Women's college basketball rankings: Gonzaga drops to No. 20 after consecutive WCC victories (1/2/23)
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Two double-digit wins on the road weren’t enough to keep the Gonzaga women’s basketball team from falling in Monday’s Associated Press Top 25 poll.
The Zags (14-2, 4-0 WCC) dropped from No. 19 to No. 20 in the national rankings after defeating Pepperdine and LMU in Southern California.
Head coach Lisa Fortier’s group didn’t appear rusty following a seven-day break, breaking out to a 44-28 lead in the first half of Thursday’s victory over the Waves.
The 16-point advantage served as a safety cushion for the Zags, who won 77-63 despite being outscored in the second half.
Gonzaga guard Kaylynne Truong scored a team-high 26 points on 9-of-18 shooting from the field, which included six 3-pointers.
She was one of four Zags to finish in double digits, as Yvonne Ejim added 17 points, Eliza Hollingsworth had 16 and Brynna Maxwell contributed 10.
It was Ejim who led the Zags in scoring when they defeated LMU 96-51 on Saturday, tallying 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting.
Maxwell was second on the team with 22 points and went 5-for-9 from beyond the arc, improving her nation-best 3-point mark to 54.02%.
It’s unclear what provoked Gonzaga’s one-spot fall in the poll, except that their wins came against programs that are near the bottom of the West Coast Conference standings.
The Zags were leapfrogged in the rankings by the Duke Blue Devils, who were previously unranked before notching back-to-back wins over top-25 opponents last week.
The top three teams remained the same, as South Carolina topped the poll with 28 first-place votes, followed by Stanford and Ohio State.
Gonzaga was the only WCC program to receive any votes in the poll for the eighth consecutive week.
The Zags return home to play San Francisco on Thursday and Santa Clara on Saturday.
Here’s the full AP Top 25 poll for Week 9 of the 2022-23 season:
AP TOP 25 POLL
- South Carolina (28)
- Stanford 672
- Ohio State 643
- Notre Dame 614
- UConn 567
- Indiana 540
- LSU 537
- Utah 499
- Virginia Tech 440
- NC State 438
- Iowa State 402
- UCLA 367
- Maryland 344
- Michigan 339
- Arizona 325
- Iowa 244
- Oklahoma 216
- Oregon 183
- Duke 177
- Gonzaga 176
- Kansas 144
- North Carolina 127
- Baylor 110
- St. John's 105
- Creighton 48
Others receiving votes: Illinois 32, Florida State 29, Arkansas 24, Villanova 20, Middle Tennessee 12, Texas 9, Columbia 7, South Florida 7, Tennessee 2, Nebraska 1
