Stanford women’s basketball starts the season unranked for the first time in 25 years

For the first time in a quarter century, Stanford women’s basketball is left out of the AP preseason polls following the retirement of Hall of Fame coach Tara VanDerveer, the winningest coach in college basketball history. In the ACC preseason media polls announced Tuesday night, the Cardinal were ranked seventh in their new conference, while the men’s team was second to last.

In women’s basketball, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish topped the ACC poll with 70 first-place votes, led by preseason ACC Player of the Year Hannah Hidalgo and star Olivia Miles. NC State and Duke finished second and third.

Stanford’s relatively poor preseason ranking is due to the loss of stars Cameron Brink ’24, who was drafted to the LA Sparks, and Kiki Iriafen ’24, who transferred to USC. VanDerveer, the three-time national champion coach, will be replaced by longtime Stanford assistant coach Kate Paye.

Two new transfers, sophomore Mary Ashley Stevenson of Purdue and junior Tess Heal of Santa Clara, will join a lineup that retains experienced seniors Brooke Demetre and Elena Bosgana and includes another group of young freshmen led by center Kennedy Umeh , who was ranked the 44th best player in the country by ESPN HoopGurlz.

On the men’s side, Stanford finished 17th out of 18 ACC teams, followed only by Boston College. The poll was topped by long-time ACC favorites Duke and North Carolina, followed by a resurgent Wake Forest. Cardinal senior Maxime Raynaud received one vote for preseason ACC Player of the Year, which was ultimately awarded to North Carolina’s RJ Davis, who received 40 votes.

Both men’s and women’s basketball begin the season on November 4th with home games against Denver and Le Moyne, respectively.