With conference play well underway in women’s college basketball, early-season storylines are starting to get flipped on their heads. Several teams that started the season undefeated are now being brought back down to earth—Iowa State lost to…Cincinnati? More on the Cyclones below—while some are starting to round into form.
For the first roundtable of 2026, our writers take a look at which stocks are on the rise and which ones are plummeting.
Which team’s stock has risen since the start of the season?
Emma Baccellieri: Vanderbilt. After several years of middling performance, Shea Ralph finally has the Commodores playing like an elite team in her fifth season in Nashville. Much of the focus here reasonably goes to the electric sophomore guard Mikayla Blakes. (Stay tuned for more on her elsewhere in this roundtable.) But more than one player is needed for a signature win like last weekend’s victory over No. 5 LSU. Vanderbilt has also depended on strong play from speedy freshman Aubrey Galvan and from senior Justine Pissott. The result is a squad that looks very different from last year: The ’Dores share the ball more, take far more threes and they’re winning more, too.
Dan Falkenheim: Kentucky. More should be said about the job coach Kenny Brooks has done in Lexington. He instantly turned the program around last season with the additions of Georgia Amoore, Clara Strack, Teonni Key and Amelia Hassett. Strack, Key and Hassett have all been vital to the program’s success this season, and the recent portal add-ons of Tonie Morgan, Jordan Obi and Asia Boone have kept the Wildcats on the up-and-up in Year 2. They’re strong on both sides of the ball and should be on track to reach their first Elite Eight in over a decade.
Which team’s stock has fallen?
Baccellieri: NC State. There’s plenty of time for this group to rebound in conference play, of course, but this is still a squad from the preseason top 10 that has now been unranked since the beginning of December. Vanderbilt transfer Khamil Pierre has packed a punch—she leads the Wolfpack with 15.2 points per game—but her scoring production has not quite matched what she did last season in Nashville. While sophomore players Zamareya Jones and Tilda Trygger have both taken meaningful steps forward this year, it wasn’t enough to keep NC State from opening the season 5-4.
Falkenheim: Notre Dame. Expectations needed to be adjusted after the departures of Sonia Citron, Liatu King, Maddy Westbeld and Olivia Miles, but the cachet of the program feels different. The Fighting Irish’s lone triumph to date came against USC, which isn’t exactly exceeding expectations either, and recent back-to-back losses against Georgia Tech and Duke haven’t done anything to prevent what is looking like a lost season. At the very least, junior guard Hannah Hidalgo hasn’t missed a beat and provides the program with an air of scrappiness.
Performance of the week
Falkenheim: It might be hyperbole to say Vanderbilt’s star guard Blakes is the second-best player in the country but, man, she sure hooped like it in Sunday’s win over LSU. Even Kim Mulkey took time to sing Blakes’s praises, saying after the loss that “the thing about Mikayla Blakes that is so special is she never gets tired.” It’s true: Blakes dropped 32 on the Tigers—while playing the full 40 minutes—and scored 15 of her points in the final six minutes of the game. She’s a true college basketball star who is capable of lifting an entire program.
Shutdown of the week
Photo of the week
declared
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- Tom Izzo Supports Ref Who Ejected Former MSU Star From Courtside Seat in Strange Scene
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Which Teams Are on the Rise in Women’s College Basketball? .
