2009–10 NCAA Division I women's basketball season

Season headlines

• May 4:The tenth annual 2009 US Virgin Islands Paradise Jam is a women's basketball tournament that will take place on November 26–28, 2009. Eight teams from the NCAA have been invited to participate in the tournament. The teams will be separated into two brackets, the Reef Division and the Island Division. The Reef Division will consist of Mississippi State, Rutgers, Southern California and Texas. The Island Division will consist of Notre Dame, Oklahoma, San Diego State and South Carolina
• May 5: The Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big Ten Conference announced the pairings for the annual Big Ten/ACC Challenge for women's basketball, which is in the third year of a four-year agreement. The 2009 Challenge, which will take on a two-day format this year, will open on Wednesday, Dec. 2. The Big Ten/ACC Women's Basketball Challenge matches 11 teams from each conference in head-to-head competition traditionally on the first Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after Thanksgiving, following the men's basketball Big Ten/ACC Challenge. The Big Ten and ACC have been among the most successful conferences in women's basketball. During the 2008–09 season, the ACC was represented by six teams in the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship. It was the seventh straight year the league has had at least six teams in the tournament. Maryland advanced to the 2009 NCAA Regional Finals, giving the ACC at least one team in the Elite Eight for the eighth consecutive year. In 2005–06, the ACC became the first conference to send three teams: Duke, Maryland and North Carolina – to the same Final Four. Overall, the ACC has made 11 Final Four trips, including six in the past 13 years.
• May 28, 2009: NBA referee Violet Palmer was hired as coordinator of women's basketball officials for the West Coast Conference and will remain with the NBA, where she has worked for 12 seasons.
• July 1: Rutgers will play in the eighth annual Jimmy V Women's Classic when the Scarlet Knights host Florida on Dec. 7. This marks the fourth straight season the Scarlet Knights will take part in the game. They beat Georgia 45-34 last season. The games are part of the fundraising effort for the V Foundation for Cancer Research, which is named for the late Jim Valvano, who led North Carolina State to the national championship in 1983.
• July 7: Pat Summitt and C. Vivian Stringer will oppose each other in the fourth annual Maggie Dixon Classic. The women's doubleheader will be played Dec. 13 at Madison Square Garden. The two Hall of Fame coaches teams will meet in regular season play for the seventh straight year. Baylor and freshman star Brittney Griner will face Boston College in the other contest. The two teams played once before at Madison Square Garden. Tennessee won 68-54 in 1999. Baylor will be making its first appearance at MSG.
• August 4: Joan Bonvicini was introduced as the new women's basketball coach at Seattle University. She is one of only 18 coaches in Division I history with more than 600 victories.
• August 18: On January. 16, Notre Dame and Connecticut will be part of the first-ever ESPN women's basketball College GameDay broadcast. The game will be broadcast from Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, Conn. The matchup between the Fighting Irish and Huskies will tip off at 9 p.m. and will be televised live to a national cable audience by ESPN.
• September 8: The West Coast Conference and its multi-media rights partner, IMG College, announced Zappos.com as the official title sponsor of the WCC Men's and Women's Basketball Championships. The deal is effective through the 2011–12 season, and signifies the WCC's first-ever title sponsorship.

  Major rule changes

Preseason

Preseason "Wade Watch" list

• On July 30, the Women's Basketball Coaches Association, on behalf of the Wade Coalition, announced the 2009–2010 preseason "Wade Watch" list for The State Farm Wade Trophy Division I Player of the Year. The nominees are made up of top NCAA Division I student-athletes who best embody the spirit of Lily Margaret Wade. This is based on the following criteria: game and season statistics, leadership, character, effect on their team and overall playing ability. The list are as follows:
• Jayne Appel, Stanford
• Jessica Breland, North Carolina
• Tina Charles, Connecticut
• Alysha Clark, Middle Tennessee
• Allyssa DeHaan, Michigan State
• Alexis Gray-Lawson, California
• Tiffany Hayes, Connecticut
• Allison Hightower, LSU
• Ashley Houts, Georgia
• Jantel Lavender, Ohio State
• Danielle McCray, Kansas
• Jacinta Monroe, Florida State
• Maya Moore, Connecticut
• Jené Morris, San Diego State
• Deirdre Naughton, DePaul
• Kayla Pedersen, Stanford
• Ta'Shia Phillips, Xavier
• Jeanette Pohlen, Stanford
• Samantha Prahalis, Ohio State
• Andrea Riley, Oklahoma State
• Danielle Robinson, Oklahoma
• Jenna Smith, Illinois
• Carolyn Swords, Boston College
• Courtney Vandersloot, Gonzaga
• Monica Wright, Virginia

  Preseason Wooden Award nominees

• August 21: The 2009–10 preseason candidates list for the Women's Wooden Award was released, naming 31 student athletes.

Preseason WNIT

• First-round Preseason WNIT games to be held on Friday, Nov. 13, 2009
• *Eastern Illinois at Ohio State, 5 p.m. ET
• *UTEP at Florida Gulf Coast, 7 p.m. ET
• *Arkansas-Little Rock at Oklahoma State, 7 p.m. ET
• *Towson at West Virginia, 7 p.m. ET
• *Winthrop at Georgia Tech, 7:30 p.m. ET
• *Chicago State at Bowling Green, 7:30 p.m. ET
• *North Carolina A&T at Marist, 7:30 p.m. ET
• *Northern Colorado at New Mexico, 9 p.m. ET

  Season outlook

• Nov. 11: The Big Ten and Big 12 Conferences announced the formation of an annual inter-conference challenge for women's basketball. The challenge will span at least two years and will begin in the fall of 2010. The series will feature a home-and-home format over the initial two-year agreement, and each of the Big 12's teams will play in each Challenge, while one Big Ten team, Wisconsin, will play two Challenge games each year.

  Pre-season polls

Preseason All-Americans

• Jayne Appel, Stanford
• Tina Charles, Connecticut
• Jantel Lavender, Ohio State
• Maya Moore, Connecticut
• Monica Wright, Virginia
• *November 3: Maya Moore became just the seventh unanimous choice on The Associated Press' preseason All-America team. She received all 40 votes from a national media panel. It's the third straight year a player has been a unanimous choice in the preseason. Moore was joined on the preseason squad by teammate Tina Charles. It was the fifth time that two players from the same team made the All-America squad. Connecticut has also had two of the four other pairs of teammates on a preseason team – Jen Rizzotti and Kara Wolters in 1995–96 and Shea Ralph and Svetlana Abrosimova in 2000–01.

  Preseason All-Conference teams

Big Ten

• 2009–10 Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year
• *Jantel Lavender
• Preseason All-Big Ten Coaches Team
• *Jenna Smith, Sr., F, ILL
• *Allyssa DeHaan, Sr., C, MSU
• *JANTEL LAVENDER, Jr., C, OSU
• *Samantha Prahalis, So., G, OSU
• *Tyra Grant, Sr., F, PSU
• Preseason All-Big Ten Media Team
• *Jenna Smith, Sr., F, ILL
• *Allyssa DeHaan, Sr., C, MSU
• *JANTEL LAVENDER, Jr., C, OSU
• *Samantha Prahalis, So., G, OSU
• *Tyra Grant, Sr., F, PSU

  Conference USA

• 2009–10 C-USA Preseason PLAYER OF THE YEAR
• *Emma Cannon, UCF
• 2009–10 C-USA Preseason Team
• *Courtney Taylor, Houston
• *Brittany Gilliam, SMU
• *Pauline Love, Southern Miss
• *Emma Cannon, UCF
• *Jareica Hughes, UTEP

  Regular season

2009 Big Ten/ACC Challenge Schedule

Early season tournaments

Conference winners and tournaments

Coaching changes

Final season rankings

Post-Season Tournaments

NCAA Tournament

Final Four – [Alamodome], San Antonio, Texas">San Antonio">San Antonio, Texas

National Invitation Tournament

Women's Basketball Invitational

Awards and honors

Consensus All-American teams

Major player of the year awards

• Wooden Award: Tina Charles, Connecticut
• Naismith Award: Tina Charles, Connecticut
• Wade Trophy: Maya Moore, Connecticut

  Major coach of the year awards

• Kay Yow Award: Connie Yori, Nebraska
• Maggie Dixon Award: Teresa Weatherspoon, Louisiana Tech
• Naismith College Coach of the Year: Connie Yori, Nebraska
• WBCA National Coach of the Year: Connie Yori, Nebraska

  Other major awards

• Nancy Lieberman Award : Andrea Riley, Oklahoma State
• Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award : Alexis Gray-Lawson, California
• Lowe's Senior CLASS Award : Kelsey Griffin, Nebraska