SAN FRANCISCO – For the sixth consecutive year, five Pac-12 women’s basketball teams are ranked in the Associated Press Preseason Top 25. The Conference’s six-year run with at least that many teams appearing in the AP’s debut poll is the longest active streak in the nation.
The group is led by defending national champion and No. 3 Stanford, which received five of the 29 available first-place votes.
For the fourth straight season, Oregon will open the season in the top 10 of the AP Poll, checking in at No. 10 following the release of the preseason rankings Tuesday.
Oregon has now been ranked in the top 25 in each of the last 77 poll releases dating back to the start of the 2017-18 season, sitting in the top 10 in all but 11 of those weeks. The Ducks’ streak of 77 straight weeks ranked in the AP poll is the seventh-longest active stretch in the country.
The Ducks are coming off of a Sweet Sixteen run in 2020-21 when they finished 15-9 and 10-7 in Pac-12 play, coming in fourth in the league. Oregon returns its leading scorer and rebounder from a year ago in Nyara Sabally (12.9 PPG, 7.3 RPG) and assists leader Te-Hina Paopao (4.4 APG). Sedona Prince gives the Ducks another talented star in the frontcourt after averaging 10.4 points and 1.5 blocks per game while Sydney Parrish, Maddie Scherr and Kylee Watson all return after playing significant roles in their first collegiate seasons.
Oregon also welcomes in a talented group of newcomers made up of five transfers and two true freshmen. Endyia Rogers arrives in Eugene from USC, where she was an all-conference performer a year ago after averaging 14.8 points and 4.3 assists per game. The Ducks also bring in graduate transfers Shannon Dufficy and Ahlise Hurst Georgia State transfer Taylor Hosendove and junior college All-American Chanaya Pinto.
True freshman Taylor Bigby comes in as the No. 29 player in the Class of 2021 according to espnW in addition to being a two-time Gatorade State Player of the Year in Nevada as a junior and senior. Phillipina Kyei rounds out the group of newcomers and is the tallest player in program history at 6-foot-8.
The Ducks are the only team in the Pac-12 to have three 2021 all-conference performers on the roster in Paopao, Rogers and Sabally, while the four transfers who came from other Division I schools have a combined 331 career games under their belts.
Oregon will host exhibition games against Saint Martin’s (Oct. 28, 6 p.m.) and Westmont (Nov. 6, TBA) before opening the regular season against Idaho State on Nov. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Matthew Knight Arena.
No. 14 Oregon State appears in its eighth consecutive preseason poll. UCLA checks in at No. 20, while national runner-up Arizona is No. 22. Washington State is among 14 teams receiving votes.
The Pac-12’s five ranked teams are tied with the ACC and Big Ten for the most in the country. The Conference has had a larger proportion of its teams appear in each of the past three preseason polls (41.67 percent) than any other league. Six of the SEC’s 14 teams (42.86 percent) were in the 2018-19 preseason top 25.
In a first for the Conference, the Pac-12 is coming off a season in which its top two regular-season finishers – Stanford and Arizona – met for the national championship. The 2021 title game was just the seventh time in NCAA women’s basketball history that two teams from the same league met for a championship and was the first to feature two schools from west of the Mississippi River since 1986 (Texas vs. USC).
Over the last six seasons, the Pac-12 leads all conferences in Final Four appearances (6), NCAA Tournament wins (70), NCAA Tournament winning percentage (.707) and WBCA All-Americans (13). In the first year using the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) for women’s basketball, four of the top 10 teams in the final NET rankings for 2021 were from the Pac-12 in national champion Stanford (No. 1), national runner-up Arizona (No. 7), UCLA (No. 8) and Oregon (No. 10), a total double any other league. The Pac-12 was also the nation’s top-rated conference by RPI in three of the final five seasons (2016, 2017, 2020) that metric was used by the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee.
2021-22 ASSOCIATED PRESS PRESEASON TOP 25
The effectiveness of these drugs is unbelievable. http://www.learningworksca.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CCSF-Equity-Report-2011.pdf tadalafil cheapest price drugs are safe, effective and FDA-approved. We have included clinical studies published during the last decade or so. overnight cialis delivery Thus, if you are suffering from any of authorized pharmacy. prices online cialis In http://www.learningworksca.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/026-Long-Beach-USD-At-a-Glance-15-16.pdf cialis online 1986, the media ran a story claiming that Jackson slept to slow down the aging process.