Washington Huskies Women's Basketball Earns Top 25 Placement in Recent Poll

There's a little more than two weeks until the Washington Huskies women's basketball team begins its respective season.

The Huskies will kick off their 2026-27 slate against the UC San Diego Tritons at 11 a.m. PT on Nov. 2 at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle, and the team will enter with legitimate Big Ten title aspirations.

Washington is coming off its best season in nearly a decade.

The Huskies made their second-straight NCAA tournament this past March and earned their first win in March Madness since the Kelsey Plum-led team in 2017. It was the first NCAA tournament win in the head coaching career of Tina Langley (two with UW, one with the Rice Owls).

Washington's tournament run came to an end by the thinnest of margins. In the Round of 32, the Huskies fell 62-59 in overtime to the TCU Horned Frogs, which was led by this year's unanimous WNBA Rookie of The Year, Olivia Miles. The Horned Frogs finished in the Elite Eight.

On the heels of the best season in nearly a decade, the Huskies only improved the roster this offseason. In addition to the team's improvements, Washignton also brought back all three players who received all-conference honors last season: first-team All-Big Ten senior guard Sayvia Sellers, All-Big Ten honorable mention junior guard Avery Howell and Big Ten all-freshman sophomore forward Brynn McGaughy.

The Huskies' additions and talented returners this offseason have been noticed by several national sites and publications, including ESPN.

The site released its preseason Top 25 for the 2026-27 season (put together by Charlie Creme), which had Washington ranked 12th.

In its overview for the team's placement, ESPN also mentioned how this year could be the one where Sellers finally gets national recognition.

"Quietly and methodically, coach Tina Langley has rebuilt a Washington program that had just 25 wins in the four years prior to her arrival," Creme said in the poll. "The success truly began when Sellers arrived. Last season, she averaged 18.0 points per game, good for seventh in the Big Ten, was named first-team all-conference and led the Huskies to their first NCAA tournament win in 10 years. Yet outside of Seattle and the Big Ten, Sellers is rarely mentioned among the country's top players. If the Huskies improve on last season's 22 wins and push USC, Michigan and Iowa for conference supremacy, Sellers should get noticed in her final year."

There are just two teams in the Big Ten ranked ahead of Washington in the poll: the Southern California (USC) Trojans (ranked No. 3) and Iowa Hawkeyes (ranked No. 7).