High Point Voted 2025-26 Women's Basketball Preseason Favorite
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (www.BigSouthSports.com) –
High Point University’s women’s basketball team has been chosen as the favorite in the Big South Conference’s annual preseason poll for the 2025-26 season, it was announced this morning.
High Point, the 2024-25 Big South Regular-Season and Conference Champion, finished with 77 points and received six of the nine first-place votes from the voting panel of women’s head coaches. The Panthers return three starters and nine players from the 2024-25 roster that finished 13-3 in league play, 21-12 overall and played in the NCAA Tournament for the second time -- the program’s fourth postseason appearance in five seasons. High Point is the preseason women’s favorite for the fifth consecutive year and sixth time overall.
Longwood, last year’s Big South Tournament Runner-Up, was second in the women’s poll with 69 points (one first-place vote), just ahead of third-place
Radford (67 points, one first-place vote).
Winthrop placed fourth in the poll with 48 points, followed by
Charleston Southern in fifth with 51 points.
USC Upstate landed in the sixth position with 33 points, with
Gardner-Webb in seventh-place (25 points).
Presbyterian College was eighth with 23 points, followed by
UNC Asheville in the ninth and final position with 22 points and the remaining first-place vote.
The college basketball season tips off Monday, Nov. 3. The first conference date is Wednesday, Dec. 31, as the teams will play a 16-game schedule in 2025-26. The season culminates with the 2026 Big South Women's Basketball Championship March 4-8 at Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City, Tenn.
| Rk - School (first-place votes) |
Points |
| 1 - High Point (6) |
77 |
| 2 - Longwood (1) |
69 |
| 3 - Radford (1) |
67 |
| 4 - Winthrop |
48 |
| 5 - Charleston Southern |
41 |
| 6 - USC Upstate |
33 |
| 7 - Gardner-Webb |
25 |
| 8 - Presbyterian College |
23 |
| 9 - UNC Asheville (1) |
22 |
Note: points are based on a weighted system. First-place votes received 9 points, followed by 8 points for second-place, and so on.