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)
