UNC Basketball: Tar Heel women finally ranked by Associated Press

The UNC women’s basketball program is off to a hot start and the Associated Press voters have finally begun to take notice.

Well, that took long enough.

After four weeks, nine victories, 761 points scored and just 435 surrendered, the North Carolina women’s basketball program is ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll. The Tar Heels join this week’s poll at No. 25 just one week after their debut at No. 24 in the USA TODAY Coaches Poll.

It’s the first time in six years that they’ve been ranked in both polls. Their last concurrent appearance in the polls — preseason leading into the 2015-16 campaign — quickly ended after a season-opening home loss to Gardner-Webb. And until recently, there hasn’t been much reason to search for the Tar Heels in the polls.

But that all appears to be changing with Courtney Banghart at the helm and a wealth of talent up and down the Tar Heels’ roster. Now, the Tar Heels, who have won eight of their nine games this season by 13 or more points, are looking to build on their already impressive resume.

https://twitter.com/uncwbb/status/1470455241170587649

They’ll have every opportunity to do so with an Atlantic Coast Conference schedule that includes seven games against teams currently ranked in the top 25. Among them are home-and-home games against rivals Duke and NC State, away games at Notre Dame and Georgia Tech and a home contest with Louisville.

North Carolina’s performance in those seven games will have a lot to do with their plans in late March. If they do well, they’ll be punching their ticket to the NCAA Tournament. If they do really well, they may just be playing for seeding when it comes time to play their season-finale against the Blue Devils at Carmichael Arena.

We’ll find out a lot about this team when they take the court on January 6 against the No. 2-ranked Wolfpack in Raleigh.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for more on the red-hot UNC women’s basketball program.