Dawn Staley has already achieved a lot in South Carolina. Now she can add the No. 1 ranking of the first preseason in the school’s history to the list of achievements.
The Gamecocks received 29 of the first 30 votes in The Associated Press’s pre-season women’s Top 25, released on Tuesday.
“It is really cool to be the first to do things in a place where you can feel the love for our team in this city,” said Staley, who has won a national championship and five SEC tournament titles since arriving at school in 2008. “They were on this journey with us and allowed us to do things like this.”
Gamecocks, who had been in second place twice in the pre-season survey in 2014 and 2015, finished last season in first place for the first time. Staley hopes that this year’s team will have a chance to compete for a national championship after last season’s NCAA tournament was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
After Gamecocks in second place was Stanford, who received the other first place vote from the national media panel. It is the cardinal’s highest rating in the preseason since the 2009 season, when the team also came in second.
“I am proud of our team and they are coming to the gym and getting better,” said Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer. “We have a long way to go, no doubt, but I am very excited.”
UConn, Baylor and Louisville complete the top five. It is the 14th consecutive year that the Huskies rank in the top five in the pre-season.
Mississippi was the sixth state. Arizona ranked seventh, the first time since 2004 that the Wildcats were ranked in the pre-season vote. North Carolina, UCLA and Oregon states complete the top 10.