Which Teams Are on the Rise in Women’s College Basketball?

A handful of teams are exceeding expectations now that conference play is underway, plus a few that are falling off.

Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes (center) has been electric this season, leading the Commodores in points (25.2 ppg) and steals (3.7). / NICOLE HESTER / THE TENNESSEAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

With conference play well underway in women’s college basketball, early-season storylines are starting to get flipped on their heads. Several teams that started the season undefeated are now being brought back down to earth—Iowa State lost to…Cincinnati? More on the Cyclones below—while some are starting to round into form. 

For the first roundtable of 2026, our writers take a look at which stocks are on the rise and which ones are plummeting. 

Which team’s stock has risen since the start of the season? 

Emma Baccellieri: Vanderbilt. After several years of middling performance, Shea Ralph finally has the Commodores playing like an elite team in her fifth season in Nashville. Much of the focus here reasonably goes to the electric sophomore guard Mikayla Blakes. (Stay tuned for more on her elsewhere in this roundtable.) But more than one player is needed for a signature win like last weekend’s victory over No. 5 LSU. Vanderbilt has also depended on strong play from speedy freshman Aubrey Galvan and from senior Justine Pissott. The result is a squad that looks very different from last year: The ’Dores share the ball more, take far more threes and they’re winning more, too.

Dan Falkenheim: Kentucky. More should be said about the job coach Kenny Brooks has done in Lexington. He instantly turned the program around last season with the additions of Georgia Amoore, Clara Strack, Teonni Key and Amelia Hassett. Strack, Key and Hassett have all been vital to the program’s success this season, and the recent portal add-ons of Tonie Morgan, Jordan Obi and Asia Boone have kept the Wildcats on the up-and-up in Year 2. They’re strong on both sides of the ball and should be on track to reach their first Elite Eight in over a decade.

FREE. SI College Basketball Newsletter. Get SI's College Basketball Newsletter. dark

Which team’s stock has fallen? 

Baccellieri: NC State. There’s plenty of time for this group to rebound in conference play, of course, but this is still a squad from the preseason top 10 that has now been unranked since the beginning of December. Vanderbilt transfer Khamil Pierre has packed a punch—she leads the Wolfpack with 15.2 points per game—but her scoring production has not quite matched what she did last season in Nashville. While sophomore players Zamareya Jones and Tilda Trygger have both taken meaningful steps forward this year, it wasn’t enough to keep NC State from opening the season 5-4.

Falkenheim: Notre Dame. Expectations needed to be adjusted after the departures of Sonia Citron, Liatu King, Maddy Westbeld and Olivia Miles, but the cachet of the program feels different. The Fighting Irish’s lone triumph to date came against USC, which isn’t exactly exceeding expectations either, and recent back-to-back losses against Georgia Tech and Duke haven’t done anything to prevent what is looking like a lost season. At the very least, junior guard Hannah Hidalgo hasn’t missed a beat and provides the program with an air of scrappiness.

Performance of the week

Falkenheim: It might be hyperbole to say Vanderbilt’s star guard Blakes is the second-best player in the country but, man, she sure hooped like it in Sunday’s win over LSU. Even Kim Mulkey took time to sing Blakes’s praises, saying after the loss that “the thing about Mikayla Blakes that is so special is she never gets tired.” It’s true: Blakes dropped 32 on the Tigers—while playing the full 40 minutes—and scored 15 of her points in the final six minutes of the game. She’s a true college basketball star who is capable of lifting an entire program. 

Shutdown of the week

Baccellieri: It’s perhaps not quite right to say that Baylor “shut down” Audi Crooks. The Iowa State sophomore still scored 26 points with 10 rebounds. Yet consider that just four of those points came after the first half. Baylor started doubling Crooks, and Iowa State suddenly found it all but impossible to continue feeding its star in the post, resulting in a 72–70 loss. Other teams so far have been loath to double Crooks and risk leaving outside shooters open for Iowa State: The rest of this squad is too good for that. But opponents might reconsider after seeing how that strategy worked for Baylor. Yes, it meant giving up 28 points to Jada Williams, but it also meant sealing off the inside threat from Crooks. That was enough to win.

Photo of the week

View this post on Instagram

After Iowa photographer Stephen Mally captured this shot of Hawkeyes freshman Layla Hays, the center declared she doesn’t think she can wear her hair like this again. But we venture to say that this hairstyle is a work of art. 

---

More College Basketball on Sports Illustrated

feed