The reigning champion Notre Dame, currently ranked sixth, is favored to lead the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in women’s basketball as the season begins. The ACC recently announced its preseason predictions after a voting session involving media representatives during the recent “ACC Tipoff” media days.
Notre Dame secured 70 out of 79 first-place votes, solidifying its position as the top team in the conference. This comes on the heels of Coach Niele Ivey securing her first ACC Tournament title with a victory over North Carolina State. The team welcomes back sophomore Hannah Hidalgo, an Associated Press first-team All-American, who recorded an impressive average of 22.6 points last season. The Fighting Irish will also reintegrate point guard Olivia Miles, a second-team All-American in 2023, who missed all of last season due to a significant knee injury.
In the preseason rankings, ninth-ranked North Carolina State followed closely, receiving eight first-place votes to claim the second position after their remarkable run to the Final Four, which marked their first appearance since 1998. The third spot is held by eleventh-ranked Duke, while seventeenth-ranked Louisville, nineteenth-ranked Florida State, and fifteenth-ranked North Carolina complete the list of the six teams from the ACC that appear in the latest AP Top 25 poll.
Stanford, which is joining the ACC this year, is anticipated to finish seventh, trailed by Miami, Virginia, and Georgia Tech, rounding out the top ten. Syracuse is positioned at eleven, followed by Virginia Tech, Clemson, California, Boston College, SMU, Wake Forest, and Pittsburgh.
Hidalgo was a standout selection on the preseason All-ACC team, which also acknowledged Florida State’s Ta’Niya Latson and North Carolina State’s Aziaha James-Saniya Rivers backcourt pairing. Additionally, Olivia Miles alongside teammate Sonia Citron from Notre Dame made the prestigious list, with FSU’s Makayla Timpson, UNC’s Alyssa Ustby, Duke’s Reigan Richardson, and Virginia’s Kymora Johnson completing the ten-player roster.