Defending champion UConn picked up where it left off, ranking as the No. 1 team in the country in the Associated Press 25-member preseason women's basketball poll released Tuesday.
The Huskies received 27 first-place votes from the 31-member national media panel. South Carolina, runner-up last season to UConnwere chosen second in the poll and received four more first place votes. This is the fifth time in the last six years that Dawn Staley's Gamecocks have been ranked in the top five in the preseason poll. UCLA and Texas were third and fourth, and LSU was fifth.
Oklahoma was sixth, the Sooners' highest preseason ranking since they were fourth in 2008. Duke, Tennessee, NC State and Maryland round out the top ten.
Led by sensational sophomore Sarah Strong and super senior Azzie Fudd, Geno Auriemma's UConn team is ranked No. 1 in the preseason for the 13th time since 1995 and the first time since 2017.
“Hopefully this will be a little bit of a confidence booster rather than, 'Oh my God!' Auriemma said. “I'm happy for them. We talk a lot about how we're not here to prove that we're the defending national champions or we're number one in the preseason in the country and we need to beat everyone by 40 points. We don't want to fall into that trap. You tend to end the year where you're projected to be. So I like being in that position.”
In eight of the previous 12 times YUKON was picked first, the Huskies won the national championship. Auriemma believes his team has a good chance this year.
“It has to happen with good leadership and a little bit of luck and people who rise to the occasion,” he said. “The four times we didn’t win, we were unlucky or didn’t stay healthy.”
The top four teams were selected in the same order as in last season's final poll. For the first time in the 50-year history of the women's polls, the top four teams in the following year's final poll were ranked among the top 25 preseason teams; Last year was only the second season that the AP released a Top 25 after the championship game. For more than four decades, the final poll was released before the start of the NCAA Tournament.
The Southeastern Conference has eight teams in the top 25, including five in the top 10. The Big Ten is next with six schools in the poll. The ACC has five and the Big 12 has four. The Atlantic 10 and Big East each have one.
Michigan is ranked No. 13 in the preseason poll, which is their highest ranking in the first poll since 2021 (No. 11). Last year, the Wolverines started three freshmen and went 23-11, winning an NCAA Tournament game. Big things are expected from this trio of Sayla Swords, Mila Holloway and Olivia Olson.
No. 19 Vanderbilt, led by sophomore Mikayla Blakes, was ranked in the preseason rankings for the first time since 2012. Blakes had one of the best freshman seasons in school history, averaging 23.3 points and scoring over 50 points twice. Coach Shea Ralph's team was ranked last year for the first time since 2014, when they were in the poll for two weeks.
No. 24 Richmond was ranked No. 1 for the first time in school history. Expectations are high for the Spiders, who won their first NCAA Tournament game last season. The Spiders are the first Atlantic 10 team to be ranked in the top 25 in a decade (George Washington, 2015).
Richmond returns standouts Maggie Dugan and Rachel Ullstrom from last season's 28-7 team. The Spiders also added transfer Tierra Simone from St. Louis.
“It says a lot about where the program is right now,” Richmond coach Aaron Roussel said. “I don't think that was ever the goal, we just wanted to continue to display this program. We talk about it a lot.”
