Big Ten Weekly Women’s Basketball Central – Nov. 3-10
- The 45th season of Big Ten women’s basketball tips off Monday with nine teams taking the court. Six more teams begin play on Tuesday, followed by a pair on Wednesday. Ohio State will be the last team to start the season with a Sunday debut. Seventeen teams will begin the 2025-26 campaign on their home courts with UCLA being the lone program taking its talents to a neutral site. The Bruins will face San Diego State at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.
- The Big Ten welcomes a new face on the sideline for Wisconsin in head coach Robin Pingeton. Pingeton was hired to lead the Badgers’ women’s basketball program on March 25. She has compiled 585 wins during her 30-year head coaching career and her teams have played in the postseason 20 times. Pingeton previously spent 15 seasons as the head coach at Missouri.
- The 2025-26 season will be the final ride for storied Northwestern head coach Joe McKeown, who announced on March 24 that he intends to retire at the conclusion of season. McKeown is the longest-tenured and winningest head women’s basketball coach in Northwestern history. This will be his 18th season in Evanston and his 40th season overall as a head coach.
- Six Big Ten teams earned rankings in the Associated Press (AP) preseason poll. UCLA led the contingent at No. 3, followed by No. 10 Maryland. No. 13 Michigan, No. 18 USC, No. 21 Iowa and No. 23 Michigan State. Washington, Ohio State, Minnesota, Illinois and Nebraska garnered votes.
- The Big Ten was also represented in the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA)/USA Today preseason poll with No. 4 UCLA, No. 10 Maryland, No. 15 Michigan, No. 16 USC, No. 23 Iowa and No. 24 Ohio State. Michigan State, Washington, Indiana, Nebraska and Minnesota received votes.
- Each Big Ten institution will play an 18-game conference schedule for the seventh time in eight seasons. The conference season tips off on Saturday, Dec. 6, with three games, while the remaining 12 teams open conference action on Sunday, Dec. 7. The league slate pauses for the holidays and resumes on Sunday, Dec. 28 with a four-game lineup. During the conference season, each program will play one school both home and away, while facing 16 teams once. Of the single-play opponents, institutions will face eight at home and eight on the road.
- The 2026 Allstate Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament is set for March 4-8 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, marking the 27th time the tournament will be played in Circle City. Fifteen teams will qualify for the tournament, with three first-round games slated for Wednesday, March 4. The top four teams will receive first- and second-round byes and advance to the quarterfinals on Friday, March 6.
- The Big Ten’s 18 head coaches and media panel selected UCLA center Lauren Betts as the 2025-26 Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year. Betts is coming off a record-breaking season with the Bruins, who advanced to the NCAA Final Four for the first time in program history and spent 12 consecutive weeks at No. 1 in the AP Top 25, a Big Ten record. She became the first Bruin with 600+ points, 300+ rebounds and 100+ blocks in a season, set a new single-season blocks record with 100 rejections and captured the UCLA single-game blocks record with nine against Baylor. Betts swept the national defensive player of the year awards (AP, Naismith, WBCA) and was the first UCLA women’s basketball player to earn AP First Team All-America honors.
- USC enters the 2025-26 season as the defending Big Ten Champion after clinching its first title with a 17-1 record in league play last year.
- UCLA hoisted its first Big Ten Tournament trophy after defeating the Trojans, 72-67, in the 2025 TIAA Big Ten Tournament final. Betts was named the Jim and Kitty Delany Most Outstanding Player.