Virginia Tech Women’s Basketball Picked 10th in the ACC for 2025-26 Season

The ACC released its annual Atlantic Coast Conference Women’s Basketball Predicted Order of Finish as voted on by the league’s 18 coaches and Blue Ribbon Panel.  The Virginia Tech women were picked to finish 10th ahead of the 2025-26 season.

 Last year, the Hokies finished with a 9-9 league record despite being picked 12th in the pre-season poll. This year’s version of the Hokies has goals to finish higher based on the continued development of leaders Carleigh Wenzel and Carys Baker; even bigger contributions from returnees Mackenzie Nelson, Samyha Suffren, Leila Wells, and Kayla Peterson; the immediate impact from transfers Sophie Swanson, Mel Daley, and Kilah Freelon, and Spela Brecelj; and potential roles for freshmen Aniya Trent, Amani Jenkins, and Kate Sears.

The usual suspects can be found at the top of the projected order of finish:   Fresh off last year’s conference title and their trip to last year’s NCAA Elite 8, Duke was voted first.  Duke was followed by NC State and North Carolina, who both reached the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament last year.  Louisville and Notre Dame are predicted to finish 4th and 5th respectively. While the 2024-25 player of the year and this year’s pre-season player of the year Hannah Hidalgo returns, Notre Dame lost a lot of firepower to the WNBA and the transfer portal. 

Next come Stanford, Virginia, Miami, and Florida State. Stanford makes a rise from last year. Stanford finished 11th last year but is projected to finish as the 6th best team due to Pre-Season All-ACC Nunu Agara and a pair of Pre-Season All-Freshmen in Hailee Swain and Lara Somfai.

Kymora Johnson is expected to elevate UVA from its 10th place finish last year to 7th this year, and even Miami is predicted to finish better than last year. Voters expect Florida State to drop from 6th last year to 9th this year on the basis of losing Ta’Niya Latson to the USC Gamecocks.

The rest of the ACC follows with Clemson, Cal, Syracuse, SMU, Georgia Tech, Pitt, Boston College, and Wake Forest. These teams have talent, but the Hokies should match up well with those teams. Virginia Tech went 5-3 against those teams expected to finish worse than the Hokies, losing those 3 games by an average of 3 points with two of them going to overtime. The potential is there for Virginia Tech to surpass the prognosticators if it can show growth in finishing out key games.

Preseason All-ACC Team

The Hokies did not place any players on the pre-season All-ACC or the inaugural Preseason All-Freshman Team.

All-ACC Team:

• Hannah Hidalgo, G, Notre Dame: 833 votes
• Zoe Brooks, G, NC State: 606
• Kymora Johnson, G, Virginia: 577
• Toby Fournier, F, Duke: 535
• Ashlon Jackson, G, Duke: 333
• Tajianna Roberts, G, Louisville: 326
• Khamil Pierre, F, NC State: 285
• Reniya Kelly, G, North Carolina: 276
• Nunu Agara, F, Stanford: 275
• Laura Ziegler, F, Louisville: 78

 All-Freshman Team:

• Emilee Skinner, G, Duke: 415 votes
• Hailee Swain, G, Stanford: 324
• Nyla Brooks, G, North Carolina: 310
• Lara Somfai, F, Stanford: 185
• Aliyahna “Puff” Morris, G, Cal: 114
• Leah Macy, F, Notre Dame: 79