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AP College Basketball Poll 2024: Complete Preseason Women's Rankings Released

Julia Stumbaugh

Dawn Staley and the South Carolina women's basketball team will head into this season's NCAA title defense with a No. 1 ranking in the AP Top 25 preseason basketball poll.

Here are the complete results of the poll released Tuesday:

  1. South Carolina
  2. UConn
  3. USC
  4. Texas
  5. UCLA
  6. Notre Dame
  7. LSU
  8. Iowa State
  9. North Carolina State
  10. Oklahoma
  11. Duke
  12. Baylor
  13. Kansas State
  14. Ohio State
  15. North Carolina
  16. West Virginia
  17. Louisville
  18. Maryland
  19. Florida State
  20. Ole Miss
  21. Creighton
  22. Kentucky
  23. Nebraska
  24. Alabama
  25. Indiana

Other schools that received multiple votes for a place on the top 25 list were Iowa, TCU, Utah, Illinois, Stanford, Michigan State, Gonzaga, Vanderbilt, South Dakota State, Miami, Tennessee, Fairfield, Middle Tennessee and Georgia Tech, per the AP.

Syracuse and Princeton received one vote each.

This marks the first time in 25 years that Stanford has not been ranked among the top 25 in the preseason poll, per Doug Feinberg of the Associated Press. The Cardinal's drop follows the retirement of longtime head coach Tara VanDerveer in April.

Also for the first time in 25 years, No. 24 Alabama has qualified for a top-25 spot in the preseason rankings after consecutive NCAA Tournament bids, Feinberg noted.

The recent expansion of the SEC to include No. 4 Texas and No. 10 Oklahoma makes the conference the most heavily represented in the poll with seven top-25 programs, followed by six ACC teams and six Big Ten teams.

South Carolina received the vast majority of 30 first-place votes with 27. The remainder were split between UConn (two first-place votes) and USC (one first-place vote).

The Gamecocks have been ranked No. 1 in four of the past five preseason polls, Feinberg noted. Last season they missed out on the spot only to go on to win the national championship.

UConn earned the No. 2 spot to mark the program's 30th straight top-10 preseason poll ranking, per Feinberg.

Three top-25 programs saw significant changes by more than 10 spots in the poll since the end of last season, including risers Np. 8 Iowa State and Oklahoma. Both programs are returning most of their top scorers from last season, and Iowa State has now earned top-ten AP rankings in football, men's basketball and women's basketball.

Indiana meanwhile plummeted 13 spots to No. 25 since losing star forward Mackenzie Holmes to the 2024 WNBA draft.

The NCAA women's basketball season begins Nov. 4.

   

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