Women’s college basketball power rankings: USC, Notre Dame, Iowa take huge leaps – The Athletic
The 2025-26 season is upon us, and it figures to be competitive. Week 1 was a doozy, with multiple games between ranked opponents going down to the wire — including an overtime banger between Arkansas State and Tarleton State, if that’s more your mileage — and several high-profile freshmen bringing the goods in their first games.
The rapid turnover in college basketball, thanks to the transfer portal, has made the first week a dizzying experience. Still, the talent level is so high that teams are figuring it out pretty quickly, regardless. Yarden Garzon (Indiana transfer) and Oluchi Okananwa (Duke) look like they’ve played for Maryland coach Brenda Frese for years. Gianna Kneepkens (Utah) at UCLA and Ta’Niya Latson (Florida State) at South Carolina look right at home too.
Kudos to the programs that schedule at a high level in November and December and make these games instructive. A special hat tip to Texas, which has loaded its early slate with mid-major powers like Richmond and South Dakota State in addition to North Carolina and Baylor, even with the SEC awaiting once the calendar turns. More and more teams are testing themselves before conference play, making this time of year even more enjoyable.
If this is the entertainment the first week of the season can provide, we’re in for a treat as it proceeds. These first power rankings focus on the teams that played higher-profile games to start the year.
Dropped out: Richmond (19), Vanderbilt (25)
Also considered: Richmond, Ole Miss, Nebraska
Welcome to the Jazzy Davidson Era
For the first three halves of Jazzy Davidson’s college career, it was easy to appreciate everything about her game except her scoring: her length defending in isolation, her timing coming over in help, her passing when the double came and her motor running the floor in transition.
Look at the defensive highlight reel Davidson put together against NC State, a team that put up 80 points in its opener.
And then the offensive floodgates opened for the USC freshman. Coach Lindsay Gottlieb dialed up a couple of plays after halftime to get Davidson an open lane to the basket, and once those layups fell, Davidson was unstoppable. She followed up a 1-of-10 shooting performance in the first half with a 7-of-13 performance in the second, including the game-winning finish on a beautiful after-timeout play. She hit spot-up jumpers and, at 6-foot-1, repeatedly took advantage of her matchup with 5-6 Zoe Brooks. It was a composed, mature performance from a player in her second game, after she made just 4 of 16 shots in the opener.
game winner from Jazzy 🎷
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— The Sickos CBB Committee (@sickoscbb.bsky.social) November 9, 2025 at 4:04 PM
The comparisons to JuJu Watkins are natural. After Watkins, another No. 1 recruit for the Trojans, burst onto the scene with a nationally-televised win over a top-10 opponent (in an arena named after a communications company) in the first week of her freshman year, Davidson has big shoes to fill. Fortunately for Davidson, she looks up to the challenge.
Aaliyah Chavez is letting it fly
Another top recruit in this class, Aaliyah Chavez faces a dramatically different situation than Davidson. While USC returns one starter from last season in Kennedy Smith and about 18 percent of its total offense, Oklahoma is veteran-laden. The Sooners’ other four starters are all returners and combined to average nearly 50 points last season.
That puts Chavez in an interesting position as a confident playmaker and scorer who has a lot of mouths to feed. The good thing right away is that Chavez plays with an abundance of pace, creating a lot of possessions. Whether she’s whipping the ball up the court or shooting early in the clock, Chavez makes quick decisions. My favorite assist in Oklahoma’s opening win over Belmont came after Chavez saved the ball underneath her own basket, then sprinted back into the play, received the ball around halfcourt and lobbed it to fellow freshman Brooklyn Stewart for a layup. Seven seconds for a coast-to-coast score.
The balance with Chavez is when she should hunt her own shot versus continuing to move the ball. Against the Bruins, she took six jumpers in transition without passing in the half-court. Those were mostly open, but she added another five jump shots in the half-court that could have gone elsewhere. When Chavez takes more field-goal attempts than Raegan Beers, who finished shooting 13 of 17, the distribution has gone awry.
The Sooners pulled away in the fourth quarter of that game, outscoring Belmont 26-13. During that period, Chavez had two field-goal attempts while Beers and Sahara Williams had six and seven, respectively.
No concerns about Texas’ defense
The first few possessions of Texas’ 29-point win over Richmond were pretty illuminating. There was the Longhorns’ size, now in the form of 6-4 Arizona transfer Breya Cunningham, overwhelming opponents in the paint. There was Texas’ fullcourt press, if not creating turnovers in the backcourt, then at least speeding up opponents so they weren’t comfortable in the frontcourt. For example, Rori Harmon pressured the Spiders’ Ally Sweeney for about 50 feet, and once Sweeney let her guard down, Madison Booker swiped in for the steal inside the 3-point arc and scored a fastbreak layup.
Three straight Longhorns turnovers led to easy buckets for Richmond. But when Texas had a chance to set its half-court defense, there was no moving one of the top teams in the country. The Longhorns made everything difficult, deflecting inbounds and entry passes and forcing the Spiders to keep resetting. Texas didn’t even win the first quarter, but it started the war of attrition, which eventually paid off.
Booker in particular was a menace. She picked the pocket of reigning Atlantic 10 player of the year Maggie Doogan at the top of the key for one of her six steals. Booker was at home in the midrange, canning 8 of 11 jumpers in that zone. She essentially plays every position from one to four on both ends, and it’s difficult to account for everything she does. Richmond’s struggles to contain Booker will be replicated by many other teams this season.
Duke’s starting lineup adjustment
Duke used one starting lineup all of last season. With the graduation of Reigan Richardson, the Blue Devils slotted Toby Fournier, last year’s ACC sixth player of the year, into her spot against Baylor to start the season, but the adjustment doesn’t appear to be that simple.
Duke coach Kara Lawson broke out a new lineup for its second game, replacing Delaney Thomas with Jordan Wood. Lawson said postgame: “We’re going to change the starting lineup through the non-conference. I don’t know what the best mix is for this group yet.”
Although Fournier is a better overall player than Richardson, Duke’s spacing is compromised with the change. Playing Wood over Thomas helps rebalance the lineup, since nearly one-third of Wood’s field-goal attempts in 2024-25 were 3-pointers, while Thomas didn’t attempt a single 3. Holy Cross isn’t the same caliber of opponent as Baylor, but when the Crusaders started the game defending in a triangle-and-two, Wood took advantage of that coverage in a way that Thomas couldn’t. She took six 3-pointers in the first quarter alone, finishing the game 5 of 12 from distance in her first career start.
Lawson indicated that more adjustments could be on the way, with the debuts of freshmen Emilee Skinner (point guard) and Arianna Roberson (center) giving the Blue Devils more options. But as long as Fournier and Jadyn Donovan are at the forward spots, a shooting center seems like a no-brainer for Duke.
NC State working in isolation
The Wolfpack have been the most exciting team to watch early, thanks to two games against ranked opponents that were decided in the final minute. It’s unclear who coach Wes Moore trusts beyond his top six of the starters plus sophomore Devyn Quigley, but these two matchups didn’t exactly provide any lower-leverage opportunities for his younger players.
It’s hard to imagine where NC State would be had it not added Khamil Pierre late in the transfer window. Pierre is averaging 16.5 points and 16 rebounds, even though it seems at times that she hasn’t met her teammates. Pierre’s isolation scoring is commendable, but she could really look to pass more often. There is no reason why a player who has played 72 minutes and taken 35 shot attempts should have two assists.
It’s one thing when Pierre is putting the ball up directly after an offensive rebound, but to not even think about involving her teammates on some of these possessions is puzzling. The Wolfpack need her offense, but they also need Pierre to be a little less single-minded about scoring.
Games to watch
(All times ET)
Oklahoma vs. UCLA (in Sacramento, Calif.), 10:30 p.m. Monday, FS1
Notre Dame at Michigan, 4 p.m. Saturday, NBC
South Carolina at USC, 9 p.m. Saturday, FOX
