Big East Basketball Media Day is COMING UP ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1! Holy crap! I missed the memo that it was schedule for so early! I wasn’t expecting it for a few more weeks, to be honest.
Anyway, if the Big East preseason poll for women’s basketball is coming up on Thursday, then we’d better make some preseason picks for the conference before the poll ruins the fun, right? Luckily, my system for making these picks makes it pretty easy to figure out who’s getting a spot here…..
Big East Preseason Player of the Year: Sarah Strong, Connecticut
She was the quite obvious
unanimous pick as the POY at the end of her sophomore season. She gets to be the preseason pick now. As always, the move here is to not overcomplicate this.
Big East Preseason Freshman of the Year: Olivia Vukosa, Connecticut
Friends, do we think that ESPN’s #2 prospect in the entire 2026 recruiting class might be pretty good? If we don’t think that she’s going to take playing time from Jana El Alfy right out of the gate, then your next option at least in terms of ESPN’s recruiting rankings is Syvannah Dawson at St. John’s, who is at #98. So, yeah, I’d bet that the coaches are going to vote for Vukosa.
Preseason All-Big East Team
Jasmine Bascoe, Villanova
Savannah Catalon, Seton Hall
Sarah Strong, Connecticut
Halle Vice, Marquette
Ava Zediker, Creighton
Is the Big East going to do something silly where Sarah Strong is POY but not on the preseason all-conference team? That’s what they did last season. I don’t have to abide by their ridiculous decisions, so Strong goes right on the list. The other four were all unanimous choices for the All-Big East First Team at the end of last season and they’re all back for this season. Easy!
Predicted Order Of Finish
1 — Connecticut
2 — Villanova
3 — Creighton
4 — Seton Hall
5 — Marquette
6 — St. John’s
7 — Providence
8 — Georgetown
9 — Xavier
10 — Butler
11 — DePaul
Obviously the Huskies are #1. They get to be #1 until someone changes that for them, and even then, I’d probably pick them #1 the next year anyway. Villanova’s the only other team coming off an NCAA bid last season, and Jasmine Bascoe is still there, so why not keep them at #2? I like the idea of the Creighton freshmen from last year popping out to push the Jays forward, so that’s #3. I trust Tony Bozzella’s collection of players more than I trust Cara Consuegra’s, so that’s #4 and #5 settled. I don’t particularly like any of the teams that I have at 6-9, so you can do whatever you want there. I have Xavier 9th more as a statement about how I really don’t like what’s going on at Butler or DePaul right now than as some kind of praise about the direction of the Musketeers.
Want to quibble about something here? Hop in the comments and fire away…..
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