STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford will open the 2023-24 season ranked 15th in the Associated Press women's basketball poll, the organization announced Tuesday. It's the 24th consecutive season the Cardinal has appeared in the preseason AP rankings.
Stanford, which closed out 2022-23 ranked fifth in the same poll, posted a 29-6 overall record a season ago and was regular-season co-champions of the Pac-12 with a 15-3 league mark.
The Cardinal has now appeared in the AP rankings 625 times out of 844 total polls since 1976-77 (74.1 percent), second all-time behind Tennessee (775), with an average positioning of 6.9. It has been in 103 consecutive AP polls, the fourth-longest active streak in the country, and has been in the top 15 in every poll since March 5, 2018, a stretch of 98 in a row and the second-best active streak in the nation.
Stanford has now been ranked in the AP preseason poll 36 times out of a possible 48 such rankings. Of the 36 times it has appeared in the preseason rankings, this is just the seventh time the Cardinal has been slotted outside the top 10, joining 2016-17 (No. 11), 2015-16 (No. 16), 2005-06 (No. 11), 2000-01 (No. 11), 1998-99 (No. 19), 1987-88 (No. 20).
The last time Stanford was outside the preseason AP top 10 in 2016-17, it won 32 games, made the program's 13th Final Four and won its 12th Pac-12 Tournament championship with a team led by first-year assistant coach Erica McCall.
Stanford begins its 2023-24 season when it hosts Dominican in an exhibition on Wednesday, Nov. 1 at 7 p.m.
In addition to its soon-to-be announced television broadcast schedule, every Cardinal game this upcoming season will again be carried via GoStanford.com's audio stream with Kevin Danna and Tim Swartz splitting play-by-play duties.
The Pac-12 has a national-best six teams in the preseason poll with No. 4 UCLA, No. 5 Utah, No. 20 Colorado, No. 21 USC and No. 24 Washington State joining No. 15 Stanford among the nation's top 25.
2023-24 Preseason AP Poll
Rank | School | Points |
---|---|---|
1 | LSU | 899 (35) |
2 | UConn | 855 (1) |
3 | Iowa | 780 |
4 | UCLA | 757 |
5 | Utah | 742 |
6 | South Carolina | 713 |
7 | Ohio State | 711 |
8 | Virginia Tech | 661 |
9 | Indiana | 625 |
10 | Notre Dame | 546 |
11 | Tennessee | 540 |
12 | Ole Miss | 450 |
13 | Texas | 428 |
14 | Maryland | 392 |
15 | Stanford | 389 |
16 | North Carolina | 375 |
17 | Louisville | 308 |
18 | Florida State | 292 |
19 | Baylor | 268 |
20 | Colorado | 257 |
21 | USC | 209 |
22 | Creighton | 123 |
23 | Illinois | 82 |
24 | Washington State | 61 |
25 | Mississippi State | 54 |