Junior guard Ataira Franklin (Bowie, Md.) of the Virginia women’s basketball team earned preseason All-ACC honors after being named to the Blue Ribbon Panel preseason All-ACC team and the preseason Coaches All-ACC team. The Cavaliers have been picked to finish fourth in the preseason poll and tied for sixth in the coaches poll.
Franklin was an All-ACC honorable mention last season after averaging 12.4 points per game. She earned ACC All-Freshmen team honors as a first year player, averaging 9.4 points per game in her rookie season.
Duke. which returns four starters from last season’s team that finished 27-6 and reached the Elite Eight of the 2012 NCAA Championship, received 29 first-place votes from the Blue Ribbon Panel. Reigning conference champion Maryland was listed first on the remaining 18 ballots.
The Blue Ribbon panel’s preseason poll, which is considered the “official” poll, ranked Georgia Tech third, followed by Virginia, North Carolina and Miami. Florida State was voted seventh, followed by NC State, Wake Forest, Clemson, Virginia Tech and Boston College. The conference’s coaches, in a secondary poll, voted UVa in a tie for sixth with Florida State.
Reigning ACC Player of the Year Alyssa Thomas of Maryland was predicted to be a repeat winner in 2012-13 in the Blue Ribbon Panel vote.
Franklin was joined on the Blue Ribbon Panel Preseason All-ACC Team by Thomas, Georgia Tech’s Tyaunna Marshall, Florida State’s Natasha Howard, Maryland’s Tianna Hawkins and Laurin Mincy, Miami’s Stefani Yderstrom and NC State’s Marissa Kastanek.
Those same 10 players were named to the Coaches’ Preseason All-ACC Team, which named Maryland’s Thomas and Duke’s Gray and Williams as the Preseason ACC Tri-Players of the Year.
Both the ACC coaches and Blue Ribbon Panel voted Clemson’s Jonqeul Jones, Duke’s Alexis Jones, Maryland’s Malina Howard, North Carolina’s Xylina McDaniel and Virginia Tech’s Uju Ugoka to their respective Newcomer Watch Lists for the 2012-13 season.
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