Media Puts Aaliyah Chavez on All-SEC and Oklahoma Sixth in Women's Basketball Poll

Aaliyah Chavez is already back on the preseason All-SEC board, and nobody who watched her last year should be surprised.

The Oklahoma sophomore was named to the media’s Preseason All-SEC Second Team on Monday, and she was the only underclassman to make either team.

That is the part that stands out.

The league is loaded, the voters had plenty of older names to lean on, and Chavez still forced her way into the conversation because last season left them no clean way around her.

She was excellent as a freshman. Not in the “nice young piece for the future” way either. She averaged 18.4 points, 4.2 assists, and 3.8 rebounds, took home ESPN and CBS Sports National Freshman of the Year honors, and made All-SEC second team the hard way by producing all year. She led all true freshmen in the country in scoring, finished seventh in the SEC in points, and ranked ninth in assists.

She scored 625 points, the second-most by an OU freshman, and joined Paige Bueckers as the only freshman since 2009 to average at least 18 points, 4 assists, and 3.5 rebounds while staying under 3 turnovers a game. That is a grown-up line from a first-year player.

Then there were the free throws. Chavez shot 92.9 percent from the line, set Oklahoma and NCAA freshman records, tied the program’s all-time mark, and made 62 straight at one point. That is absurd.

She also racked up a conference-record eight SEC Freshman of the Week awards, two national freshman honors from the USBWA, WBCA All-America honorable mention, and a stack of late-season national watch lists. She scored in double figures in 33 of 34 games. Twelve of those were 20-point games. Seven came against ranked teams.

So when the media put her on the preseason second team, it was not some optimistic bet on upside. It was just continuity.

Oklahoma’s team ranking landed in a pretty fair spot too. The Sooners were picked sixth, behind South Carolina, Texas, Vanderbilt, LSU, and Kentucky. Hard to get too mad about that. The top of the SEC is still a problem for everybody, and Oklahoma has finished fifth in each of its first two seasons in the league. Starting at sixth feels less like disrespect and more like the media saying, alright, go prove it again.

The coaches still have to weigh in later this month, so there will be more of these lists coming. The rest of the honors looked familiar. Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes was the preseason Player of the Year and headlined a first team with Madison Booker, Joyce Edwards, Clara Strack, and Mikaylah Williams. Chavez made the second team with Tessa Johnson, Chloe Kitts, MiLaysia Fulwiley, and Talaysia Cooper.

For Jennie Baranczyk’s program, the quiet consistency might be the most impressive part. This is the sixth straight year Oklahoma has put somebody on a preseason all-conference team. That is how you know the standard is holding.

Now the fun part starts.

The Sooners open the season Nov. 2 against North Carolina in Paris on ESPN2. Before that, they get a free exhibition against Southern Nazarene on Oct. 25 at Lloyd Noble. From the jump, the expectations are visible.

Chavez is already being treated like one of the better players in the league. Oklahoma is being treated like a team that belongs in the mix without being handed anything.

That feels right. She earned the honor. The Sooners got a fair ranking.

From here, they both get to go make the media look late instead of early.