HHS Top 25: Preseason Rankings
We’re about a week away from the start of the 2019–20 NCAA women’s basketball season and here at Her Hoop Stats, we couldn’t be more excited. To get you ready for the season, we decided to give you an inside look at our preseason top 25.
1. Oregon
2. Baylor
3. Stanford
4. Maryland
5. Oregon State
6. UConn
7. Louisville
8. Texas A&M
9. South Carolina
10. Mississippi State
11. UCLA
12. N.C. State
13. Florida State
14. Kentucky
15. Minnesota
16. Texas
17. Arizona State
18. DePaul
19. Miami (FL)
20. Notre Dame
21. Rice
22. Drake
23. Tennessee
24. Michigan
25. Michigan State
Because it is the preseason and there haven’t been any games to inform our decisions, we used a variety of factors when compiling this list of 25 teams including last season’s success, returning/lost players, and X-factor players.
Top Three
№1 Oregon
Oregon sits atop our top-25 poll, and basically every other top-25 ranking you can find. The Ducks return seven players from a year ago, add three freshmen and two transfers, and lose just one starter from their 2018–19 squad that came up just short of the NCAA Championship game. Sabrina Ionescu, the frontrunner for national player of the year, returns for her senior season after some drama surrounding the deadline to enter the WNBA Draft last spring. If Ionescu was the only star for the Ducks, they would be a pretty darn good team. However, they also return two WBCA Honorable Mention All-Americans in Satou Sabally and Ruthy Hebard.
№2 Baylor
Last season Kim Mulkey coached her team to its third national championship in the last 15 seasons, all of which have come during Mulkey’s tenure as head coach in Waco. Last season’s team was extremely talented, and this year is no different. The Bears lost two key players to graduation, Kalani Brown and Chloe Jackson, but that still leaves third-team All-American and Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year Lauren Cox, and the second team All-Big 12 selection Juicy Landrum helping to replace some of Brown and Jackson’s production.
Cox was recently on the Her Hoop Stats Podcast with John Liddle, and you can check out that episode below!
№3 Stanford
Oregon might be the clear favorite in the Pac-12 this season, but Stanford poses the biggest threat to cause chaos in the conference. The Cardinal are 5–2 against Oregon since 2016–17, including 2–1 in conference tournament games. Stanford returns all but three players from last season’s team that reached the Elite 8, including three players named to their respective positional award watch lists. Throw in the viral, dunking sensation Fran Belibi, who was named to the Katrina McClain watch list before seeing a single minute of collegiate action, and Stanford could shape up to be one of the most exciting teams in the nation.
Other Notables
№4 Maryland
The first of our teams to watch is Maryland. The Terrapins are loaded to the brim with X-Factors, and they return essentially every key player from a year ago. Maryland returns all five starters from last season and four of those five starters were named to their respective positional preseason watchlists by the Basketball Hall of Fame. The Terrapins, who were a very good team last year with just five losses, lost two games to Megan Gustafson and Iowa in which the Naismith Player of the Year totaled 76 points, 27 rebounds, and six blocks. Maryland now has a wide-open, Gustafson-less, Big Ten ahead of them and was tabbed as the preseason favorite to win the conference.
№6 UConn
UConn is in unfamiliar territory in more ways than one. For the first time since 2014–15, Geno Auriemma and his Huskies are without the dynamic tandem of Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier, and this season will likely mark the first since 2012–13 that UConn begins the season outside the top three in the AP Poll. That isn’t to say UConn is no longer an elite team, they still have a supreme collection of talented players, but for the first time in a long time, they have to fight their way back to the very top.
№19 Miami (FL)
The Miami Hurricanes are a team that returns three of their five starters, including their leading scorer and rebounder Beatrice Mompremier. The redshirt senior is a dynamic player with the potential to carry the Hurricanes deep into the NCAA Tournament, already named to the Lisa Leslie Award watchlist for the nation’s top center as well as the ACC Preseason Player of the Year. If Miami can replace the 24.3 points per game lost to graduation from a year ago, they could make a run at the ACC title despite being picked fourth in the preseason poll.
№20 Notre Dame
Notre Dame lost massive amounts of experience and production, including their top five scorers and rebounders from last season. The Irish will need their six returners, two incoming freshmen and two graduate transfers to help replace that production. Despite having just two incoming freshmen, ProspectsNation.com named Notre Dame the №4 recruiting class in the nation and the only team in the country with two top-10 recruits.
№22 Drake
Jennie Baranczyk’s Bulldogs have solidified themselves as one of the nation’s top mid-major teams over the past three seasons, with each season being even more promising than the year before. Their defense may take a hit due to the graduation of four players, including two-time MVC Defensive Player of the Year Sammie Bachrodt, but they return their two leading scorers from 2018–19, Becca Hittner and Sara Rhine. Hittner was picked as the MVC’s Preseason Player of the Year, which would be her third-straight season winning the award, and Rhine is one of the most efficient high-volume scorers in the country. Baranczyk is excited for the team’s potential in Hittner and Rhine’s final year, and they have the potential to climb in the ranking early in the season with three games against 2019 NCAA Tournament teams in the first six days of the season.
As part of #MVChoops Social Media Days, I wrote a full-length preview on the goals and potential for this year’s Drake team, which is linked below.
№23 Tennessee
Tennessee will be a hit-or-miss team this season. The Vols brought in Tennessee alum and previous Missouri State head coach Kellie Harper in hopes she could lead the team back to the elite level of play that Tennessee hasn’t achieved since the late 2000s. Harper, fresh off a Sweet 16 run with Missouri State, has a largely reconstructed roster in her first season with six returning players and six newcomers. Four of those six newcomers are freshmen, including the №2 prospect in the nation according to ProsptectsNation.com, point guard Jordan Horston. Even though Tennessee will have their sights set on a speedy return to the upper tier of women’s basketball, they are also positioned to have sustained growth with such a young team and a rising young head coach.
Our Jenn Hatfield wrote a feature on Harper and her hectic offseason as a coach and a mother, which can be found below.
Did we miss any teams you think should be in the top 25? Who do you think is too high? Too low? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter (@HerHoopStats), and keep an eye out for each week’s updated rankings.
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