Tulane Green Wave Women’s Basketball Receives Low Preseason AAC Ranking
New Tulane Green Wave women’s basketball coach Ashley Langford and her team were picked 10th in the preseason American Athletic Conference coaches’ poll, released earlier this week.
Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own team or student-athletes.
While the Green Wave wasn’t picked to do well among the coaches, the team did have one player picked to the preseason team. Guard Kyren Whittington, a redshirt senior, was picked to the second team.
Three programs received first-place votes in the poll, with USF leading the way. The Bulls received eight first-place votes and finished with 135 points. They don’t have a big lead, as North Texas and Rice are right behind them with 124 points each.
The Mean Green received three first-place votes and the Owls received two first-place votes.
Tulane finished with 40 points.
Whittington averaged 17.4 points and 2.4 assists last season. The previous year, in 2022-23, she averaged 11.9 points and 3.3 rebounds before she was named to the American Athletic Conference Championship All-Tournament Team.
Five programs received postseason bids out of the AAC last year.
Rice was selected for the NCAA Championship after winning its first American Athletic Conference Tournament championship. North Texas and Tulsa earned bids to the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBIT), while UAB and UTSA were selected for the WNIT.
Langford took over the program in April. She played four years for Tulane as a point guard and is the program’s career leader with 722 assists, along with holding the program mark for assists per game (6.0).
She was most recently at Stony Brook, where he guided the Seawolves to a 69-24 record in three seasons. In 2022-23 she was the CAA Coach of the Year as she led Stony Brook to a 28-5 record and to the second round of the Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament.
Before Stony Brook, the Raleigh, N.C. native was an assistant at Manhattan College for six seasons, first as director of basketball operations and then as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. In 2021-22 she assisted a Jaspers team that went 21-11, their best record in a decade.
The Green Wave opens its home schedule on Nov. 7 when it hosts Nicholls. Tulane opens AAC action on Dec. 29 when it hosts North Texas. The American Athletic Conference Tournament will be held March 8-12 at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, with the winner getting the automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.
