SAN FRANCISCO — For the fifth straight year, the forecast for the Washington women’s basketball team is bleak and the Huskies will have to exceed expectations if they’re going to vastly improve upon last season’s last-place finish.
UW enters the 2022-21 season 10th in the Pac-12 preseason coaches and media poll.
Two-year reigning regular-season champion Stanford is first in the poll and favored to repeat as champs. The Cardinal snagged all 11 available first-place votes from the coaches for 121 points and each of the 28 first-place votes from the media for 336 points.
Oregon was picked to finish second in the coaches poll with 101 points, one point ahead of third-place Arizona. The teams switched spots in the media vote, with the Wildcats second (291 points) and Ducks third (275 points).
Team Nos. 4-12 were the same in both polls, with UCLA leading that group in fourth and followed by Utah in fifth. The Utes, last season’s Pac-12 tournament runners-up, received the remaining first-place vote in the coaches poll. Oregon State was selected sixth to round out the polls’ top half.
The bottom half of the poll includes Washington State, Colorado, USC, Washington, California and Arizona State.
Six of the top seven teams in the Pac-12 preseason polls played in the NCAA tournament last season, which is the fifth straight year in which half of the conference earned a spot in the Big Dance.
Once again, the Huskies are saddled with skepticism that the second year under coach Tina Langley will end up like so many forgettable seasons for UW recently.
In the past five years Washington finished 12th, 11th, 9th, 11th and 12th in the Pac-12.
Langley, who compiled a 126-61 record during six seasons during her previous stop at Rice, was brought in to resurrect a tradition rich Husky program that had been among the conference’s elite during a three-year run (2014-17), which included three NCAA tournament appearances, highlighted by former star Kelsey Plum.
With Langley at the helm, the Huskies posted an encouraging 5-3 nonconference record before the team shutdown for two weeks due to COVID, which forced them to cancel four games.
Washington was never the same again.
The Huskies began Pac-12 play with 11 straight losses, which was the longest streak since the 2017-18 season.
UW finished 7-16 and 2-12, which tied for the second fewest Pac-12 wins since in school history — following a 64-52 loss in the first round of the conference tournament.
Fifth-year senior forward Haley Van Dyke, who led UW in scoring (11.0 points per game and rebounding (7.7) last season, and junior forward Lauren Schwartz (10.6 ppg.) are two of eight returners for Washington.
The first priority for Langley is integrating the veterans with California transfer Dalayah Daniels, the 2022 McDonald’s All-American at Garfield High, and a trio of incoming freshman guards (Hannah Stiles, Elle Ladine and Teagan Brown) who comprise a highly touted recruiting class ranked 14th nationally by ESPN.
However, Langley’s biggest challenge is improving a beleaguered offense that averaged just 55.5 points in Pac-12 games and ranked last in the league in scoring.
The Huskies topped 70 points just once three times game and was held to fewer 66 or fewer points in 20 games. The conference scoring average was 66.4 points.
Regardless of what happens this season, the long-term outlook for Washington appears positive considering Langley secured another top-15 nationally ranked recruiting class in 2023 that includes three top-100 prospects in guards Sayvia Sellers, Ari Long and Chloe Briggs.