January 22, 2024
Locked On Women’s Basketball: AP Top 25 Roundup and ACC Shakeups
By The Next
Missy Heidrick and Mitchell Northam discuss the recent AP Top 25 poll and the shakeups intensifying ACC competition
In the latest episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball, host Missy Heidrick dives into the latest ACC shakeups, after yet another crazy week in the conference. Missy is joined by Mitchell Northam, an AP Top 25 voter and ACC beat writer for The Next, to break down the ACC’s recent results and predict where things will go from here.
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“One thing we should know about college sports is that nothing should surprise us.” This statement, one of Missy’s opening notes, sets the tone for Monday night’s episode – just when one thinks they’ve seen all the shakeups one season can hand them, things get even more unpredictable. And that is the story for the AP’s NCAA Women’s Basketball Top 25 right now. Other than the relatively-consistent number one South Carolina, whose top slot is “hard to argue with,” says Mitchell, the remaining teams in the rankings can switch up on a rapid clip. The two deepest conferences within that Top 25, says Mitchell, are the ACC and the Pac-12, and in the former half of the podcast, Missy and Mitchell breakdown the Atlantic Coast Conference’s recent results together.
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Mitchell opens up the ACC discussion by explaining that, while it’s no surprise to see North Carolina at the top, they’ve been on a particular roll lately. After a bruising loss to South Carolina at home, they’ve “gotten somewhat healthy” and “they’re playing more together… the chemistry is better.” Syracuse’s trajectory, rather, has surprised Mitchell, who explains that “if you’d told me in the beginning of the season that Syracuse would in first place mid-January, I wouldn’t have believed you.” Additional strong teams that Mitchell and Missy recognize are Louisville, Virginia Tech, and Notre Dame.
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Missy and Mitchell wrap things up by diving into the story of Virginia Tech, a Top 25 team with some ups and downs this season, but still lots of promise. It’s a group that “is still trying to find themselves a little bit,” says Mitchell, and they’ve got some tough games ahead. “We’ll see if they can figure it out.”
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