Ashland University's women's basketball team will start the 2023-24 season where it ended the 2022-23 campaign – as the No. 1 team in NCAA Division II.
The preseason Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) NCAA Division II Top 25 Coaches Poll was released on Tuesday (Oct. 31) afternoon, and the Eagles are slotted at No. 1 to begin the new season. It is the third time Ashland will begin a season at No. 1 (2012, 2017 and 2023).
Ashland received all 23 first-place votes in the national preseason poll.
This is the 56
th time overall that the Eagles have been in the No. 1 spot in the coaches poll – a Division II record. AU is 114-3 (.974) all-time as the No. 1-ranked team in the nation.
Since the beginning of the 1995-96 season, Ashland has been in the Top 25 of the coaches poll 156 times, in the top 10 135 times, and this is the 108
th time the Eagles have been in the top 5.
The Eagles' all-time record as a ranked team is 296-18 (.943).
For a complete history of Ashland women's basketball coaches poll rankings prior to 2023-24,
go to page 44 of the program record book.
Ashland women's basketball, led by sixth-year head coach
Kari Pickens, concluded the 2022-23 season at 37-0 following a 78-67 win over Minnesota Duluth in the national championship game – and is the only NCAA Division II women's hoops program to finish 37-0 once, let alone twice. The Eagles became the sixth D-II women's basketball program to win at least three national titles (2013, 2017, 2023), and the first to win three with three different head coaches.
Three starters return from last year's team – reigning Great Midwest Player of the Year and fifth-year forward
Annie Roshak, junior forward
Hayley Smith, a first-team all-conference performer a season ago, and junior point guard
Morgan Yoder, who earned a spot on the Great Midwest all-tournament team. In all, seven Eagles who played at least 15.5 minutes per game in 2022-23 are back in 2023-24.
Over the last 12 seasons, Ashland has gone 359-39 (.902) with three NCAA Division II national titles, two national runner-up finishes, three undefeated seasons, a D-II-record 73-game winning streak, seven 30-win seasons, 11 NCAA postseason qualifications, eight conference regular-season championships, nine conference tournament titles, and a mark of 194-13 (.937) at the Sherrill Hudson Court at Kates Gymnasium.
Ashland's 2023-24 season will begin at home on Nov. 10 at 5:30 p.m. vs. Wayne State.
2023-24 ASHLAND UNIVERSITY WOMEN'S BASKETBALL WBCA COACHES POLL RANKINGS: No. 1 (preseason).
