Women’s College Basketball Top 10, Bubble Team NET Rankings: UMN Enters Top 10

The top 25 rankings are important for understanding just who is killing it in college basketball, but we can go deeper — all the way to the bubble and beyond. The NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, is a rankings system used in Division I basketball to help figure out which teams are going to participate in March Madness. As the NCAA puts it, NET “takes into account game results, strength of schedule, game location, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses,” the latter of which is determined by placing every Division I matchup into different quadrants, ranked 1 through 4, with 1 being the strongest teams and 4 the weakest — Quads aren’t just determined by record, but also whether a game was played at home, on the road or at a neutral site. Using NET, we can get a sense of which teams are the best at a given moment, as well as which ones are on the bubble for selection in March. While updated daily by the NCAA, we’ll track changes weekly. With that, here are the top 10 women’s college basketball teams through Feb. 2, according to NET. The Top 10 10. Minnesota (previous: 13) Minnesota has been playing some great basketball since its last loss back on Jan. 18 against Washington, whether the poll wants to recognize that or not. The Golden Gophers handled Oregon, then defeated Wisconsin by 25 before 21-point and 33-point victories against Penn State and Purdue. Minnesota might not be ranked, but NET has them 10th and the Gophers are 14th in Net Rating, as well. Don’t sleep on this team. 9. Vanderbilt (previous: 7) Yes, Vanderbilt lost two games in a row after having been undefeated before that, but the opponents were South Carolina and then a very game, ranked Ole Miss team that has one of the better defenses in the country. So, a drop to 9th, but not a big drop. The Commodores rebounded against Florida and will take on No. 16 Kentucky next, then No. 11 Oklahoma. 8. Louisville (previous: 8) Louisville has been rolling in conference play, and sports an 11-0 record that has it tied with Duke for first in the ACC. While the Blue Devils should not be discounted despite their absence from this list — they still rank 14th in NET — the Cardinals have been playing like they are the team to beat in the conference. 7. Michigan State (previous: 9) Yes, Michigan State lost to Michigan, but it was a close game that went to overtime — that the two are right next to each other NET makes a whole lot of sense. Both the Wolverines and Spartans have five Quad 1 wins, and while Michigan has an additional Quad 1 loss, Michigan State lost a Quad 2 game. It all checks out. Next up for the Spartans: No. 22 Maryland, Penn State and then after the next check-in, No. 2 UCLA. 6. Michigan (previous: 6) A 28-point W against Indiana followed by an overtime victory against rival Michigan State. Pretty good week! Not good enough to move up, but the front end of the women’s top 10 is a lot less malleable than the back of the list. Michigan, by the way, takes on Nebraska on Wednesday, then Sunday has a huge showdown against No. 2 UCLA. 5. LSU (previous: 5) LSU is putting a real hurting on SEC opponents now, and in the past week defeated Arkansas by 22 and ranked Alabama by 40 — the Tigers passed the century mark against the Tide. It won’t be so easy to hit that threshold next time out, not because LSU isn’t equipped with scorers, but because the Tigers are set to face No. 4 Texas, which has the second-best defense in the country by Defensive Rating. LSU’s schedule the rest of the way is going to make up for the non-conference cupcake parade, that’s for sure. 4. South Carolina (previous: 4) A weird week for the Gamecocks, as South Carolina beat Auburn by 30, holding down its solid offense with better defense, but then it struggled to put Texas A&M away until Joyce Edwards had a huge fourth quarter. Most of the rest of the Gamecocks’ schedule is a serious test, with No. 19 Tennessee on Sunday somehow one of the easier draws left. 3. Texas (previous: 3) Texas had an extended break of 11 days, but showed no signs of rust when it trounced Florida, 88-68. The Longhorns then defeated ranked Oklahoma, 78-70, to move to 21-2 overall, with its only losses coming against South Carolina and the team they face next: LSU. 2. UCLA (previous: 2) The Bruins tore through Iowa, 88-65, which is a little wild considering the Hawkeyes were on this list at the 10 spot just last week. Iowa is now 12th, while UCLA is still 2nd. While the Bruins have 12 Quad 1 wins to UConn’s 6, the Huskies are 6-0 in Quad 2 games while UCLA hasn’t played in one and they have two additional wins on the road, as well. The quality of both teams’ opponents are pretty close, too, with UConn having played the fifth-toughest schedule in women’s D-I basketball, and UCLA the second-most difficult. At this point, the lone separator seems to be that UCLA has lost a game and UConn has not. 1. UConn (previous: 1) And not only has UConn not lost, but it found itself trailing in the second quarter of a game for the first time all season on Sunday, against Tennessee. The Huskies entered halftime tied with the Lady Vols, 42-42, and ended up winning 96-66. Tennessee has the 13th-best defense in the country by Defensive Rating, by the way, and UConn still treated the Lady Vols like it has everyone in the Big East. At least, after that initial scare, anyway. Risers and Fallers In the span of a week, some teams can see their spot in the rankings dramatically shift. Here are the five teams that rose the most in women’s college basketball in the last week… T5. Montana State, 76 to 60: Montana State recorded wins against Sacramento State and Portland State, and absolutely dominated while doing it. The Bobcats downed Sacramento State by 35 points, then trounced Portland State, 91-43. While neither team ranks as even mediocre, those are some serious margins of victory. T5. Loyola Marymount (CA): 154 to 138: Victories against Pacific and Seattle — by a combined 62 points — gave the Lions the same bump that Montana State got, for the same reasons. T5. Alcorn, 301 to 285: Not every team in the bottom-third or so was beaten by 30-40 points this past week, though! Alcorn upset Southern U — ranked 207th in NET at the start of the week — before beating Grambling State, which knocked the Lady Braves into the top 300. 2. UTRGV, 237 to 220: The Vaqueros handled Houston Christian with ease before taking down Incarnate Word in overtime, which helped get them a bit higher in the rankings and into top-225 territory instead of top-250. 1. Tennessee Tech, 219 to 198: Tennessee Tech against Little Rock was supposed to be an evenhanded matchup by NET’s accounting, but the Golden Eagles won, 72-47. They then handled Tennessee State with similar ease to climb a little further yet. …and the five that fell the furthest. T5. Incarnate Word, 238 to 253: There was the loss to the Vaqueros, but Incarnate Word also dropped a game to Texas A&M Corpus-Christi before that — the Islanders are one of the 30 or so worst teams in D-I women’s basketball this year. T5. Saint Mary’s (CA), 166 to 181: Just one game for Saint Mary’s (CA) this week, and not a great one to be haunted by, as the Gaels lost 68-42 to Portland. T5. Manhattan, 281 to 296: Manhattan has been much better in conference play than outside of it, but its recent stretch has been brutal. A loss to Quinnipiac before last week’s check in makes sense, given the Bobcats are first in MAAC, but falling to Sacred Heart and Iona right after has them under .500 in conference play now, too. 4. Fresno State, 162 to 180: Losses to Wyoming (260th in NET at the start of the week) and Air Force (242nd) are not how you want to end a month. Any month, doesn’t matter which one. T2. Eastern Illinois, 292 to 311: The Panthers lost twice, and both times by too much to ignore. UT Martin won by 16, then Southeast Missouri State won by 15, widening the gap between the three of them. T2. Austin Peay, 125 to 144: What a tough week. Austin Peay lost twice, by a combined five points, to North Florida and Jacksonville. While Jacksonville wasn’t all that far off in NET rating from Austin Peay, North Florida is only a top-300 team because of its upset dub. 1. Monmouth, 180 to 203: Losses to Drexel and Stony Brook ended Monmouth’s time as not just a top-180 team, but a top-200 one. Maybe the Hawks will be able to rebound against 321st-ranked Hofstra next time out. On the Bubble Of the 68 March Madness teams in the tournament, 31 of them are conference champions who receive automatic entry into the tournament. The other 37 spots are at-large bids. With that in mind, we will look at the teams ranked between 64-to-73 in NET each week, as those are the ones who are the most on the bubble for the tourney. 73. San Diego State (previous: 74): A win against Colorado State is a good win, but the Aztecs also won 46-44, so there’s only so much of a bump to be had. 72. Missouri (previous: 77): Missouri only played one game in the past week, against Mississippi State, but the Bulldogs came into the week ranked 34th in NET, so that was a significant W for the Tigers. 71. Auburn (previous: 67): A couple of bad losses to a really good and a really great team means Auburn headed backward, but there is only so much shame in Ole Miss and South Carolina knocking you around. 70. Gonzaga (previous: 68): The Bulldogs defeated San Francisco in OT, then closed out January with a win over Washington State. Neither is a serious threat and Gonzaga also didn’t win by that much, so, a modest jump in NET is the result. 69. Santa Clara (previous: 64): A 31-point victory over Washington State helped smooth over some of the problems a loss to Pepperdine caused. 68. Purdue (previous: 62): The Boilermakers slipped into the bubble thanks to a rough week against some excellent Big Ten competition. Michigan State is ranked No. 9 in the poll and 7th in NET, so losing 86-65 is no surprise, and then Purdue had to follow up against Minnesota, which similarly dismantled the Boilermakers. 67. Harvard (previous: 65): It’s been a great start to 2026 for Harvard, which lost to Princeton in overtime and to Columbia by just 3 points, and has otherwise come away a winner in every matchup — though, defeating Brown by just 3 points didn’t do them a favor with NET. Dartmouth, Yale and Brown again are all on tap before next week’s check-in, so the Crimson can make up for that. 66. Rice (previous: 66): Rice remains in place at 66th, and might very well need to win the American championship in order to make its way into the tourney, but given how well the Owls are doing nationally, maybe this is one of those years the conference gets an at-large bid, too. 65. George Mason (previous: 70): A five-spot jump for George Mason following wins over Davidson and Saint Louis, by 11 and 15 points, respectively. The Davidson win is especially impressive, since the Wildcats were creeping up on being a top-50 team. 64. Troy (previous: 69): Troy snuck by Marshall, 85-82, and handled business with Coastal Carolina. That’s two good wins against a top-100 opponent and one just outside of the top-125. The Trojans, by the way, are leading Division I women’s basketball in rebounds per game at 50.5