AP Top 25 Poll: After challenge vs. ACC, the SEC looks elite again in women’s basketball

Last week was another rough one for the ACC in women’s college basketball.

For the third consecutive season, the conference went head-to-head with the SEC in the annual SEC-ACC Challenge. And for a second straight year, the SEC won the majority of those matchups, this time taking 13-of-16 games.

And it wasn’t just that the SEC thoroughly beat the ACC. They did so by an average margin of victory of 13.6 points.

Duke, Miami and Florida State all lost at home by double figures. Pitt hardly resembled a Division I team as it got thrashed by Mississippi State on the road. And in a matchup of arguably the two best teams in each respective league, Texas defeated North Carolina comfortably in Austin.

To add salt to the ACC’s wounds, two teams that didn’t participate in the challenge — Wake Forest and Boston College — lost at home to mid-major programs.

It wasn’t all bad for the ACC. Syracuse, Virginia Tech and SMU won. And if the ball had bounced a different way a few times, N.C. State, Stanford and Louisville could have too. The Wolfpack lost by five points in overtime to Oklahoma, Tennessee beat the Cardinal by three points, and the Cardinals of Louisville lost at home to South Carolina by just two points.

But ultimately, resumes are about wins and losses, not what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. And right now, the ACC doesn’t have many resumes that look good. Entering Sunday’s games, just two ACC teams — North Carolina and Louisville — ranked in the top 30 of NET.

Meanwhile, the SEC had nine teams in the top 30 of NET entering Sunday.

There’s a lot of basketball left, of course, but through one month, this much is clear: The SEC still looks like the dominant conference in the sport and the ACC has some catching up to do to restore its reputation.

Here’s my AP Top 25 ballot this week…

Just missed: Michigan State, Villanova, Arizona State, Oregon, Alabama

25. Notre Dame

24. Ole Miss

23. Washington

22. USC

21. Nebraska

20. Princeton

19. Louisville

18. Ohio State

17. Tennessee

16. Oklahoma State

15. Baylor

14. Vanderbilt

13. Iowa State

12. Iowa

11. Kentucky

10. North Carolina

9. LSU

8. TCU

7. Michigan

6. Oklahoma

5. Maryland

4. UCLA

3. South Carolina

2. UConn

1. Texas