Baylor- preseason number 1, favorite to repeat if Cox can recover on time. Cox turned into the player everyone thought she was going to be. It's true that post players take longer. After their freshman season, Hebard looked to be the better player. After this season, Cox is the better player. Her impact cannot be put into a stat sheet, she should be the second draft pick after SI.
Oregon- preseason number 2- return everyone but Corzola. It might make sense for them to be number 1, but the players they return aren't going to mature like Baylor's. SI didn't do good against Richards, Boley is spot up shooter with little offensive variety, and Sabally is Uber talented but foul prone. Hebard is very good as well. I think that they are the second best team in paper, but like last season.. they will have more losses than the "AP #2" should have. Unless teams are just beating each other up.
UConn- preseason 3-5. They should be somewhere in there. If they want to win an NC, Williams needs to be an AA. I am just not sold on Walker. KLS and Collier rose into first team AAs their sophomore, and they were already the defensive focuses by midseason. Walker turned into a solid player, but that was after being the least important defensive assignment (Louisville dared her to beat them, and she did). Now she'll be probably the 4th dangerous option lol. That means UConn is still very capable with Dangerfield, Williams, and ONO leading the way.
ND- Preseason top 15? I have no clue. Losing all five starters to an NC runner-up team is crazy. Muffet will have a lot of coaching to do this upcoming season. I feel like that may be a bit refreshing for ND fans, there are no expectations on the team. So they can blossom at their own rate. They are in rebuild mode, but I wouldn't be surprised if they end up having a better than expected season.
