Heading into this past season, 14 former women's college basketball players of the year were returning to their teams. This time around, that number is down to eight. The transfer portal and NIL have made the sport increasingly less stable year to year.

Perhaps this list of potential players of the year for 2025-26 will bring some calm to the chaos, a chance to look at who should be the best performers in each conference.

Some seem easy to call -- there don't appear to be any true challengers to UConn 's Sarah Strong in the Big East or Richmond 's Maggie Doogan in the Atlantic 10 -- but other races like the SEC and Big 12 should be tight until the final day of the campaign.

With the season less than two weeks away, let's look at the top candidates for player of the year in every

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