When Marquette women’s basketball earned just one 20th place vote last week in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, it seemed that Wednesday’s contest against #2 Notre Dame would be a pivotal moment for the team and their AP votes. Win, and you probably jump back into the top 25. Lose, and that will likely cost you your lone vote.
Marquette pushed the Irish to overtime before eventually taking the L, and as expected, MU lost the faith of the voter who had them in 20th place. However, Michelle Smith of ESPNW must have liked what she saw from Carolyn Kieger’s team, as she installed Marquette as her 25th place team in the brand new AP poll.
Notre Dame stayed at #2, and they’ll stay there until either they lose or #1 Connecticut loses. Elsewhere in Marquette opponent news, Tennessee stayed steady at #7, Villanova moved up from #20 to #18, Green Bay jumped from #21 to #19, and Michigan shifted from #23 to #21.
Down in the receiving votes department with Marquette is New Mexico with four points and DePaul with one point on 25th place vote. That means all five of MU’s losses this have still come against teams earning votes in the poll. It’s a great schedule for Kieger and her team, but they came up empty in terms of wins in their five best games.
Marquette returns to action on Thursday when they kick off Big East action by hosting St. John’s at the Al McGuire Center with tipoff on FS2 scheduled for 7:30pm.
You can check out the full top 25 and every ballot right here.