Another week, another top-five team stumbles. Notre Dame, previously No. 3 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll after a major win over USC, took a tumble with back-to-back losses in their Feast Week tournament showing. The only other program in the top 10 to lose last week was Oklahoma in a thrilling overtime battle against top-15 Duke.
In terms of teams rising, South Carolina bounced back from its worst loss since 2019 with a pure demolition of Iowa State, 76-36, to put shine back in voters’ eyes. And TCU secured its signature win against the Fighting Irish, though given Notre Dame’s ensuing work that now brings a few questions.
Here are three things we learned (or didn’t learn) from a cranberry jam-packed week of games.
LSU’s success runs through Flau’jae Johnson
LSU was lucky to avoid an upset at the hands of Washington in the Baha Mar Hoops first round.
“I don’t know how we won that game, because Washington really, really played good,” LSU head coach Kim Mulkey said on the broadcast, a claim repeated multiple times last week.
It’s because LSU goes as Flau’jae Johnson goes, and Johnson willed her team to stay in it, slowly chipping away at a seven-point deficit in the final three minutes. She scored or assisted on seven points, including an aggressive take through the defense to cut the deficit to one, and chased down an errant ball to avoid a backcourt violation on the final possession. Kailyn Gilbert found the ball in the scramble, scored the winning basket and secured a steal on the ensuing play to win.
Johnson, who scored 19 points despite a rough shooting day for LSU collectively, is averaging a career-high 22.3 points (10th in Division I) while shooting 54.7%, 43.2% from 3 and 85.4% from the free throw line. It’s a small sample size merely nine games into the season and without quality competition, but all are four to five percentage points better than her previous two seasons. Her 6.3 rebounds and three assists per game are also career highs. The junior captain led LSU in scoring six of nine games.
“She’s just more mature,” Mulkey said after Johnson’s 22 points against North Carolina Central on Sunday in Mulkey’s 100th win at LSU. “Each year you’re supposed to get better. It doesn’t take a coach to tell you what you need to work on. It just takes playing. And when you’re playing, you remember things from the previous year. And I just think Flau’jae has this crazy work ethic. … She’s reaping the rewards from her hard work.”
Johnson might have gone mildly under the radar in previous seasons with Angel Reese in town, but as she showed in the 2024 NCAA tournament that this is her team now and they’ll go as far as she can take them. LSU’s non-conference schedule includes Stanford on Thursday and Seton Hall on Dec. 17 before SEC play begins.
Notre Dame: What goes up, must come down
Well, this is why we don’t crown champions in November.
Notre Dame appeared to be a strong Final Four contender last week in its win over JuJu Watkins and Southern Cal (its defense was particularly impressive), but the Fighting Irish did not have a fun holiday in the Cayman Islands. They lost back-to-back games for the first time since March 2021, which was head coach Niele Ivey’s first season and the first time the program missed the NCAA tournament since 1995 (the canceled 2020 tournament excluded).
The 76-68 loss to then-No. 17 TCU was one thing. Fifth-year senior Hailey Van Lith has developed into a strong pick-and-roll guard with 6-foot-7 senior center Sedona Prince, who got the best of outsized and less experienced freshman Kate Koval in their matchup. But they followed that up with a 78-67 loss to Utah, a team playing for interim head coach Gavin Peterson after Lynne Roberts left for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks job. Koval was scoreless over the two games after heading into the tournament averaging a double-double.
Ivey said playing two games in two days against “two really good teams” with their short bench and starters in foul trouble was ultimately the difference. That’s a fair claim, but they need to limit turnovers and take smarter shots to break up opponents’ back-breaking runs.
No matter why the Irish lost and plummeted down the rankings, the impact will be felt elsewhere. USC’s loss to Notre Dame at home now looks worse. How should TCU’s win be judged if Notre Dame couldn’t handle Utah? And Utah, which lost both of its previous Power Four games by a total of six points, secured its non-conference resume builder ahead of Big 12 play.
Feast Week stars deserve more
The main dish of the week was the Ball Dawgs Classic championship game between Duke and Oklahoma. The Sooners refused to quit, climbing back from a 15-point deficit to eventual force overtime on Payton Verhulst’s 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer. The third quarter also ended on a buzzer-beater off the hands of Duke junior guard Ashlon Jackson, whose 65-foot heave pushed the Blue Devils up by seven. Verhulst had 29 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, but Reigan Richardson scored or assisted on 12 of Duke’s 15 points in overtime to win, 109-99. She scored an efficient career-high 35 points (13-of-22) with seven assists.
Unfortunately, few watched or were able to enjoy those performances the night before Thanksgiving as the game was one of the hundreds buried on FloSports. The subscription service is a pricey $30 a month and the viewing quality is comparable to the cameras set up by overzealous parents in a high school gym. The buzzer-beater by Jackson wasn’t replayed, even as the broadcast spoke in awe about it for multiple minutes. When it was replayed for viewers out of the break, the camera shot was a close-up of Jackson and didn’t show the actual ball arc.
This situation isn’t any different than years prior. It is now common for highly ranked teams to fall in tournament games as parity continues to spread and coaches build challenging non-conference schedules. What is different is the environment. Women’s basketball has never been this popular or widely discussed, as proven by the viewership numbers and a massive media rights deal for its tournament. It’s time to give greater opportunities with a quality viewing product to watch these marquee matchups.
Games of the Week: SEC/ACC Challenge
It’s the first true reminder in women’s basketball of conference realignment with the SEC/ACC Challenge matchups highlighting the Thursday schedule. A few could be previews of late NCAA tournament matchups.
Kentucky (7-0) at North Carolina (7-1), 5 p.m. ET, ESPN2 — Wildcats head coach Kenny Brooks and fifth-year point guard Georgia Amoore know the Tar Heels well after four years together at Virginia Tech. They went 8-2.
Texas (6-0) at Notre Dame (5-2), 7 p.m. ET, ESPN — This game features four All-Americans: Rori Harmon and Madison Booker (Texas), and Olivia Miles and Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame).
Ole Miss (5-2) at NC State (4-3), 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2 — NC State needs a win to boost its resume after taking losses to South Carolina (14 point margin), TCU (3) and LSU (17).
Duke (8-1) at South Carolina (7-1), 9 p.m. ET, ESPN — Two of the nation’s best in steal rate. Their top-10 Class of 2024 recruits (South Carolina’s 6-foot-3 Joyce Edwards at No. 3 and Duke’s 6-2 Toby Fournier at No. 10) will get their first looks at each other.
Stanford (7-1) at LSU (8-0), 9 p.m. ET, ESPN2 — It’s the third time in history the two programs have played. LSU is 2-0.
Official AP rankings
1. UCLA
2. UConn
3. South Carolina
4. Texas
5. LSU
6. USC
7. Maryland
8. Duke
9. TCU
10. Notre Dame
11. Oklahoma
12. Ohio State
13. Kansas State
14. Kentucky
15. West Virginia
16. North Carolina
17. Iowa
18. Ole Miss
19. Alabama
20. Iowa State
21. Illinois
22. Louisville
23. Michigan
24. Michigan State
25. Nebraska
Yahoo Sports AP ballot
1. Connecticut
2. UCLA
3. Texas
4. South Carolina
5. Maryland
6. USC
7. Duke
8. Oklahoma
9. Notre Dame
10. LSU
11. Kansas State
12. Ole Miss
13. West Virginia
14. Kentucky
15. TCU
16. Ohio State
17. North Carolina
18. Iowa State
19. Iowa
20. Nebraska
21. Illinois
22. Alabama
23. Michigan
24. NC State
25. Creighton
