The \u201cway too early\u201d versions of everyone\u2019s preseason Top 25 dropped in the moments after UCLA won the national title on Sunday. A fool\u2019s errand in this era of college basketball where no one knows \u2014 not with any certainty \u2014 what rosters for the next season will look like in early April. AP Top 25 voter and Illinois women\u2019s basketball beat writer Joe Vozzelli took a different approach with a look at the top 10 coaches who are set up for success during the 2026-27 season:<\/p>\n
1. Cori Close<\/p>\n
UCLA<\/p>\n
What Close has done in Westwood is nothing short of remarkable. The Bruins had never been to the Final Four before she arrived. Never. Now, all UCLA has done is go to back-to-back Final Fours \u2014 and win the program\u2019s first-ever national title with a thrashing of South Carolina in Sunday\u2019s final. A rise that has followed a similar path to what Dawn Staley did with the Gamecocks. What\u2019s really refreshing about Close is how invested she is in growing the women\u2019s game. That\u2019s not always been the case across the coaching ranks.<\/p>\n
2. Dawn Staley<\/p>\n
South Carolina<\/p>\n
Speaking of Staley, few coaches have been better at developing high school talent (she\u2019s coached two WNBA No. 1 overall picks in A\u2019ja Wilson and Aliyah Boston). But the Philadelphia native and former Virginia standout point guard has also been good at mining the transfer portal. It\u2019s the perfect version of roster building with Staley leading South Carolina to six consecutive Final Fours and three national titles. It\u2019s the kind of sustained success the Gamecocks never enjoyed before the Staley era began.<\/p>\n
3. Geno Auriemma<\/p>\n
Connecticut<\/p>\n
OK, Auriemma\u2018s outburst toward Staley was beyond childish (might be time to grow up, coach). It made him look like a really sore loser. But no one can argue with Auriemma\u2019s results \u2014 even if the Huskies\u2019 hold over the sport isn\u2019t what it used to be. The fact is the 72-year-old Hall of Fame coach has been to 25 Final Fours and won 12 national title. And he\u2019s coached some of the greatest players the game has ever seen like Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart, Maya Moore and Tina Charles, among others.<\/p>\n
4. Vic Schaefer<\/p>\n
Texas<\/p>\n
All Schaefer does is keep stacking top-five recruiting classes. He\u2019s done it again in 2026 with the second-ranked class, according to ESPN. Brihanna Crittendon, Addison Bjorn and Aaliah Spaight are among the headliners. And he\u2019s got the Longhorns back in a place where they\u2019re contending for national championships year after year with Texas likely to make its third straight Final Four next April in Columbus, Ohio. Especially with Madison Booker trying to erase the sore taste of a bad night in a national semifinal loss to UCLA (six points on 3 of 23 shooting).<\/p>\n
5. Lindsay Gottlieb<\/p>\n
Southern California<\/p>\n
The talent Gottlieb has assembled in Los Angeles is undeniable. So good that the Trojans could cut down the nets next season as national champions. Gottlieb, who is one of the few women\u2019s college basketball coaches who have sat on an NBA bench as an assistant coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2019-2021, has landed the No. 1 overall player in three of the last four recruiting classes in two-time All-American and one-time National Player of the Year JuJu Watkins (2023), last season\u2019s top freshman Jazzy Davidson (2025) and lastly 6-foot guard Saniyah Hall (2026). Buy stock in USC right now.<\/p>\n
6. Kara Lawson<\/p>\n
Duke<\/p>\n
Lawson has quietly built the Blue Devils into a consistent bet to go on a deep run in March. The former Tennessee guard has led Duke to a pair of Elite Eights and another Sweet 16. Lawson has made the Blue Devils\u2019 identity based on defense, and that\u2019s won at a high level with Duke knocking at the door of a true breakthrough for a program that has twice finished as the national runner-up.<\/p>\n
7. Kim Mulkey<\/p>\n
LSU<\/p>\n
Mulkey isn\u2019t for everyone. Let\u2019s get that out of the way first. But she has the Tigers as one of the perennial national title contenders. Even if South Carolina and Texas have passed LSU in the SEC pecking order of late. Still, Mulkey has won no fewer than 26 games in any of her five seasons in Baton Rouge, La., including winning it all in 2023.<\/p>\n
8. Shea Ralph<\/p>\n
Vanderbilt<\/p>\n
Ralph learned from the best playing for Auriemma and then working as an assistant coach on his UConn staff. Those lessons have paid off, with Ralph named the National Coach of the Year after leading the Commodores back to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2009. The first few years in Nashville, Tenn., might have been rough, but Ralph\u2019s Vanderbilt teams have posted 72 wins across the last three seasons.<\/p>\n
9. Niele Ivey<\/p>\n
Notre Dame<\/p>\n
Following Muffet McGraw was no easy task. But Ivey has made the transition seamless after winning a national title as both an Irish player (2001) and assistant coach (2018). Ivey has now been to four Sweet 16s and one Elite Eight, with Notre Dame one win short of the Final Four this past season, thanks in large part to Hannah Hidalgo, before a 70-52 loss to top-seeded UConn in the regional final.<\/p>\n
10. Kim Barnes Arico<\/p>\n
Michigan<\/p>\n
The Wolverines have a really good starting point as Barnes Arico looks to lead the program to a Final Four. Michigan has only twice been to the Elite Eight \u2014 and never further. Olivia Olson, Syla Swords, Mila Holloway and Te\u2019Yala Delfosse will all be juniors for the Wolverines and have a legitimate chance to right the wrong of last month\u2019s Elite Eight exit, a 77-41 loss to Texas, next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cway too early\u201d versions of everyone\u2019s preseason Top 25 dropped in the moments after UCLA won the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,25374,11990,3706,231,772,1544,66,6112],"class_list":{"0":"post-706513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-daily_headlines","11":"tag-illini_basketball","12":"tag-illini-sports","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-basketball","15":"tag-ncaab","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-womens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116374230574375354","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}