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Does conference play reveal all?
It certainly seems so, as women’s college basketball’s unbeatens have cracked in the crucible of conference play. When the calendar turned to 2026, there were 11 Division 1 teams with perfect records. After No. 17 Texas Tech lost to Kansas State at home on Saturday afternoon, there are now just two, with No. 1 UConn and No. 5 Vanderbilt the lone survivors.
On Sunday afternoon, expect conference play to continue to reveal, even for squads that are long past their first loss.
For teams that have bounced around the middle of the top 25 rankings, conference matchups, in particular, can show if such squads are, in fact, true second-tier teams with the potential to threaten the nation’s best, or if they’re just good squads that are unlikely to scare any of the top guns in March.
Three such teams thus face truth-telling tests on Sunday: No. 16 Ole Miss, No. 9 Louisville and No. 13 Oklahoma.
Will the Rebels, Cardinals and Sooners be revealed as for real? Or, will they be exposed as teams that aren’t really worth much worry?
No. 16 Ole Miss vs. Georgia (12 p.m. ET, SEC Network)
This is already the second meeting between the Rebels and Bulldogs, with quick turnaround making this a tricky spot for Ole Miss.
In Oxford on New Year’s Day, the Rebels used a third-quarter surge to pull away and send the Dawgs to their first loss of the season. Since then, Ole Miss has only burnished their resume, taking then-undefeated Texas down to the wire in Austin before upsetting Oklahoma in Norman.
Those performances, not incorrectly, have Coach Yo proclaiming that her squad deserves more respect in the AP Top 25 poll. But rather than saying it, the Rebels have to earn it, and slip up in Athens will give voters a reason to continue to discount Ole Miss’ believed quality.
Another strong performance from Cotie McMahon will put the Rebels in position to avoid a letdown loss. The senior forward scored 24 against Georgia on January 1, making up for her inefficiency from the field by earning 11 trips to the free throw line. In the Rebels’ most recent wins, she’s had two of her more efficient offensive outings of the season, finishing 57 percent of her overall attempts while going 4-for-9 from 3 across the two games.
If Mia Woolfolk is not back for Georgia, the Dawgs’ best big who exited their loss to LSU with a leg injury and then missed their loss to South Carolina, McMahon, as well as her fellow physical frontcourt partner Latasha Lattimore, should punish their way to points in the paint.
No. 9 Louisville vs. NC State (1 p.m. ET, ESPN2)
The Cardinals have the opportunity to prove that they are the class of ACC, with their top-10 ranking not one of circumstance but a status indicative of their championship caliber. How they put away No. 23 Notre Dame on Thursday on the road is a point in their favor.
Even though the Wolfpack have failed to collect a quality win since their opening victory over Tennessee, expect head coach Wes Moore and company to not make the trip to Raleigh easy on his counterpart Jeff Walz and the Cardinals. And while the Pack sport the services Khamil Pierre, a heralded transfer who has made the impact envisioned in her first season with NC State, averaging an almost 16-point and 12-rebound double-double, the Cardinals have benefitted from timely contributions from their transfers: Reyna Scott and Laura Ziegler.
Scott, a senior guard who transferred from Oklahoma, had her best game as a Cardinal against the Fighting Irish, scoring a season-high 20 point from off the bench. Her production made up for an off night from Ziegler, the senior forward who transferred from Saint Joesph’s and has been mostly excellent as a stretch big who also gets after it on the glass. She’s shooting over 38 percent from 3 and leads Louisville with 7.5 rebounds per game.
The experience of those two, combined with some star-level flashes from sophomores Taj Roberts and Imari Berry, should see Louisville find their way to a win that substantiates their top-10 standing.
No. 6 LSU vs. No. 13 Oklahoma (3 p.m. ET, ESPN2)
After taking down then-undefeated Texas, LSU escapes the extra scrutiny they received after an 0-2 start to conference play. Instead, the spotlight shifts to Oklahoma.
After rising into the top five, the Sooners had an opportunity to make a statement. They’ve done the opposite, stumbling in two-straight losses to aforementioned Ole Miss and Kentucky. A third-straight loss, even to a highly-ranked opponent, would send the Sooners into SEC also-ran status, situating them outside the races for conference and national titles.
Oklahoma’s current shakiness, but also their potential to re-stabilize, lies with Aaliyah Chavez.
In the Sooners’ losses to the Rebels and Wildcats, the freshman point guard was not shy, attempting 22 and 23 shots, respectively. In both games, she made only seven. Although the importance of efficiency can be overstated, as simply putting points on the board matters the most, Chavez’s eagerness is costing a Sooner squad that doesn’t lack for other scoring options.
Scoring, however, has been a challenge for Oklahoma against better conference opponents.
The second-highest scoring offense in the nation, their point totals against Ole Miss and Kentucky were their third-lowest (69) and lowest (57) outputs of the season. And although LSU is the nation’s highest-scoring team, this SEC showdown is much more likely to be another defense-first affair. The Tigers just held the Longhorns, another high-scoring squad, to their lowest-scoring game of the season. And after forcing 17 turnovers from Texas, a team noted for their ball security, LSU certainly will be prepared to apply pressure on Chavez.
