By Field Level Media
Oct 20 (Field Level Media) – South Carolina is atop the rankings at No. 1 in The Associated Press preseason Top 25 women’s basketball poll released Tuesday.
The Gamecocks received 23 of 31 first-place votes and 764 points from a national media panel. No. 2 UConn (746 points) earned six first-place votes and No. 3 Southern California (668) had two.
Duke (647) and Michigan (644) rounded out the top five.
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley’s program is the preseason No. 1 for the fifth time in the past seven seasons.
“It’s a gift and curse,” Staley told the AP. “I tend to not look at the number, but our players do. They look at it and feel like there’s a sense of respect to being No. 1.
“They also know that it’s pressure-packed with the type of non-conference schedule we have, we’re going to be challenged. If we stand there at No. 1 at the end of our nonconference season, that’s something to truly be proud of.”
South Carolina (36-4 last season) was routed 79-51 by UCLA in last season’s title game.
UConn (38-1) also reached the Final Four before falling 62-48 to South Carolina. The Huskies have been ranked in the top 10 of every preseason AP poll since 1994.
USC (18-14) has high hopes after getting star JuJu Watkins back. She sustained a serious knee injury in the 2025 NCAA Tournament and missed all of last season.
After the top five, Texas checks in at No. 6, followed by Louisville, Vanderbilt, LSU and Iowa.
Defending champion UCLA is No. 11. The Bruins set records for five first-round picks and six overall players selected from one school in the WNBA Draft.
The Big Ten has a record nine teams in the preseason rankings. One of them is Minnesota, which opens at No. 17 but lost leading scorer Tori McKinney to a season-ending knee injury in practice last week.
–Field Level Media
AP Top 25 Preseason Women’s Poll First-place votes in parentheses TEAM RECORD 1. South Carolina 0-0 (23) 2. UConn 0-0 (6) 3. USC 0-0 (2) 4. Duke 0-0 5. Michigan 0-0 6. Texas 0-0 7. Louisville 0-0 8. Vanderbilt 0-0 9. LSU 0-0 10. Iowa 0-0 11. UCLA 0-0 12. North Carolina 0-0 13. Notre Dame 0-0 14. Kentucky 0-0 15. TCU 0-0 16. Washington 0-0 17. Minnesota 0-0 18. Ohio State 0-0 19. Ole Miss 0-0 20. Maryland 0-0 21. Oklahoma 0-0 22. Oklahoma State 0-0 23. Illinois 0-0 24. West Virginia 0-0 25. NC State 0-0
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