™Four days. That's all that's left between now and real women's college basketball, and the sport is not easing into it. The season opens in Paris on Monday, in Rome on Sunday, and by the second weekend South Carolina will already have played Maryland, Clemson, and North Carolina. No warm-up month. No soft landing. This is the schedule the sport wanted, and it's about to find out if it was ready for it.
It starts in Paris
Monday, November 2 is the Oui-Play event, and it's a statement of intent: No. 20 Maryland vs. No. 1 South Carolina at noon ET on ESPN, followed by No. 21 Oklahoma vs. No. 12 North Carolina at 2:30 p.m. on ESPN2. Dawn Staley's Gamecocks don't get a tune-up; they get a ranked opponent in a foreign arena before most fans have figured out the rotation. That's the theme of November. The big programs stopped scheduling November like a preseason and started scheduling it like March.
Sunday gets there first, technically: No. 13 Notre Dame opens against Villanova in Rome. Iowa, the No. 10 team in the country, opens at home against Towson on November 2. By the end of week one, we'll know something real about a half-dozen ranked teams instead of guessing from exhibition box scores.
The poll hasn't moved. The questions have
Nothing has changed at the top since the AP preseason poll dropped on October 20 — South Carolina No. 1 with 23 of 31 first-place votes, UConn No. 2, USC No. 3 — and that's exactly why the opening weeks matter so much. Polls are settled. Rotations aren't.
The three questions October couldn't answer: Is JuJu Watkins all the way back from the torn ACL that ended her season, or is USC managing her back slowly while No. 1 recruit Saniyah Hall carries more than any freshman should have to? Does South Carolina's depth survive a November that includes Maryland, Clemson, and North Carolina before the Ally Tipoff is even cold? And does UConn, with Sarah Strong as the best player in the country and no Azzi Fudd anymore, have a second scorer it trusts when a game gets tight? November will answer at least two of those. The third one is what March is for.
The 76-team tournament changes the math
This is the first season with a 76-team NCAA Tournament field, and don't let anyone tell you it doesn't matter. It matters most in the middle — the Minnesotas and Nebraskas and Baylors of the world, the teams sitting just outside the preseason top 25 getting votes. An extra dozen or so at-large paths means a February loss doesn't end a season the way it used to, and a November win over a ranked team carries even more weight as a resume line. The bubble used to start in February. Now it starts Monday.
One brutal footnote to that optimism: Minnesota, ranked No. 17 in its first preseason appearance since 2019, will do it without leading scorer Tori McKinney, out for the season with a knee injury suffered in practice. A feel-good story took a hit before a ball was tipped. That's the cruelty of this sport, and the reason depth charts matter more than starting fives.
The transfer portal already picked winners
If you skipped the offseason, here's the short version: the portal didn't just shuffle role players, it moved programs. Audi Crooks left Iowa State for Oklahoma State. Addy Brown went to UCLA, which needs every proven body it can find after losing six players to the WNBA. Talaysia Cooper moved from Tennessee to Ole Miss. South Carolina added Jordan Lee from Texas. Nunu Agara went Stanford to Maryland, Liv McGill went Florida to Oklahoma State, and Aaliyah Crump went Texas to Duke.
The point isn't the names. It's that November is now a chemistry test. The teams that look clunky in Paris and Charlotte aren't necessarily bad — they're new. The teams that look smooth already are dangerous, because they'll only get better. Judge the scores in November, but judge the connections more.
Conference races to watch
The Big Ten put nine teams in the preseason poll — the most of any conference — but it doesn't have the favorite. The SEC has seven ranked teams and the No. 1 team, plus No. 6 Texas, No. 8 Vanderbilt, and No. 9 LSU. The ACC has five, led by No. 4 Duke. Translation: the Big Ten is the deepest league, the SEC is the top-heaviest, and the league that wins in March probably isn't the one that wins the "best conference" argument in November. UCLA, the defending champion sitting at No. 11, is the Big Ten's proof of concept and its warning label at the same time: last year's banner doesn't buy you a single win this year.
Circle these dates
Sunday, November 8, the Ally Tipoff in Charlotte: No. 14 Kentucky vs. No. 25 NC State at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN2, then No. 1 South Carolina vs. No. 12 North Carolina at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN. Sunday, November 15, the "Real SC" game: No. 3 USC vs. No. 1 South Carolina at 1 p.m. on ABC, with No. 2 UConn at No. 7 Louisville at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN the same evening. Saturday, November 28: No. 4 Duke vs. No. 2 UConn from TD Garden in Boston at 7 p.m. on FOX. Sunday, December 20: No. 2 UConn vs. No. 9 LSU at 1 p.m. on ABC. Put all four on the calendar now. The sport's best teams are playing each other in November and December instead of hiding until conference play, and the rest of us get to watch.
The freshmen, one more time, because they'll decide this
Saniyah Hall at USC, McKenna Woliczko at Iowa, Kate Harpring running the point at North Carolina — the names from the preseason preview haven't changed, but their jobs just got real. Hall walks into a team with a returning superstar and a title expectation. Woliczko, the No. 6 recruit nationally and a McDonald's All-American, has a starting spot waiting at Iowa. Harpring has the ball in her hands for a top-15 team. Freshmen don't get to be projects on teams like these. They get to be answers, starting Monday.
The pick
Last week I said the champion wouldn't come from the preseason top three. I'll stick with it — but I'll narrow it. The team that wins this thing will be the one that survives November with its rotation sorted and its freshmen already trusted, not the one with the best October press release. Right now that sounds like Duke or Texas or LSU more than it sounds like anyone at the very top. South Carolina is still the right No. 1. Right just isn't the same as inevitable, and in four days we start finding out why.
Women's Sports Now's college hoops column runs weekly through the season — before tip-off, after the buzzer, and everything in between.