The march toward the 2026-27 women's college basketball season is underway with the reveal of both the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll preseason top 25 along with the rankings from The Associated Press.

Both the Coaches Poll and AP voters selected Dawn Staley's South Carolina Gamecocks as the preseason No. 1 team in the country. The Gamecocks have gone to six consecutive Final Fours and will be expected to reach the national semifinals again this season. South Carolina returns All-American Joyce Edwards and will once again have strength in frontcourt depth with Chloe Kitts, Ashlyn Watkins, Oliviyah Edwards and Alicia Tournebize rotating through the post.

From there, the voters do have a few small differences in their voting, though the polls do feature the same top-10 teams (different ordering notwithstanding). The coaches poll, for example, has Shea Ralph and Vanderbilt ranked over Kim Mulkey's LSU team while the AP has them flipped. Defending national champion UCLA, which lost its top six players to the WNBA, is ranked No. 11 is the AP and No. 12 in the coaches.

With that, here's a look at the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll and AP Top 25 – as well as how they differ:

Women's college basketball preseason rankings

First-place vote in parentheses

USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll

  1. South Carolina (26)
  2. UConn (6)
  3. USC
  4. Duke
  5. Michigan
  6. Texas
  7. Louisville
  8. LSU
  9. Vanderbilt
  10. Iowa
  11. North Carolina
  12. UCLA
  13. Notre Dame
  14. Kentucky
  15. Washington
  16. TCU
  17. Maryland
  18. Minnesota
  19. Oklahoma State
  20. Ohio State
  21. Oklahoma
  22. Illinois
  23. Mississippi
  24. West Virginia
  25. North Carolina State

Others receiving votes: Baylor 44; Arizona State 42; Nebraska 40; Tennessee 20; Michigan State 18; Gonzaga 15; South Dakota State 11; Oregon 9; Oregon State 8; Rice 5; Villanova 5; Princeton 4; Florida 3; James Madison 3; Texas Tech 3; Clemson 2; Fairfield; Kansas 2; Virginia 2.

AP poll

  1. South Carolina (23)
  2. UConn (6)
  3. USC (2)
  4. Duke
  5. Michigan
  6. Texas
  7. Louisville
  8. Vanderbilt
  9. LSU
  10. Iowa
  11. UCLA
  12. North Carolina
  13. Notre Dame
  14. Kentucky
  15. TCU
  16. Washington
  17. Minnesota
  18. Ohio State
  19. Mississippi
  20. Maryland
  21. Oklahoma
  22. Oklahoma State
  23. Illinois
  24. West Virginia
  25. NC State

Others receiving votes: Nebraska 47, Arizona State 36, Baylor 31, Virginia 30, Michigan State 16, Kansas 12, Tennessee 9, Alabama 7, Syracuse 5, Villanova 5, Fairfield 2, Oregon 2, Rice 2, Georgia 2, Colorado 2, Virginia Tech 1, Clemson 1

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Women's college basketball rankings: Preseason USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, AP Top 25

Source: Yahoo Sports