Women’s Basketball AP Top 25 Predictions for 2026 Season Preseason Rankings are supposed to be quiet work, a handful of names lined up in neat order. But the sport never stays quiet for long. In mid October, in an exhibition gym with the lights turned up too bright, Geno Auriemma is already talking to his team like it is February. The ball sticks for a beat. A cut arrives late. A pass lands on the wrong hip. Auriemma gestures, palms open, like he is asking a question the players are tired of hearing. How good do you want to be when the games stop being polite?
This is what makes the poll strange. It asks voters to predict intensity. To rank a thing that has not happened yet, even though everyone in the building knows what is coming: pressure, injuries, a transfer who changes the geometry, a sophomore who stops playing like a sophomore.
The core question is simple and brutal. If the sport hands you the pen in October, which teams deserve to start the story at the top?
The list that turns summer into stakes
The AP preseason Top 25 is not a trophy, but it behaves like one. It sits on the table anyway. It shows up in broadcasts anyway. It becomes a shorthand for what a program is allowed to expect from itself.
Last preseason, the poll opened with a familiar headline: defending champion UConn at No. 1, with South Carolina right behind it, followed by UCLA and Texas in the same order they finished the prior season. UConn pulled 27 first place votes from a 31 member panel, and Auriemma, in his way, tried to treat the honor like a live wire. He called it a confidence builder, and also a trap. He reminded everyone that health, luck, and leadership decide what a ranking cannot.
The poll itself has changed around the sport. For decades, women’s college basketball ended its AP season before the NCAA Tournament began. Recently, the sport started letting the final poll actually reflect the champion, which means the next preseason poll can feel like a continuation instead of a reset. Last year, that continuity produced a statistical oddity: the top four stayed exactly the same from the final poll into the preseason. The sport had never seen that in the women’s poll’s 50 year history.
And then the broader message arrived, louder than any single No. 1. Conference depth is not a talking point anymore. It is the atmosphere. The SEC stacked eight teams into that preseason Top 25, with five in the top ten, a kind of mass that changes how everyone schedules and travels and survives January.
The preseason list is not the season, but it tells you where the season plans to start.
What voters are really ranking
Ask a voter what the preseason poll measures and they will talk about returning production, coaching, schedule strength, recruiting, all the usual nouns. The better answer is more uncomfortable. The poll ranks trust.
Trust in a star who can create a decent shot when the possession breaks down.
Trust in a roster that stays intact long enough to form habits.
Trust in the boring parts, the weak side rotation, the late clock box out, the team that still defends when it is up 19.
There is also a new variable that sits at the center of the sport now, changing everything without asking permission: the transfer portal, plus the way elite players decide whether the next step is the WNBA or one more year of leverage and unfinished business.
Even the player landscape moved under everyone’s feet. USC star JuJu Watkins suffered a knee injury in the NCAA Tournament and will miss the entire season, a reminder that one moment can knock an entire program’s ceiling sideways.
So when building predictions for the Women’s Basketball AP Top 25, three criteria tend to hold up, even when everything else shifts.
First: elite shot making, the kind that survives March.
Second: lineup continuity, because chemistry is not a slogan, it is reps.
Third: a proof point, something recent and real, a Final Four run, a league title, a defense that travels.
With that in mind, the top of the preseason board comes into view.
The October hierarchy
10 Maryland
Yarden Garzon
Maryland always looks like Maryland in the moments that matter. The pace creeps up. The wings fly out to the corners. A transition three goes up before the defense has finished blinking.
The defining highlight, lately, is the way the Terps keep walking into March with enough firepower to make a favorite uncomfortable, even if the bracket does not give them a clean path. Last season ended in a Sweet 16 loss to South Carolina, the kind of game where the margin feels less like talent and more like timing.
The data point that matters here is the roster math. Yarden Garzon arrives after three years at Indiana, carrying a shooter’s résumé: 42.6 percent from three over her college career and 90.1 percent at the line as a junior. That is the kind of efficiency that changes spacing without needing a play call.
The cultural note is simple and old school. Maryland does not do quiet hope. It does expectation, loud and constant, the kind that turns every January road game into a small referendum on Brenda Frese’s standard.
9 NC State
Zoe Brooks
NC State has lived in the adult section of the sport for years now, a program that treats possessions like money. The ball does not bounce around for long. It goes where it needs to go, or it gets reset, and the defense waits like a locked door.
The defining highlight for this particular version is the handoff of identity. Saniya Rivers and Aziaha James moved on, which means the Wolfpack become Zoe Brooks’ team in a way that will show up in every late clock possession.
Brooks’ numbers underline the shift: 14.2 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists. The three point shot remains an area to polish, but her strength on the ball is already a program fit.
Khamil Pierre
And then there is the cultural jolt that a preseason poll rarely captures correctly. Khamil Pierre arrives after posting 20.4 points and 9.6 rebounds at Vanderbilt, bringing a kind of edge that travels. NC State does not need a makeover. It needs an extra gear for the games that get stuck.
8 Duke
Toby Fournier
Duke’s rise has not been loud. It has been sharp.
The defining highlight, the one that lingers, is the way Duke looked in last season’s Elite Eight run, with a roster that did not flinch at the stage. It felt like a program remembering what it is supposed to be.
Toby Fournier’s profile reads like the kind of detail voters love because it feels predictive. She was ACC Rookie of the Year, led Duke in scoring, and did it while coming off the bench, playing about twenty minutes a night. That combination, production without ego, is not common.
Her stat line offers a clean hook: 13.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, 52.6 percent from the field. It is efficiency with room to grow, the kind that turns into stardom the moment minutes rise.
Culturally, Duke still carries the aura of the name, even on the women’s side, even as the sport evolves. A preseason ranking is not a crown. But it is a reminder that Durham still expects to be in the last weekend conversation.
7 Oklahoma
Raegan Beers
Oklahoma’s story is partly about geography and partly about timing. A program with real history now tries to live inside the SEC grind, which is less a schedule and more a weekly collision.
The defining highlight is the Sooners finally looking like a national problem again, pushing into the Sweet 16 for the first time in more than a decade, then running into the sport’s heaviest teams in the postseason.
Raegan Beers gives the prediction its cleanest number. 17.3 points, 9.4 rebounds, 63.3 percent shooting. That is not just production. That is gravity.
The cultural note is what happens when Oklahoma is good. The sport gets another blue blood adjacent arena that feels alive again, another fan base that treats women’s basketball as a real winter sport, not a warmup act.
6 Tennessee
Talaysia Cooper
Tennessee is never fully out of frame, even when it is rebuilding, even when the league is cruel.
The defining highlight for this group is defensive aggression that looks like tradition. The Lady Vols still carry that identity, the idea that their floor is built from pressure and pride.
Talaysia Cooper is the cleanest data point because she brings two things voters can see immediately. She led Tennessee in scoring at 16.6 points per game, and she led the SEC in steals at 3.1. That second number is the one that changes games without asking for permission.
The cultural note is simple: Tennessee still sells a feeling. Orange in January. A building that expects energy. A program that measures itself against banners, not vibes.
5 LSU
Flau’Jae Johnson
If you want a preseason ranking to feel real, you need one team that plays like it is insulted by the concept of moderation.
LSU, right now, is that team.
The defining highlight is not one play. It is a pattern. A habit of turning games into track meets, then turning the track meet into a blowout. Early this season, LSU scored 100 or more points in six straight games, averaging 111.8 points with six players in double figures. Kim Mulkey framed it in a phrase that feels like both praise and warning: “Everybody eats.”
The data point that matters for the preseason ceiling is star power plus role clarity. Flau’Jae Johnson posted 18.6 points a game with 38.3 percent shooting from three, while also functioning as a defender and playmaker, the kind of versatility that makes a roster feel deeper than it is.
Culturally, LSU is now one of the sport’s loudest brands, the mix of personality, style, and modern attention. The poll rewards that, even when it pretends not to.
4 Texas
Madison Booker
Texas does not feel like a surprise anymore. It feels like a program that finally believes it belongs.
The defining highlight is the way the Longhorns handled their first year in the SEC and still ended up in the Final Four for the first time since 2003, a kind of proof that changes how voters treat them in October.
Madison Booker is the data point that makes the ranking easier to justify. As a sophomore she put up 16.3 points and 6.6 rebounds, while shooting 46.4 percent from the field and 40.3 percent from three. She already has 1,231 points through two seasons, fourth most in program history at that stage.
Culturally, Texas has always had the infrastructure. The preseason poll reflects the moment the product finally matches it, the kind of shift that changes recruiting, scheduling, and the way opponents talk about you in April.
3 UCLA
Lauren Betts
UCLA’s ceiling looks different when you have a center who can tilt the court.
The defining highlight is still fresh. UCLA made the program’s first Final Four of the NCAA era, and it did not look like a tourist there. It looked like a contender who ran into the wrong matchup on the wrong night.
Lauren Betts supplies the cleanest stat based argument. 20.2 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.9 blocks. She became the first UCLA player to reach 600 points, 300 rebounds, and 100 blocks in a season, and she once dropped 33 while also breaking the program’s single game blocks record with nine.
The cultural note is that UCLA finally carries more than potential. It carries proof. A preseason rank in the top three is not nostalgia. It is a recognition that the Bruins can now shape the sport’s top tier.
2 South Carolina
Ta’Niya Latson
South Carolina lives under the kind of expectation that turns every December game into a stress test.
The defining highlight is also the most painful one: reaching the title game and losing to UConn, a reminder that the margins at the top are not about who is good, but who can stay good when the lights feel hotter.
The data point that changes the preseason conversation is Ta’Niya Latson. At Florida State she averaged 25.2 points, and then she transferred to South Carolina, bringing Dawn Staley a true bucket getter for the moments when offense stalls and the gym holds its breath. She improved as a three point shooter and averaged 4.6 assists, which hints at a version of South Carolina that looks less committee based and more late game decisive.
Culturally, the Gamecocks are now a reference point. Staley’s program has become an ecosystem, where five star talent can come off the bench and still feel like part of the brand. The poll rewards that stability.
1 UConn
Sarah Strong
Azzi Fudd
UConn at No. 1 is almost a seasonal weather pattern, but there is a reason it keeps returning.
The defining highlight is not October at all. It is April. A title run that ended with another trophy, and another reminder that this program knows how to live inside the sport’s sharpest moments.
The data point that separates UConn from everyone else in preseason math is the combination of returning star production and the way that production scales. Sarah Strong entered the year as the sport’s preseason centerpiece, with a prior season line of 16.4 points and 8.9 rebounds on 58.6 percent shooting, then raised her output in the NCAA Tournament to 19.0 and 11.7 across six games.
Azzi Fudd adds the detail that wins close games: 43.6 percent from three, plus a 24 point title game performance that made her the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player.
The cultural note is not a chant. It is a habit. Auriemma, when asked about being preseason No. 1 again, talked about the trap, about not needing to beat everyone by 40, about how teams tend to finish where they are predicted. It is a coach trying to make a ranking feel small, because he knows exactly how big it can become.
The rest of the Top 25, and the part voters hate
The top ten gets the oxygen, but the middle of the Women’s Basketball AP Top 25 is where the sport actually changes.
That is where Michigan climbs into new expectation, with a young core that already won an NCAA Tournament game and now gets ranked higher than the program has been in years. That is where Vanderbilt returns to the poll behind Mikayla Blakes, who averaged 23.3 points as a freshman and dropped 50 twice, the kind of scoring that forces the rest of the sport to learn your name fast.
Mikayla Blakes
It is also where the poll occasionally makes room for a story that does not come from a brand name.
Richmond’s first ever ranking arrived because the Spiders won an NCAA Tournament game, returned senior leaders Maggie Doogan and Rachel Ullstrom, and stacked a 28 and 7 season behind a roster that looked like it belonged. The coach called it a sign of where the program is. The poll, for once, agreed.
Maggie Doogan
Rachel Ullstrom
And then there is the late December reality check that preseason voters can never fully predict. By the time the holiday tournaments arrived, the current AP Top 25 had UConn and Texas unbeaten at the top, LSU rolling, and a pack of undefeateds and one loss teams filling the tier beneath. It is a reminder that preseason faith can look wise, and also accidental, depending on who stays healthy and who finds an extra scorer when the first plan dies.
This is the part of the poll that feels most human. It is where voters guess, then pretend they are not guessing.
Where the preseason poll gets it wrong on purpose
The preseason ranking is a snapshot, not a forecast model. It tends to reward continuity and punish chaos, even though chaos is where modern women’s basketball now lives.
A single injury can erase an entire argument. A single transfer can turn an offense from polite to lethal. A single sophomore leap can make last year’s scouting report read like a different sport. JuJu Watkins’ absence is the starkest example, because it does not just change USC. It changes the national ecosystem, the way brackets form, the way television windows get set, the way the sport imagines its stars.
So the best way to read Women’s Basketball AP Top 25 predictions for 2026 season preseason rankings is not as a truth serum. Read them as an opening chapter. The sport is telling you where it thinks the power lives, where the pressure will settle, which coaches are trusted to solve problems in March.
And then the season starts, and the ball refuses to obey the outline.
That is the enduring question, the one that sits under every preseason ballot. Which program has the most reliable answers when the first plan fails, the second plan fails, and the gym goes quiet?
In October, the poll picks the teams it trusts to survive that silence.
By April, it becomes clear who actually could.
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FAQs
Who is projected No. 1 in the preseason Top 25?
UConn sits at the top in this projection because it combines returning star production with recent proof from April.
Why does the preseason poll matter if it is not a trophy?
It shapes expectations. It follows teams into every broadcast and becomes the first storyline voters and fans argue about.
What changes preseason rankings the fastest?
Injuries and transfers. One player can change spacing, late game offense, and how safe a team feels in close games.
Which team looks built to challenge UConn early?
South Carolina. The roster already carries elite depth, and adding a true scorer changes how it survives tight possessions.
Why is the middle of the Top 25 important?
That is where new programs announce themselves. It is where a breakout star or a veteran group can turn a season into something bigger.
