Cardinal Women Top Poll

Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer, back with the women’s basketball program at Stanford after leaving for a year to coach the gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic team, has a team so loaded with talent that it was easily No. 1 in The Associated Press preseason poll.

Stanford’s top 10 players, headed by second-team All-America Kate Starbird from Lakes, Wash., return from a team that went 29-3 and reached the Final Four under Amy Tucker and Marianne Stanley, who ran things in VanDerveer’s absence.

Alabama, which plays Sunday against Stanford, claimed the No. 2 spot, followed by Georgia, which returns four starters from its Final Four team, defending national champion Tennessee and Connecticut. Iowa was sixth, followed by Old Dominion, Western Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Virginia.

Texas Tech headed the second ten and was followed by Kansas, North Carolina State, Louisiana Tech, Penn State, Duke, Colorado, Arkansas, Texas and Notre Dame. Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Stephen F. Austin and Auburn round out the Top 25.

Three players from the Southeastern Conference are on the same side. Chamique Holdsclaw of Tennessee, Shalonda Enis of Alabama and La’Keshia Frett of Georgia won spots on The AP preseason All-America team in women’s basketball, joining Starbird and Connecticut’s Kara Wolters.