Kentucky WBB moves up in ESPN's 'Way-Too-Early' Top 25 rankings

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Kentucky women's basketball head coach Kenny Brooks - Morgan Simmons, UK Athletics

The excitement around the Kenny Brooks era in Lexington is palpable. Kentucky women’s basketball’s new head coach has retooled the Wildcats roster, headlined by All-American point guard Georgia Amoore. With plenty of talent at his disposal after just one offseason on the job, Brooks might have his debut squad ranked in the national polls once those are announced in the coming weeks.

In fact, the folks over at ESPN are already on board the Brooks Hype Train. Bracketologist Charlie Creme released an updated look at his “Way-Too-Early” Top 25 preseason rankings on Wednesday. He had Kentucky just inside the Top 25 during his last update from May but moved the ‘Cats up a couple of spots as we’re roughly 40 days out from the start of the regular season.

Creme now has the Wildcats ranked No. 23 in the country going into the 2024-25 season, a two-spot jump from the previous update.

“The Kenny Brooks era begins in Lexington with a complete reset,” Creme wrote. “The 2024-25 roster features 11 new players, led by All-American point guard Georgia Amoore and 6-5 Clara Strack, both of whom followed Brooks from Virginia Tech. A manageable November and December schedule will allow Brooks to build chemistry before the rigors of the SEC begin on Jan. 2.”

Bluegrass girls. 🫡💭 pic.twitter.com/sfNstLqtXM
— Kentucky Women’s Basketball (@KentuckyWBB) September 25, 2024

Preseason rankings typically don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but my favorite way to approach them is to identify the Top 25 opponents on Kentucky’s schedule — and there are plenty of them. It at least gives us an idea of how challenging the competition will be.

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Going off Creme’s rankings, the Wildcats will face No. 1 South Carolina, No. 5 Texas, No. 7 LSU, No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 13 North Carolina, No. 17 Louisville, No. 20 Ole Miss, No. 24 Alabama, and No. 25 Illinois. For those counting at home, that’s nine matchups against projected Top 25 teams, five coming away from home.

As Creme mentioned, the months of November and December will be key to establishing some momentum going into SEC play, although “manageable” isn’t the word I would use. Kentucky will face three of Creme’s preseason Top 25 teams during those months with only the rivalry matchup against Louisville happening at home. UK will also face Arizona State and Purdue away from home during that span.

Yes, there will be plenty of penciled wins against inferior teams, but from start to finish, Brooks’ team will face a challenging schedule with very few cakewalks in 2024-25.