UConn named No. 1 in USA Today preseason poll

Photo Credit: Cloe Poisson/Hartford Courant

This year will be a rare one where the UConn Huskies will not be entering the 2017-18 NCAA women’s college basketball season as defending national champions – that honor, of course, belongs to South Carolina.

But the Huskies are expected to be favorites to cut down the nets at the Final Four in Columbus and that is reflected in USA Today’s women’s college basketball preseason coaches poll.
The Huskies, who will be returning Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesha Collier from last year’s team that made the Final Four in Dallas, received 25 of 32 first place votes.

Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks, who will be returning A’ja Wilson but lost a slew of departures into the WNBA such as Alaina Coates, Allisha Gray, and Kaela Davis received the remaining seven votes.

The Top 25 looks like this:

1. UConn

2. South Carolina

3. Baylor

4. Mississippi State

5. Notre Dame

6. Texas

7. UCLA

8. Ohio State

9. Stanford

10. Louisville

11. Oregon

12. Duke

13. Maryland

14. Florida State

15. West Virginia

16. Missouri

17. Oregon State

18. Tennessee

19. Marquette

20. DePaul

21. Oklahoma

22. South Florida

23. Michigan

24. Miami

25. California and Washington



By: Akiem Bailum (@AkiemBailum on Twitter, Instagram)