There was a different feel to BIG EAST media day this season, as the venue shifted from Madison Square Garden to the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. It’s also the first year in the tenure of Tim Brosnan, who took over as Commissioner on Sept. 1. The former Georgetown student-athlete succeeds Val Ackerman, who announced her retirement this past April.
While the names, faces and venues may change, one thing remains constant: UConn is the top seed in the conference preseason coaches’ poll, a nomination it has garnered each year since its re-entry to the conference prior to the 2020-21 season.
Read about each BIG EAST team, or skip to your favorite using the hyperlinks below. Unless otherwise hyperlinked, player statistics for team previews are from Sports-Reference, Her Hoop Stats or team media notes.
2026-27 BIG EAST women’s basketball preseason poll
- UConn — 100 (10 first-place votes)
- Villanova — 90 (1)
- Creighton — 78
- St. John’s — 68
- Seton Hall — 67
- Marquette — 60
- Providence — 38
- Georgetown — 36
- Xavier — 29
- Butler — 21
- DePaul — 18
UConn
2025-26 season: 38-1 (20-0 BIG EAST), NCAA Tournament national semifinals
For most women’s basketball teams around the country, reaching a Final Four is a program-defining moment. For UConn, which has reached the Final Four an astounding 25 times, it’s routine. Not winning the national championship last season following a 38-0 run to the Final Four means that the Huskies fell short of their ultimate goal: hoisting a 13th national championship.
The loss to South Carolina in Phoenix left a bad taste in 2026 national player of the year Sarah Strong‘s mouth, and she returns for her junior season with a renewed intensity and the same sky-high expectations for herself and her teammates.
“I feel like that’s the reason why you come to UConn — because there’s so many high expectations put on you from the coaches and eventually from yourself and from your teammates,” Strong told The IX Sports on BIG EAST media day.
Strong was the unanimous choice for the BIG EAST Preseason Player of the Year at media day, and leads a talented UConn program poised to return to the Final Four this April in Columbus. The Huskies boast returning stars KK Arnold and Blanca Quiñonez — both members of the preseason All-BIG EAST Team — and 6’5 freshman Olivia Vukosa, Preseason Freshman of the Year and the No. 2 overall recruit in ESPNW’s Class of 2026.
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UConn, as usual, has the talent to reach the sport’s final weekend, but this new group will need time to gel as teammates. The Huskies bulldozed their competition last season, and then ran into Dawn Staley‘s buzzsaw when they finally met a team of similar pedigree. This season, their nonconference schedule should prepare them better for the postseason; they face Michigan, Iowa, South Carolina, Duke, Notre Dame, Tennessee and LSU, all before the end of December.
“Losing … three times in the [2024-25] regular season didn’t keep us from winning a national championship. Being undefeated last year during the [2025-26] regular season didn’t help us win the national championship,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma told The IX Sports. “So I think the regular season means a lot, but it’s more [about] are you learning from it?”
The Huskies will have plenty of opportunities to learn from the nation’s top competition before BIG EAST play starts in earnest in January.
Villanova
2025-26 season: 25-8 (16-4 BIG EAST), NCAA Tournament first round
After a two-year drought following Maddy Siegrist‘s senior season (2022-23), Villanova returned to the NCAA Tournament last season as a No. 10 seed. While getting there was a goal, the Wildcats weren’t satisfied with their 57-52 first-round loss to Texas Tech.
“What I will hold on to was the disappointment this group had with not getting that first game,” Villanova head coach Denise Dillon told The IX Sports. “It was close; we were right there. We had our opportunities, and we fell short. So I think that was the drive in the offseason. That was the conversations that [the players] were having — the will to get back, yes, but to advance is what we’re looking for.”
Villanova returns preseason All-BIG EAST talent in junior guard Jasmine Bascoe and sophomore guard Kennedy Henry. Bascoe led the conference in both scoring and assists last season, and is a two-time first-team All-BIG EAST selection. The scrappy 5’7 guard gained valuable experience this offseason by training with Canada’s senior national team and competing in the FIBA Women’s Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament. Henry is a solid two-way threat who set the Villanova freshman class record for steals (72) last season en route to All-Freshman Team and BIG EAST All-Defensive Team honors.
The Wildcats will kick off the 2026-27 NCAA women’s college basketball season with the Eternal City Tip-Off on Nov. 1 against Notre Dame at the Palazzo dello Sport in Rome. The recently elected Pope Leo XIV, the first American-born Pope and a Villanova graduate, is scheduled to hold a General Audience the day before the game, pending his health.
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Creighton
2025-26 season: 16-15 (11-9 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament semifinals
Last season was a bit of a transition season for Creighton, which lost its core three of Lauren Jensen, Morgan Maly and Molly Mogensen, the trio that accounted for 61.6% of the Bluejays’ scoring. In their places stepped some stellar freshmen, including 2025-26 unanimous All-BIG EAST First Team selection Ava Zediker and twins and Omaha natives Neleigh and Norah Gessert.
“Last year our freshmen were better than maybe advertised,” Creighton head coach Jim Flanery told The IX Sports. “So we had to just be like, okay, we’re going to play you through some mistakes, and we’re going to get better — and kind of that’s what happened. We got quite a bit better by the end of the year.”
Following a shaky start to last season, the Bluejays went 7-2 to wrap up the regular season and advanced to the BIG EAST Tournament semifinals. They ultimately ended the season with a 16-15 record.
“At the beginning of [last] season there were a lot of up and downs, and one thing we didn’t do is hang our heads or feel sorry for ourselves,” Zediker told The IX Sports. “We talked about staying together as a team, sticking together, learning from our mistakes, and then just, like, how can we grow as a team? So when we had that really good winning stretch, I think that just showed everyone how we stayed together. We worked hard through hard times.”
This season, Creighton is projected towards the top of the conference again, No. 3, with a core that has gained valuable experience through a year of growth. They are poised to be a top-tier BIG EAST team again and push for the postseason.
St. John’s
2025-26 season: 22-12 (11-9 BIG EAST), WBIT first round
After missing out on an NCAA Tournament bid the last three seasons, St. John’s head coach Joe Tartamella is clear-eyed about his goal to return.
“I think with the [NCAA Tournament] expansion [to 76 teams] you really need to try to be in that grouping — 76, yeah, it’s different, but it’s still going to be hard [to qualify],” Tartamella told The IX Sports. “But we talk about competing for the standard every day and everything that we’re doing, whether it’s on the court or in class or just in life. … And that standard is 76, and you want to be in that.”
To build the strongest postseason resume possible, Tartamella and his staff have put together a tough nonconference schedule featuring matchups against A-10 foes Rhode Island, Richmond and Dayton; an away game against a retooled Oklahoma State; and a neutral-site match against defending national champs UCLA.
The Red Storm will be led by preseason All-BIG EAST selections in senior guard Brooke Moore and junior forward Sa’Mya Wyatt, both of whom bring a wealth of experience to the roster. They’ll be joined by eight newcomers — not uncommon in the transfer portal era — and Tartamella has proven in recent years his savviness in blending new and returning talent to put a good product on the floor. He hopes this season is no exception, and that his squad can live up to their No. 4 BIG EAST preseason ranking.
“Believe it or not, I think the makeup of our team is probably deeper than any team that I’ve had in terms of the level of play that we have 1 through 13,” Tartamella said. “I think in a good way one of the challenges will be how do we maximize our potential with the roster that we have.”
Seton Hall
2025-26 season: 19-13 (12-8 BIG EAST), WBIT first round
Seton Hall head coach Tony Bozzella shows no hesitation in praising his senior guard Savannah Catalon. Catalon, a unanimous selection to the All-BIG EAST First Team last year, averaged a team-best 13.1 points and 4.6 rebounds in 32.8 minutes per game for the Pirates.
“She’s one of the most genuine, caring people that I’ve ever coached and very team-oriented,” Bozzella told The IX Sports. “I was proud of her to become first team all-conference because it just showed she developed her skills that she had. She made it a bigger and better Savannah by how hard she worked, and her work ethic is second to none. And I was just proud of her because I know the work she put into it — and she didn’t deserve this; she earned it.”
Bozzella admits that his squad fell short of their goals last season, finishing 4th overall in the BIG EAST and getting ousted in the first round of the WBIT. This season, he believes the Pirates’ returning core of Catalon, Saniyah King, Ja’Kahla Craft, Ari Woodard, and Savanna Jones brings valuable continuity as the team welcomes a class of newcomers, including five true freshmen.
Catalon, for her part, isn’t satisfied with last season’s unanimous All-BIG EAST first team selection. The Texas native is prepared to elevate her game even further this year as a senior, especially on the offensive end.
“I am a three-level scorer, but I want to be more efficient when it comes to that,” Catalon told The IX Sports. “I know some days you have your off days, but I want to be that person … always guaranteed to be a threat on the court offensively. Because defensively I’m for sure I’m going to be that every game — given. But offensively, for sure just [want to be] more consistent.”
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Marquette
2025-26 season: 18-12 (12-8 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament quarterfinals
Marquette third-year head coach Cara Consuegra wants her team to exemplify the spirit of their city.
“We’ve been really persistent and focused on … building our brand, and that is to play with heart, that is to exemplify the values of Marquette, which is to play for and with each other, to play for our city, to be one with the city,” Consuegra told The IX Sports. “We really love the city of Milwaukee and the values of the people in that city — blue collar, hard nose, chip-on-their-shoulder type folks. And I think we like to consider ourselves the same way — so we’re going to be tough, we’re going to play hard.”
Perhaps no Golden Eagle represents that grit more than senior guard Halle Vice, now in her fourth and final season in Milwaukee. She led the conference in rebounds last season en route to All-BIG EAST First Team honors, averaging a near double-double with 13.7 points and 8.9 rebounds per game.
Marquette will look a bit different this season with several newcomers and without 2025-26 All-BIG EAST First Team and All-Defensive Team selection Skylar Forbes, who transferred to West Virginia. To begin to fill that gap, Consuegra expects a lot from 6’2 French center Amina Traore, who has been training in France’s youth national system since the U16 level. Given the high-quality talent pipeline from France, Traore should adjust quickly to the college game.
“She’s been very impressive. She got to our campus two days before school started, so she missed the entire summer, and we spent our summer really implementing the basics of everything that we do,” Consuegra said. “And so she basically had about three weeks to catch up before practice started, and she just catches on very quickly. And I think that’s obviously credit to her, her upbringing. Her dad was a coach. She’s been around the game a long time. … She knows the game. She understands the intricacies that maybe a younger player won’t know.”
With steady veteran leadership on a new-look roster, Marquette is poised to maintain its spot towards the top of the conference through trademark Milwaukee grit.
Providence
2025-26 season: 15-18 (7-13 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament quarterfinals
In February of this year, the Providence Friars women’s basketball team won four consecutive BIG EAST games for the first time since the 1995-96 season. It marked a notable milestone for head coach Erin Batth, who enters her fourth season at the helm of the program.
Junior point guard Orlagh Gormley is an extension of her head coach on the court, bringing a fiery competitiveness to the position and getting her teammates involved. Last season, Gormley dished out 126 assists, becoming just the sixth player in the last 25 years to record 100 or more assists in a single season. As she heads into her first year as an upperclassman, she’s working on adding more scoring to her arsenal.
“I’m still working on that to this day with all my coaches — just balancing when to pass the ball, when to get my own and attack,” Gormley told The IX Sports.
As for newcomers, Batth praised her staff’s offseason recruiting and has begun patching holes in last year’s roster.
“We did a great job in recruiting,” Batth told The IX Sports. “We’ve got six [new] players — four out of the portal, two freshmen. And out of those six, they all spread scoring [across] different positions. I’m excited about that. We’re going to be able to shoot the three a lot more, get the ball inside, having a true five player, which is awesome.”
The true five is 6’4 center J’Adore Young, a transfer from Mississippi, who brings SEC pedigree to the BIG EAST. The redshirt junior will bring an immediate boost in the post for Providence, which should translate to more paint scoring and second-chance points. She’ll be put to the test early in the season when Dawn Staley‘s South Carolina Gamecocks visit in November, a matchup that Batth and her staff have circled on the calendar.
“It is an honor for me to be in the same gym with [Dawn Staley,] and so I think that’s amazing. [Assistant coach] Val Nainima, [Dawn] is her former head coach — she played at South Carolina. But I learned from Coach Staley. I just am really blessed that she’s decided to come up and play in Alumni [Hall], which is huge,” Batth said. “It’s so great for Friartown. … Let’s get out there and compete.”
Georgetown
2025-26 season: 14-17 (6-14 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament quarterfinals
Eight new players are headed to the Hilltop to play for head coach Darnell Haney this season. While the personnel has shifted, Haney is confident in the Hoyas’ cultural consistency — anchored by veteran returning players.
“As far as the program and the team, I mean, you’re going to see that same intense defensive presence,” Haney told The IX Sports. “You’re going to see better shooting. You’re going to see a group that’s connected, [you’re] going to see a group that plays with joy, a group that [plays] with love, and a group that understands how we want to do things.
“And I think [senior forward] Brianna Byars brings a lot to the table, and [senior guard] Khia Miller coming back, making sure she brings a lot to the table, and [junior guard] Destiny Agubata — they’re going to be great for us.”
Haney shared on media day that one newcomer in particular, freshman point guard Kendall Perry, is positioned to make an immediate impact. She’s from Haney’s home state of Florida and played high school basketball at Monteverde Academy in Orlando, where she was a 2022 and 2023 state champion.
“She brings a poise and a matureness about her game at the point guard and at the off-guard position that you don’t see a lot in freshmen,” Haney said. “She can shoot it. She’s sneaky athletic. But she’s going to be a great piece to what we got going on as well and going to help us build this program to prominence.”
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Xavier
2025-26 season: 11-19 (4-16 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament first round
In each of her three seasons as head coach of the Xavier Musketeers, Billi Chambers has led the program to more wins than the season prior, earning double-digit wins (11) last season for the first time in her tenure. While wins are one tangible way to measure the program’s growth, Chambers is focused on the bigger picture.
“Some of the big things that we’re looking for in terms of our returning players is that step into leadership and owning the culture of the team and owning some of the responsibilities that typically coaches are carrying as you start to build a program,” Chambers told The IX Sports.
“I think Mya [Moore] and Meri [Kanerva] are doing an incredible job of taking on that leadership. You hear them taking over huddles. You hear them taking some of the conversations that normally you would see coaches have of how we do things here and how we want to be when we step on the court. So, their level of intensity, their level of focus has come up tremendously, and I think that is attributed to how these two have stepped up to start to lead our team.”
Finnish guard Kanerva leads a cohort of nine international players on this year’s squad. Chambers and her staff have built a roster that has benefited mightily from a more European approach to development, with emphasis on fundamentals and team-style basketball.
“We’ve continued to increase the talent level, so you see players who are coming out and a bit more efficient offensively at this stage in the year. Our defense I think has been so fun to watch develop and grow together because we have a group that has really bought in on that side of the ball,” Chambers said.
“So it’s been really fun to watch them grow in that area and then just kind of the unity that they’ve already started. They’ve developed some really quick relationships, some real camaraderie. … We still got a long way to go, and we’re getting to where we want to be, and that gelling is coming. But you already feel like we’re going to take a bigger step this year.”
Butler
2025-26 season: 12-19 (6-14 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament first round
Butler head coach Maria Marchesano isn’t afraid of a challenge. She turned a 1-22 Purdue Fort Wayne program she inherited before the 2021-22 season into a perennial Horizon League contender, earning 2024-25 Horizon League Coach of the Year and developing all-conference first-team talent along the way. This season, she’ll return to her alma mater, Butler — a 54-73 program over the past four seasons — to face a new challenge: transforming the Bulldogs into a competitive BIG EAST program.
Where most coaches might schedule cupcake games in the nonconference, especially in their first season, Marchesano isn’t built that way. The Bulldogs will play North Dakota State at home within the first two weeks of the regular season and will travel to compete against Central Michigan, UT Martin and UNLV; all before the BIG EAST schedule begins. No matter who the Bulldogs face, Marchesano is looking to instill a sense of urgency.
“In those really early games, what we’re hoping to learn is exactly who we are, and that’s individually and as a team. But also we want to be able to show that it doesn’t matter the opponent … we’re coming out with the same focus, the same intensity as if we were playing UConn,” Marchesano told The IX Sports. “And you can’t approach UConn differently; you can’t approach any Power Five game differently. And I think sometimes people do that and that’s not how we’re going to be.”
Marchesano certainly has her work cut out for her to turn things around at Butler, but her experience transforming Purdue Fort Wayne makes her uniquely prepared for the challenge.
DePaul
2025-26 season: 8-24 (5-15 BIG EAST), BIG EAST Tournament first round
DePaul finished last season 10th overall in the standings and starts this season 11th in the preseason poll after losing Kate Novik, last season’s team leader in scoring and assists, to the transfer portal.
One bright spot for DePaul? The return of graduate guard Kate Clarke, who played just 11 games as a junior and missed the entirety of her senior year last season. In Clarke, the Blue Demons return a solid shooter from beyond the arc and, perhaps more importantly, a leader with three years of program experience.
“I’ve been at DePaul, this will be my fourth year, … and I’m pretty comfortable with our system,” Clarke told The IX Sports. “I’m confident in how I play in it. And that helps me help other girls on the team that are new. It helps me on the court … whether that’s a three or that’s helping a new girl … on the team who might need help with maybe a basketball concept. All those little moments are literally why I come to practice. I’m just super grateful to still be at DePaul and have this last year.”
The Blue Demons reached 17 consecutive NCAA Tournaments between 2002-2019 before falling off the national radar in Doug Bruno’s final seasons as head coach. DePaul has had four straight losing seasons, including head coach Jill Pizzotti’s disappointing 21-43 record across her two seasons as head coach. Pizzotti hopes that Clarke and her teammates can use this season to help return the program to national prominence.
“It’s great when we’re recruiting to be able to talk about the history of our program and you can really tangibly [say], ‘This is what we’re getting back to. This is what we’re working to get back to,’ and it’s tangible,” Pizzotti told The IX Sports. “So it’s great to be able to show people that. And then for any season, the work’s got to get put in season to season. So regardless of what anyone accomplished last year, the next season you got to put the work in.”
Howard Megdal contributed reporting to this story.
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