First Preseason Poll Out - Terps 13th

Lindy's Preseason Women's Basketball Top 25
1. Duke
2. Tennessee
3. Rutgers
4. Georgia
5. Baylor
6. UNC
7.Ohio State
8. UCONN
9. Michigan State
10. LSU
11. Stanford
12. Texas
13. Maryland
14. Purdue
15. Vandy
16. UCLA
17. Texas Tech
18. Notre Dame
19. Minnesota
20. Oklahoma
21. USC
22. Utah
23. Temple
24. Arizona State
25. North Carolina State

All Americans:
1st team
Seimone Augustus - LSU
Monique Currie - Duke
Candice Wiggins - Stanford
Jessica Davenport - Ohio State
Sophia Young - Baylor

2nd team
Cappie - Rutgers
Tiffany Jackson - Texas
Kim Smith - Utah
Khara Smith - DePaul
Tashsa Humprhey - Georgia

3rd team
Erin Grant - Texas Tech
Nikki Blue - UCLA
Megan Dufy - Notre Dame
Jazz Covington - Louisville
Liz Shimek - Michigan State
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While I agree with the ranking, two straight second round exits and not a great finish last year, I do have a problem with the All-America teams. Where's Crystal on this list? She has to be better than the Covington girl. I guess it will just be another year of Maryland players being overlooked despite the fact that they are better than most players. Hopefully this is the only publication to make this mistake.

Two noticeable omissions: anyone from Tennessee and Ivory Latta.

2005-06 Schedule Released

If you look on the left side of the page you will see the newly released 05-06 schedule, which will hopefully result in our third straight trip to the NCAA Tournament. The Out Of Conference Schedule is a little bit better in year's past, but the team is still playing too many cupcakes. We should know right off the bat if this team is any good as we play Xavier, Gonzaga, Michigan State and Tennessee in games 2-5. Xavier and Gonzaga are NIT/possibly NCAA teams, while MSU and Tennessee made the FF last year and have reloaded. The other key non-conference game is Arizona, which may be looking for revenge after last year's overtime loss in Tucson. Polk is still there so Crystal, Jade and Harper will have to play tall and stay out of foul trouble, but Wheeler is gone so this year may be a bit easier.

The ACC gave us home and homes vs. Duke, Virginia and B.C. this year, which means once again they didn't do us any favors. For the second straight year, Maryland gets to welcome a newcomer to the league as they play BC on January 5th. Then a brutal stretch in February with games at UNC, Duke then back home for BC and then back down to NC for NC State in a span of 10 days. This stretch will probably decide our seeding heading into the postseason. Maybe one day the ACC will realize that it's good to help out all the teams in the league and just not Duke and UNC.

Overall I am looking at a 13-1 OOC record and a 9-5 or 10-4 ACC record for a 22-6 or 23-5 mark heading into the postseason and hopefully a top 5 seed.