Southeastern Conference coaches have made Tennessee the preseason favorite to win the league title.
Tennessee, the SEC’s defending regular-season champion, received 11 of the 14 first-place votes in the coaches’ poll that was released Tuesday. Kentucky, picked to finish second, received the other three first-place votes. LSU was picked to finish third and Vanderbilt fourth. South Carolina and Texas A&M tied for fifth in the balloting.
Coaches also named Tennessee guard Meighan Simmons the preseason player of the year. Simmons received seven votes. Kentucky’s DeNesha Stallworth and LSU’s Theresa Plaisance got three votes each. Vanderbilt’s Christina Foggie earned the remaining vote.
Simmons, Stallworth, Plaisance and Foggie earned first-team all-conference honors along with South Carolina’s Aleighsa Welch, Tennessee’s Bashaara Graves, Texas A&M’s Courtney Walker and Vanderbilt’s Jasmine Lister.