The AP Top 25 women’s basketball poll is out. Are Duke, UNC, NC State ranked?
Three Triangle women’s basketball teams are ranked in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 college basketball poll, which was released Tuesday.
Kara Lawson’s Blue Devils came in at No. 7 — meaning both Duke’s men’s and women’s basketball teams are preseason top-10 — while N.C. State is at No. 9 and UNC is at No. 11. The ACC as a whole had five teams ranked, with Notre Dame at No. 15 and Louisville at No. 20. The conference ended last season with five teams ranked in April: Duke (7), N.C. State (9), Notre Dame (10), North Carolina (14) and Florida State (22).
Many of these ACC programs will feature different headliners, though, as roughly 70% of the 2024-2025 all-ACC team is gone by way of the transfer portal, the WNBA and/or graduation. Some of the notable returners include Duke’s Toby Fournier (last year’s ACC Rookie of the Year), N.C. State’s Zoe Brooks (last season’s ACC Most Improved Player) and, of course, Hannah Hidalgo (returning ACC Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and AP All-American) of Notre Dame.
At ACC Tipoff in Charlotte last week, conference commissioner Jim Phillips applauded the league’s media partners for increasing the number of televised women’s games “by double digits.”
“The 2025-26 season will undoubtedly be captivating,” Phillips said, “(It’s) a direct result of the caliber of student athletes who are once again competing in this league, and the exceptional coaches who lead our programs.”
Duke (men and women) leads ACC in preseason poll
The Blue Devils are coming off a 2024-25 season that included winning the ACC women’s basketball championship (the program’s first in a dozen years and Lawson’s first conference title) and making it to the Elite Eight before falling, 54-50, to South Carolina.
At this point in the season, Lawson said the Blue Devils are still finding themselves. But, unlike the Wolfpack and Tar Heels, this Duke squad is returning a solid core of players in Fournier, Ashlon Jackson (a returning All-ACC Second Team guard), Jadyn Donovan (a returning conference All-Defensive Team selectee) and starting forward Delaney Thomas.
“Now it’s just building,” Lawson said. “I think any time you can have the continuity that we’ve enjoyed the last couple of years, it helps going into the season, because you have familiarity with one another.”
Duke will open its season on Nov. 3 in Paris. The Blue Devils are set to square off against Baylor in the Oui-Play event. That game will air on ESPN and tip-off at noon.
New-look Wolfpack slotted in top-10
Wes Moore’s N.C. State team has high preseason expectations despite losing two critical playmakers in senior guards Aziaha James and Saniya Rivers. Both players were on last year’s All-ACC First Team and signed with the WNBA’s Dallas Wings and Connecticut Sun, respectively.
“Having no seniors is not really exciting,” Moore said in Charlotte last week. “The great teams we’ve had have had great senior leadership, and we’re depending on some younger players to provide that leadership.”
Brooks and sophomore guard Zamareya Jones are two of the younger players Moore will look to “heavily to provide some leadership.”
The Wolfpack also returns forward Tilda Trygger, who started most of last year as a freshman.
Tar Heels round out Triangle women’s top-15
North Carolina’s season came to an end when it faced Duke in last year’s NCAA tournament, falling to the Blue Devils in the Sweet 16 in a 47-38 rock fight.
Courtney Banghart and the Tar Heels will look to replace the production of do-it-all small forward Alyssa Ustby, who made last season’s All-ACC First Team, as well as center and All-ACC Second Team selectee Maria Gakdeng. Both are currently playing overseas.
“We do expect to have a different look,” Banghart said at last week’s ACC Tipoff. “You don’t lose two of the best post players the league has seen in a long time and try to replace them immediately in the same way.”
Here’s the full preseason poll: 1. UConn 2. South Carolina 3. UCLA 4. Texas 5. LSU 6. Oklahoma 7. Duke 8. Tennessee 9. NC State 10. Maryland 11. North Carolina 12. Ole Miss 13. Michigan 14. Iowa State 15. Notre Dame 16. Baylor 17. TCU 18. USC 19. Vanderbilt 20. Louisville 21. Iowa 22. Oklahoma State 23. Michigan State 24. Kentucky 25. Richmond
This story was originally published October 14, 2025 at 12:23 PM.