North Carolina crept up to No. 2 in the latest Cascade Media Poll.
The Tar Heels leapfrogged Florida after winning the ACC Championship with ease. Otherwise, everything's the same for the top seven teams, and there are only slight changes throughoug the back half.
As we head into the final week of play before the NCAA tournament begins, Maryland (17-0) remains firmly in command of the IWLCA Division I Coaches Poll, as the Terps collected all 20 first-place votes and the number one ranking. The second through sixth spots were unchanged, with Florida, North Carolina, Stony Brook, Penn State, and Princeton trailing the Terps. Penn (13-2) claimed a share of the Ivy League regular season title and moved into a tie for the seventh spot with USC (16-3), who won the MPSF title with a 16-11 win over Colorado and secured an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Syracuse (15-6), who lost to North Carolina in the ACC title game, and Colorado (16-3), round out the top ten. The back half of the poll features all the same teams, but the big mover was Boston College (13-6) who jumped up two spots to #13.
Although the ACC and MPSF tournament have concluded, most conferences will wrap up this weekend. The Big Ten tourney will feature top-twenty action when #1 Maryland takes on unranked Johns Hopkins, and #5 Penn State faces #14 Northwestern on Friday. The Ivy League tournament features a semi-final match-up between #6 Princeton and Penn (#T-7), and #11 Cornell facing unranked Harvard. In the CAA tournament, #19 James Madison will face unranked Delaware and #17 Towson will battle with Elon (RV). Finally, #2 Florida and #16 Denver, will both play in the Big East semi-finals on Thursday, setting up a potential Championship clash between the two teams on Saturday.
