Associated Press Women's Poll Trivia Wraup 2008-09

By Mel Greenberg

The Guru has just finished going over his main Associated Press women's poll historical database and index files and even thinks after doing a test he can cleanly cut and paste some historical figures from the 33-year run in this file.

But first about the 2008-09 season after Week 19's release -- the final poll -- on Monday.

Connecticut, as mentioned, went wire-to-wire and extended its record finish to eight No. 1s.

For all the upsets, the lack of consensus in the sub-ranking world that exists week to week resulted in 17 of 37 teams ranked this year staying in the poll all the way.

They were:

Auburn, Baylor, California, Connecticut, Duke, Louisville

Maryland, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Stanford

Tennessee,Texas, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, and Virginia

Additionally, California reaching 3 and Louisville reaching 5 were school highs.

Believe it or not the first four teams in the preseason poll were exactly the same at the finish: Connecticut, Stanford,  Maryland, and Oklahoma.

The fifth was Rutgers, which reached 3 and then eventually plunged out of the rankings for the biggest dive. Baylor started at 19 and reached five at the finish.

Only four other teams besides Rutgers were missing from the preseason poll -- Oklahoma State, Purdue, LSU, and Old Dominion.

In their place at the finish were Division I newbie South Dakota State, Pittsburgh, Kansas State, Florida, and Iowa State. It was also South Dakota State, Pittsburgh and Florida State's first-ever ranking in the final poll, while, Tennessee, for all its difficulty, survived to make the Vols the only team to appear in all 33 final rankings

Connecticut and Oklahoma were the only teams to stay in the Top 10 wire-to-wire and /Connecticut was the only team to stay in the Top Five all the way.

That said, first here is the entire list of teams to appear in the poll and their number in descending order.

Ranked Teams in poll history.

Total Top 10 Appearances This Decade and All-Time

(Decade begins with first week in January, 2000)

Total Top Five Apperances This Decade And All  Time

Most Coaching Appearances (Parerntheses indicate co-coaches on that listing)

Most Coaching Appearances Same School

-- Mel (and I hope this looks as clean  as it does right now before saving it to the system.