Preseason #1

The University of Connecticut women's basketball team will open the season as the nation's No. 1 team for the ninth time in the program's history, as announced by the Associated Press in its 2013-14 Preseason Poll, which was released Friday. Duke is ranked second while Stanford, Tennessee and Louisville round out the top-five. The other years in which UConn opened the season as the AP’s No. 1 team were 1995-96, 1999-00, 2000-01, 2001-02, 2003-04, 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11. UConn has gone on to capture the NCAA National Championship in five of the previous eight seasons in which it opened the season ranked No. 1, most recently in 2009 and 2010. The Huskies have gone on to qualify for the NCAA Final Four in each of the previous eight seasons they have begun as the nation's top-ranked squad. This year marks the 15th time UConn has been included in the top-five of the Preseason Poll. Connecticut, which is also ranked No. 1 in the 2013-14 Preseason USA Today Coaches Poll after receiving 31 of the 32 possible 1st-place votes (Tennessee received the lone other), posted 35-4 mark in 2012-13 en route to winning the program's eighth NCAA National Title. UConn has been ranked No. 1 for a total of 159 weeks in the program's history, the most of any team nationally. It's the sixth time out of a possible eight that UConn has been voted No. 1 in the preseason following its winning the national championship.