EUGENE — Oregon women’s basketball will open the 2019-20 season at No. 1.

The Oregon Ducks are atop the preseason AP poll with 25 of 28 first-place votes and 697 points. It is the first time the Ducks women have been ranked No. 1 in program history.

“I think it validates our vision that we had going in here,” coach Kelly Graves told the AP. “It validates the hard work from my staff that’s been with me the whole journey. On this stage, we had a better opportunity to be in position we now are.”

Reigning national champion Baylor, which defeated Oregon in last year’s Final Four, is second with the three remaining first-place votes and 675 points, with Stanford (631), Maryland (596) and Connecticut (569) rounding out the top 5. UConn has been ranked in the top five for 239 consecutive weeks, a streak dating to January 2007.

“That’s nuts,” Graves said of UConn’s streak. “I think I’d be in my mid-70s by the time we reached that.”

Other Pac-12 teams ranked in the top 25 are No. 7 Oregon State, No. 11 UCLA and No. 20 Arizona State.

The reigning Pac-12 regular season champion, Oregon was the overwhelming preseason favorite to win the conference by both the coaches and media. Ducks point guard Sabrina Ionescu and forward Ruthy Hebard were among the five players named to the preseason all-Pac-12 team.

Oregon has a preseason intrasquad scrimmage at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Matthew Knight Arena and will play an exhibition against the U.S. Women’s National team at 4 p.m. Nov. 9 before opening the season against Northeastern at 3 p.m. Nov. 11.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.