By Marty Gordon
NRVsports@mainstreetnewspapers.com
Radford University’s basketball programs are ready to start the 2025 season, and coaches in the Big South Conference have listed both the women and men as being in the middle of the pack in this year’s preseason poll.
The RU men were ranked fourth, and the women third.
The preseason announcements came during Big South Basketball Media Days at the Carnegie Hotel, directly across from the host-East Tennessee State University in Johnson City.
High Point University tops both the preseason polls.
On the men’s side of the room, High Point was given 80 votes with UNC-Asheville second with 68. Longwood followed with 53 votes, and RU received 52 votes. The rest of the poll was Winthrop in fifth, Presbyterian sixth, Charleston Southern seventh, Gardner-Webb eighth and USC-Upstate holding down the ninth spot.
The High Point men’s program is the preseason favorite for the second consecutive yearand is the defending Big South Regular-Season and Conference Champions who return eight players from a squad that tied the Big South overall win record last season with 29 victories, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. This is the fourth time the Panthers are the Big South’s men’s basketball overall preseason favorite, as the three previous times were 2007-08, 2015-16 and 2024-25 (High Point was the top North Division pick in 2013-14).
High Point’s women’s squad, the 2024-25 Big South Regular-Season and Conference Champion, finished with 77 points and received six of the nine first-place votes from the voting panel of women’s head coaches. The Panthers return three starters and nine players from the 2024-25 roster that finished 13-3 in league play, 21-12 overall and played in the NCAA Tournament for the second time — the program’s fourth postseason appearance in five seasons. High Point is the preseason women’s favorite for the fifth consecutive year and sixth time overall.
Longwood, last year’s Big South Tournament Runner-Up, was second in the women’s poll with 69 points (one first-place vote), just ahead of third-place Radford (67 points, one first-place vote). Winthrop placed fourth in the poll with 48 points, followed by Charleston Southern in fifth with 51 points. USC Upstate landed in the sixth position with 33 points, with Gardner-Webb in seventh-place (25 points). Presbyterian College was eighth with 23 points, followed by UNC Asheville in the ninth and final position with 22 points and the remaining first-place vote.
UNC Asheville forward Toyaz Solomon (Enfield, N.C.) has been voted the 2025-26 Big South Conference Men’s Basketball Preseason Player of the Year by the league’s head coaches. Solomon is the second Asheville student-athlete in three years to be voted Preseason Player of the Year.
Solomon was a Second-Team All-Big South selection in 2024-25, as he ranked second on the Bulldogs with 15.7 points per game while leading the squad with a 61.0 field goal percentage, 7.2 rebounds per game and 51 blocks.
RU’s Jaylin Johnson was named to the preseason first-team, who was a First-Team All-OVC and All-Newcomer Team member last season at Tennessee Tech, where he scored 14.3 points per game while handing out 153 assists. He started all 32 games, led the Ohio Valley in assists and drained a team-best 75 three-pointers. Johnson scored a season-high 31 points against Western Illinois.
The RU women placed two on the preseason list, Cate Carlson (Jr., 5-10 guard) and Joi Williams (Jr., 5-6 guard).
Carlson started all 31 games in her first season at Radford last year, and earned Honorable Mention All-Conference honors after establishing season highs for points (313, 10.1 ppg), rebounds (108, 3.5 rpg), assists (40), steals (33) and shooting percentage (36.5). Carlson’s 37.5 clip from three-point range was fourth-best in program history, and she scored a career-high 22 points in Radford’s Big South Quarterfinal win over Gardner-Webb.
Williams was a First-Team All-Conference honoree in 2024-25 and led the Highlanders’ offense with 12.2 points per game and 2.6 assists per contest while making 38.7 percent from three-point range and 43.5 percent overall from the field. She ranked second in the Big South last season with 65 three-pointers made and scored a career-high 23 points in a win over Longwood on Feb. 8. Williams totaled 29 points and nine assists in Radford’s two Big South Tournament games.
The college basketball season tips off Monday, Nov. 3. The first conference date for both the women and men is Wednesday, Dec. 31, as the teams will play a 16-game schedule in 2025-26. The seasons culminate with the 2026 Big South Basketball Championships March 4-8 at Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City, Tenn.
