 when they score fewer than 63 points and three of those games have come this month. They dropped 70 against North Carolina, but it was one of their worst shooting performances. In all of those games, they’ve struggled to share the ball and tallied season-low assists. If one player isn’t going to take over, the Wolfpack need strong production and ball movement from all five starters that they didn’t have this week.
NC State, Notre Dame, Louisville and Florida State are all tied for third place at 11-5, trailing Virginia Tech (23-4, 14-2), which secured at least a share of their first regular season title, and Syracuse (23-5, 13-4), which is thriving.
When the Hokies served Syracuse its first defeat at home a month ago, guards Georgia Amoore and Cayla King said they knew it would carry more weight because of this exact scenario for all the above teams.
“If you look at it, we’re talking about tiebreaks,” Amoore said on Jan. 18. “That’s how crazy it is.”
LSU needs classic Hailey Van Lith scoring for March
Tennessee (16-10, 9-5 SEC) checked most of the boxes on how to defeat LSU (24-4, 11-3), but still fell short largely because of a standout performance from point guard Hailey Van Lith.
Van Lith scored a season-high 26 points to lead all scorers in a 75-60 win in Knoxville on Sunday. It was a one-possession game going into the fourth quarter when LSU capitalized, 27-15, despite quiet scoring days from their frontcourt of Angel Reese (11 points, 16 rebounds) and Aneesah Morrow (eight points, 13 rebounds).
It was only the second time Van Lith led the team in scoring, and the fourth time since Reese’s return to the lineup on Nov. 30 that a player other than Reese or Morrow led. Van Lith shot 50% and was 4-of-5 from beyond the arc, her best deep shooting game of the year.
Van Lith’s decision to transfer from Louisville to LSU was the talk of the offseason and, along with Morrow’s move from DePaul, placed the Tigers into collegiate “super-team” status. But Van Lith, who is playing out of position at point guard, has endured a bumpy ride. She’s averaging a career-high four assists per game, but is at or near a season-low in points (11.3 ppg), field goal percentage (39.4%), 3-point percentage (32.9%) and rebounds (2.3 rpg).
Van Lith was known for lighting up the scoreboard and coming up in clutch moments at Louisville, yet she hasn’t lived up to that in the biggest moments this year. In losses to Colorado, Auburn, South Carolina and Mississippi State, and the signature win over Virginia Tech, she averaged 8.2 points while shooting 30% overall. The 2.8 turnovers per game over the season aren’t terrible, except they’ve often come at key moments, including late in the loss to South Carolina.
As LSU goes deeper into the NCAA tournament bracket, teams are going to be increasingly able to take away Reese and Morrow, or at least limit their production. The Tigers need these types of solid performances from Van Lith to counter that game plan.
Princeton still in decent shape despite loss
Princeton held steady at No. 25 in the poll for four weeks after making its initial one-and-done appearance for Week 5 in December. Despite a 67-65 loss to Columbia on Saturday, I kept the Tigers in that final poll spot in my ballot this week.
The loss against a tough Columbia (19-5, 10-1) squad was a quality one for the Tigers (20-4, 10-1). They still have a good resume with close losses to Indiana (-9) and UCLA (-3), plus wins over Middle Tennessee, Oklahoma and Villanova in the non-conference schedule. All are in the top-40 of Her Hoop Stats’ rating and top-50 in NET. Princeton is 29 in NET, falling three spots after the loss.
Senior guard Kaitlyn Chen (15.9 ppg, 4.7 apg) and sophomore guard Madison St. Rose (14.1 ppg, 1.8 spg) lead the offense. Chen is already in the transfer portal since the Ivy doesn’t give redshirts or allow graduate students on athletic teams, and UConn is reportedly interested in adding her, CT Insider reported this week. The team ranks 28th in shooting 45.6% overall and rarely turns the ball over (15.8% turnover rate ranks 28th). A one-possession loss to a team that should also make the NCAA tournament field doesn’t change its status as one of the better teams in the country in my mind.
The loss snapped a few of Princeton’s streaks: 15 straight wins, 24 straight wins against Ivy League opponents and a 28-of-29 run against Columbia heading into the matchup. The game was a sellout at Francis S. Levien Gymnasium in New York and pulled Columbia into a tie with Princeton for the conference regular-season title.
It was Columbia’s first-ever win over an AP Top 25 ranked team and gave it a signature win for the resume, adding to a two-point win over Villanova. The Lions fell by four to Duke in their only other major non-conference matchup, which is why I didn’t swap the two Ivy schools for the final spot.
Whichever team doesn’t win the conference’s automatic bid should receive an invite to the NCAA tournament. Princeton is a lock, but Columbia is on the bubble and this win should push them into the “last four in” category. The Lions were snubbed last season despite sharing the Ivy League championship with Princeton and earning non-conference wins against Miami, UMass, Memphis and Seton Hall. They lost, 66-59, to Kansas in the 2023 WNIT championship game.
Princeton upset NC State and nearly took down Utah in the 2023 NCAA tournament.
Yahoo Sports’ AP ballot
1. South Carolina (26-0)
2. Ohio State (24-3)
3. Stanford (23-4)
4. Iowa (24-4)
5. Texas (26-3)
6. Virginia Tech (23-4)
7. UCLA (21-5)
8. Colorado (20-6)
9. USC (21-4)
10. Kansas State (23-5)
11. Oregon State (22-4)
12. UConn (24-5)
13. Indiana (22-4)
14. LSU (24-4)
15. NC State (23-5)
16. Syracuse (23-5)
17. Notre Dame (21-6)
18. Gonzaga (28-2)
19. Utah (19-8)
20. Louisville (22-7)
21. Oklahoma (207)
22. Creighton (22-4)
23. Baylor (21-6)
24. Duke (18-9)
25. Princeton (20-4)
Week 17 AP rankings
1. South Carolina
2. Ohio State
3. Texas
4. Stanford
5. Virginia Tech
6. Iowa
7. USC
8. UCLA
9. LSU
10. UConn
11. Oregon State
12. NC State
13. Colorado
14. Indiana
15. Kansas State
16. Gonzaga
17. Notre Dame
18. Utah
19. Syracuse
20. Oklahoma
21. Baylor
22. Louisville
23. Creighton
24. UNLV
25. West Virginia
