AP Top 25 Women's College Basketball Poll Ranking Predictions

With the NCAA Tournament shortly upcoming, women's college basketball shifts to overdrive, even in terms of the weekly AP poll.

Many of the top leagues have already completed their conference tournaments. But with a week ahead of selection Sunday, here's an early guess as to what the shifts of this week's Top 25 poll could be.

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Projecting AP Top 25 Women's College Basketball Rankings

After cutting down some SEC Tournament nets, Dawn Staley and Carolina could move up in the AP poll. (Photo Credit: IMAGN)

First, let's start with last week's top 25 poll.

RANK	TEAM (First Place Votes)	RECORD	POINTS	PREVIOUS RANK
1	Texas (25)	29-2	768	1
2	Southern Cal (6)	26-2	749	4
3	UConn	28-3	685	5
4	UCLA	27-2	676	2
5	South Carolina	27-3	664	6
6	Notre Dame	25-4	626	3
7	NC State	24-5	589	9
8	TCU	28-3	570	10
9	LSU	27-4	490	7
10	Oklahoma	23-6	450	13
11	Duke	23-7	436	16
12	Kentucky	22-6	405	15
13	Ohio State	24-5	397	12
14	North Carolina	25-6	386	8
15	Maryland	23-6	316	19
16	West Virginia	23-6	301	18
17	Baylor	25-6	286	17
18	Tennessee	21-8	236	11
19	Alabama	23-7	221	20
20	Kansas State	25-6	220	14
21	Oklahoma State	24-5	189	21
22	Florida State	23-7	128	24
23	Creighton	24-5	83	22
24	Michigan State	21-8	67	23
25	South Dakota State	26-3	42	NR

Now our predictions on what might change.

Teams likely falling from the Top 25

Florida State might be the most likely team to slide out of the Top 25. The Seminoles were sitting at No. 22 but followed last week's home loss to Duke with an ACC Tournament loss to No. 14 North Carolina. Yes, both teams were excellent. But consecutive losses in which FSU scored 57 and 56 points might cause them to take a Top 25 slide.

Oklahoma State could slide out of the Top 25. They sat at No. 21 in last week's rankings, but this week brought only an ugly win over unranked Texas Tech and then a 10-point loss to No. 17 Baylor. It's more likely that OSU just drops a couple spots, but they could fall farther.

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Possible top 10 shakeups

Texas will fall from the top spot after an SEC Tournament loss to South Carolina. Likewise, No. 2 USC finally took a loss to UCLA. The odds-on scenario here is that UCLA ends up as the new No. 1 with UConn and South Carolina at second and third. USC and Texas fall from 1-2 to likely 4 and 5 at this point.

Meanwhile, Duke probably moves into the top 10 after winning the ACC Tournament. LSU or Oklahoma probably grabs the final spot in the Top 10 after playing well in the SEC Tournament.

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Potential top 25 newcomers

Given the lack of obvious teams to fall out of the top 25, it might be that nobody moves up, but here are a couple of solid candidates.

Louisville was the top team out of the top 25 last week. But after a 1-1 week, it's uncertain that anybody will be clamoring for UofL to move up. The Cardinals defeated Clemson in the ACC Tournament before falling to eventual champion Duke. They're a 21-10 team that's on the cusp of the top 25 and could sneak in.

Ole Miss likewise is a team that was near the top 25. Likewise, they also had a 1-1 week. The Rebels bested Mississipi State in the SEC Tournament, but then fell to No. 1 Texas in the quarterfinals. It was a solid performance and Ole Miss could get lucky and move up into the AP Poll's top 25.

What do you think of our AP Poll top 25 picks? Share your take below in our comments section: