Maryland women’s basketball remains at No. 9 in selection committee rankings

Maryland women’s basketball remained at No. 9 in the NCAA Tournament selection committee’s seed rankings, announced Monday.

The Terps, who stayed at No. 3 in the AP Poll released earlier on Monday, are 23-1 overall and 11-0 in conference play. However, their RPI is just 17th in the country thanks to a soft schedule, both out of conference and in the largely weak Big Ten. They sit sixth in Jeff Sagarin’s rankings, which are closer to the committee’s list.

Maryland has gone 4-0 since the committee’s initial rankings were released, picking up three road wins. The Terps dominated in victories over Illinois and Indiana and recorded convincing wins against Iowa and Purdue.

Most of the field ahead of Maryland remained the same, as Connecticut, Baylor, South Carolina and Notre Dame remained as 1-seeds. Florida State, Notre Dame, Oregon State and Stanford are the 2-seeds, with Stanford jumping four spots from the previous ranking thanks to a win at Washington.

Maryland has five regular-season games remaining, starting Thursday at home against Illinois and with none looming larger than Feb. 20 at Ohio State, who beat the Terps twice last season. Should Maryland run the table, it will enter the NCAA Tournament at 31-1.

There’s still over a month remaining before Selection Monday, but it doesn’t look like the Terps will escape this discussion anytime soon.