Top women's hoops teams head off continent for Thanksgiving tournaments

Thanksgiving week has always been a chance for teams to get away to warmer climates to play in quality basketball tournaments and bond as a group.

This year is no different with seven of the top 10 teams in the country heading off the continent to play games in the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

No. 2 UCLA, No. 6 UConn, No. 7 LSU and No. 9 Virginia Tech are all headed to the Cayman Islands to play in the inaugural women’s tournament there. The only matchup between them is on Friday when the Bruins face the Huskies. It’s unclear if Angel Reese will be joining the Tigers on the trip. She’s missed the last two games after being benched for the second half of the game before.

“You always have to deal with locker-room issues,” Mulkey said Monday night after LSU beat Texas Southern 106-47 in the second straight game that Reese missed for undisclosed reasons.

“Sometimes you all know about them. Sometimes you don’t. Some times you want to know more than you’re entitled to know,” Mulkey continued. “I’m going to protect my players — always. They are like a family.”

Third-ranked Colorado will play No. 10 N.C. State in the Virgin Islands on Saturday. No. 8 USC is in the Bahamas.

Top-ranked South Carolina will be home for the holiday, but coach Dawn Staley is no stranger to what a holiday tournament can bring her team.

“I do think it’s super helpful to get out of your normal environment, your normal habits of actually being at home or it’s not a natural road game,” she said. “When you’re in another country, you tend to stick with each other a little tighter. You get a chance to experience other stuff, too, not just practice and games, you get to experience sightseeing and you take pictures and you have conversations about how they’re feeling and what’s going on.”

Teams also can find quality tournaments on U.S. soil as well this week. No. 4 Stanford is headed to Nevada and fifth-ranked Iowa will be in Florida. The Cardinal could face No. 13 Florida State and the Hawkeyes potentially could meet No. 18 North Carolina.

Here are other things to look forward to:

TRYING TO START A NEW STREAK

Maryland dropped out of the Top 25 for the first time in 13 years on Monday. The Terrapins will have a good chance to get back in next week with games this weekend in Cancun, Mexico, against No. 23 Washington State, Green Bay and Gonzaga.

HONORING A GREAT ONE

Notre Dame will unveil a statue of Hall of Fame women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw outside the Joyce Center on Dec. 17.

McGraw had 848 of her 936 wins at Notre Dame where she coached from 1987-2020. She won titles at the school in 2001 and 2018.

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AP Sports Writer Pete Iacobelli contributed to this story.

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AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball