From our first poll at the start of the 1999-00 season through today, we've produced a Top 25 women's basketball national ranking more than 250 times. We've had more than 150 teams appear in those rankings but we've never had an easy way to answer the frequent question, "Has this team ever been ranked before?" or "Has this team ever been ranked this highly before?"
Now we do, and so will you, if you download the Top 25 women's basketball archive.
The archive has been updated through the end of the 2022-23 season
Download archive
The archive is a large Excel spreadsheet that you can download, sort and analyze at will. The default view lists teams according to their ranking in the final poll for the 2022-23 season and then an alphabetical listing of every team that's been ranked. Using Excel's sort feature you can organize them anyway you want.
The first two columns show each team's highest ranking in the Top 25 poll and the number of times that team has appeared in the poll, including preseason and final rankings. The columns highlighted in yellow show any team that was ranked in a particular season with an X and any team that was ranked No. 1 during that season with asterisks. Click on the plus sign at the top of the columns to reveal the week by week rankings for that season.
If you're not comfortable with Excel and accidentally mess something up, no worries -- just download the file and try again.
Here are some historical tidbits. We'll update these again at the conclusion of each season.
And if you want to quickly jump from one poll to another online, we still have this listing for you to do so.
A season unlike any other (we hope)
The 2020-21 Division III basketball season was very strange because of the public health problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Only a handful of schools played something close to a full 25-game slate. Others played a conference schedule that was often interrupted, and sometimes curtailed, by the virus. Many teams, particularly on the east coast, did not play at all or they only played a few games. Other teams played something approximating a conference season but it was concentrated in a two-month period. There were very few non-conference games and no NCAA Tournament
It was a very strange and difficult year to compare teams. But we published a national ranking eight times to recognize the schools and student athletes who were able to take the court. The first poll was a Top 10 and the other seven polls were Top 15s. Hope held the top spot for the full eight-week run. Simpson, Messiah and DeSales also finished the season as unbeaten ranked teams.
We've included appearances in the 2020-21 rankings in our archive and this list of superlatives.
In the long run
Two of the longest streaks of consecutive poll appearances ended last season. First, Tufts had its run snapped at 129 polls when the Jumbos fell out of the rankings in Week 6 (Jan. 8, 2023). Five days later, Tufts beat Amherst and ended the Mammoths 'run at 208 polls, which was the longest in our poll's history.
That leaves Hope with the longest string of consecutive rankings, now at 144 polls. The second and third longest active streaks belong to MIAA rival Trine (41) and Christopher Newport (31). Hope has appeared in every poll but one since the start of the 2005-06 season. Thomas More had a run of 105 consecutive appearances before leaving Division III at the end of the 2018-19 season.
Another impressive record also ended last season. Prior to 2022-23, DePauw had been ranked at least once every season since we started the poll.
We're No. 1
Over the poll's 22-year history, 31 programs have reached the top spot at least once. Amherst and Hope have reached the top spot in seven different seasons, and Washington U. did so in five seasons. The NESCAC and WIAC have each had four programs reach that spot at least once.
Only twice has a team been ranked No. 1 in the preseason and held that spot all the way through the national championship game -- Washington U in 1999-00 and Thomas More in 2015-16.
Here's the year-by-year list of teams that have been ranked No. 1, starting with the preseason selection and ending with the national champion.
| 2022-23 | Hope, New York U., Trinity (Texas), Christopher Newport, Transylvania |
| 2021-22 | Hope, Christopher Newport, Hope |
| 2020-21 | Hope*** |
| 2019-20 | Amherst, Tufts, Hope** |
| 2018-19 | Amherst, Bowdoin, Thomas More |
| 2017-18 | Tufts, Amherst |
| 2016-17 | Tufts, Amherst |
| 2015-16 | Thomas More |
| 2014-15 | FDU-Florham, Thomas More |
| 2013-14 | DePauw, Whitman, FDU-Florham |
| 2012-13 | Calvin, DePauw |
| 2011-12 | Amherst, Illinois Wesleyan |
| 2010-11 | Amherst, Illinois Wesleyan, Thomas More, Amherst |
| 2009-10 | Washington U, Illinois Wesleyan, Amherst, Washington U |
| 2008-09 | UW-Whitewater, Kean, Rochester, Illinois Wesleyan, George Fox |
| 2007-08 | Mary Washington, Hope, Howard Payne |
| 2006-07 | Scranton, Bowdoin, Scranton, Messiah, Bowdoin, DePauw |
| 2005-06 | Millikin, Southern Maine, Hope |
| 2004-05 | Bowdoin, UW-Oshkosh, Bowdoin, Bates, Scranton, Millikin |
| 2003-04 | Eastern Connecticut, Trinity (Texas), UW-Stevens Point, Rochester, Bowdoin, Wilmington |
| 2002-03 | Washington U., UW-Eau Claire, Trinity (Texas) |
| 2001-02 | Messiah, Washington U., UW-Stevens Point |
| 2000-01 | Washington U., George Fox, Washington U. |
| 1999-00 | Washington U. |
| *** Hope was ranked No. 1 for all eight of our polls during the COVID-19 shortened 2020-21 season. | |
| ** Hope finished the 2019-20 season that was cut short by COVID-19 ranked No. 1. |
Rankings on repeat
Through the end of the 2021-22 season there are 27 programs that have appeared in the Top 25 poll at least 100 times. If you've read this far, you won't be surprised at the top three. All 10 of the teams below have been ranked No. 1 in the country at least once.
| 1 | Hope | 324 |
| 2 | DePauw | 280 |
| 3 | Washington U. | 261 |
| 4 | Scranton | 256 |
| 5 | Messiah | 235 |
| 6 | Bowdoin | 215 |
| 7 | George Fox | 209 |
| 8 | Amherst | 208 |
| 9 | Tufts | 180 |
| 10 | New York University | 176 |
St. Thomas (Minn.) left Division III as the team that was ranked the most times without reaching the top spot (166 times). That distinction now belongs to Baldwin Wallace (156 times).
When Carnegie Mellon made its Top 25 debut in January 2016, the UAA gained the distinction of having every current member ranked at least once. The WIAC became the second conference to acheive that feat when UW-Platteville entered the rankings in 2019-20.
No unranked team has ever won the national championship but two teams came close. Trinity (Texas) was ranked No. 21 when the Tigers won the title in 2002-03. They only appeared in the national rankings a couple times that season and never higher than 21st. Wilmington entered the 2003-04 season ranked No. 9, dropped out before the holiday break and didn't return until the end of the season when the Quakers won the title as the No. 14 team.
Twenty teams have appeared in the Top 25 poll just once. For the moment, Rhode Island College has the distinction of being ranked the highest of those 20 teams. RIC finished last season ranked No. 5 after reaching the 2023 national semifinals. That record will not last long since the Anchorwomen should appear in the 2023-24 preason poll.