South Carolina Basketball: Where the Gamecocks now stand in the AP poll

The Associated Press was saved from the wrath of South Carolina basketball fans last week as the AP top-25 rankings included the Gamecocks for the first time this season. The Gamecocks made a rare late-season big jump in the AP poll, moving from being unranked to being the 15th-ranked team in the top-25.

Unfortunately, there were still some holdouts who did not select Lamont Paris' South Carolina basketball team as one of the best 25 teams in the nation, but other than those four misguided souls (including national analyst Seth Davis), the media is finally jumping onto the Quarter Zip Bandwagon.

The love for the Gamecocks continued this week as the AP voters moved USC up to the 11th spot in the rankings. It is the highest ranking South Carolina has had since the 1997-1998 season, one that ended with the Gamecocks receiving a 3-seed in the NCAA Tournament.

This time around, Carolina was unanimously put into the top-25. For the third week in a row, Dylan Sinn of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has the Gamecocks ranked highest, penning USC as the 5th-best team in the country. 29 of 63 voters placed Carolina in the top-10 on their personal ballots, and 10 more had them ranked 11th.

After being a bit behind last week and ranking South Carolina basketball 20th, the USAToday Coaches Poll also put the Gamecocks 11th this week.

In what is now a top-13 matchup, South Carolina and Auburn will play this Wednesday night in Auburn. The game will begin at 8:30 PM EST and will be broadcast on the SECNetwork and ESPN app.

Carolina and Auburn make up two of the top-4 in the SEC along with the Alabama Crimson Tide (who are tied with South Carolina basketball in the #1 spot) and the Tennessee Volunteers. The four teams are the only four in the conference with 3 losses or fewer in conference play. South Carolina also holds the best overall record in the league and is the only team with 20 wins or more. Only UT is ranked higher than USC among SEC programs.