The USA Basketball run at the FIBA U17 Women’s World Cup has been emphatically noted. They’ve won four of the last five times the event has been held, and they’ll look to add to that dominance again this year.

Mikaylah Williams, Juju Watkins and Breya Cunningham are among the top three recruits headlining the star-studded U17 National Team, a 12-player squad that was finalized on June 1.

They’ll gear up for next month’s action at the 2022 FIBA U17 World Cup, which is slated to take place July 9-17 in Debrecen, Hungary, and head coach Sue Phillips is thrilled at the versatility this year’s roster has to offer.

“Understanding that it will take perhaps a variety of styles of play to be effective on any given night, I love the prospects of the interchangeable pieces and the different types of roster formations that we can put on the floor to be effective,” Phillips said.

When you’ve already won a @FIBA⁩ U18 3X3 Gold Medal, what does this ⁦@usabjnt⁩ U17 trials mean to Mikaylah Williams @mkwill12_ and her competitive matchups with Juju Watkins ⁦@Jujubballin⁩ ? ⁦@BlueStarMedia1⁩ ⁦@BlueStar30s⁩ @dickweiss ⁦ pic.twitter.com/1LvOPRvong

— Mike Flynn (@MikeFlynn826) May 29, 2022

This year marks the fifth USA Basketball coaching assignment for the longtime coach, who led the U16 team to a gold medal a year ago at the FIBA Americas U16 Championship in Mexico. Cunningham, Watkins, Madison Booker, Jaloni Cambridge, Jadyn Donovan, and Jada Williams were each members of that team, which defeated Canada 118-45 in the final.

Her experience with the U17 team is also worth noting. In 2014, Phillips helmed a squad that survived a 40-point performance from Angela Salvadores in the championship game, claiming a 77-75 win over Spain. That gold-medal team was also star-studded in its own right, including the likes of Arike Ogunbowale, Lauren Cox, Asia Durr and Sabrina Ionescu.

“We’re not only going to need to utilize our talent, but we have to play smart and play hard and play together. We can’t play hero ball,” Phillips said. “A lot of these teams that we’ll be competing against have been together for months, if not years, and their ability to work a two-player game and have this incredible chemistry on the floor is a given. So we are going to have to have our two-player defensive strategies on point.”

Mikaylah Williams is the two-time reigning Gatorade Louisiana Player of the Year after leading Parkway High School (La.) to a 32-2 record and a state championship last season, during which she averaged 22.8 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 2.2 steals per game. She remains uncommitted but has narrowed her list of schools down to five — Baylor, Duke, LSU, Ole Miss and Texas A&M.

Phillips lauds Williams’ “instant offense” and is thrilled to have the top recruit in the class of 2023 leading the way for Team USA.

“I think she has a beautiful mid-range game. It’s automatic,” Phillips said. “She has a knack for scoring. You give her a seam or space, she’s going to be able to get us a bucket. She’s strong, explosive. She can get on the glass. We’re going to need our guards to rebound to gain us some extra possessions and to secure the defensive stops.”

The reigning 2021-22 Gatorade California Girls Basketball Player of the Year, Watkins is also no stranger to Phillips. In March, Watkins notched a double-double with 23 points and 19 rebounds to lead Sierra Canyon to an 85-61 win over Archbishop Mitty in the Open Division state championship.

That Archbishop Mitty team was coached by none other than Phillips, who saw first-hand just how dynamic Watkins has become.

“Her team was victorious, and Juju was a big part of that,” Phillips said about Watkins, who averaged 25.0 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in guiding the Trailblazers to a 30-2 record last season. “She’s a three-level scorer. She’s probably one of the best I’ve seen in my 30-year coaching tenure in being able to finish with and through contact. She’s incredibly strong and creative with her finishes around the rim. She can impact the game defensively as well. She has great anticipation and athleticism, just an incredible feel for the game.”

Phillips is joined by assistant coaches Tom McConnell (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) and Brittanny Johnson (Evanston Township High School [Ill.]). Phillips believes both excel in different ways to create a fully-formed unit.

“Being able to help us conduct an effective and efficient practice and then also provide the mid-game adjustment insights, I really enjoy working with Tom and look forward to the coming weeks,” Phillips said. “Brittanny was a court coach last year and has now been put on the coaching staff as one of my assistants. I really enjoyed working with her in trials a few weeks ago. I think she is very intuitive about the game. She has a great understanding of the sense of strengths that our players can bring to the table.”

Selected by the USA Basketball Developmental National Team Committee, the U17 team is made up of future graduates from 2023 and 2024. They were chosen after six days of trials in Colorado Springs, Colo., where 40 invitees were dwindled down to a dozen.

Additionally, Kennedy Umeh was a finalist for the 2021 U16 roster, while Mikaylah Williams also has experience with USA Basketball, helping lead her team to a gold medal finish at the 2021 FIBA 3×3 U18 World Cup.

With the start of training camp looming ahead on June 26, Phillips is filling that time coaching her club and AAU teams. But the anticipation of heading to Europe to compete for gold is building by the day.

Times like these are everything to a coach who’s been in the ranks for more than 20 years.

“It’s an amazing two weeks. I just love basketball,” Phillips said. “I love teaching and coaching the game. I couldn’t be more excited to support the red, white and blue with this particular roster and coaching staff. I’m excited with our prospects and ability to make the World Cup, and I can’t wait to get to work.”

Click here to see a preview of the U18 National Team roster.

MEET THE TEAM

Sunaja Agara, 16, Hopkins HS (Minn.)
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minn.
Height: 6-2
Class: 2023
Commitment: Stanford

Madison Booker, 16, Germantown HS (Miss.)
Hometown: Ridgeland, Miss.
Height: 6-1
Class: 2023
Commitment: Undeclared

Jaloni Cambridge, 16, The Ensworth School (Tenn.)
Hometown: Nashville, Tenn.
Height: 5-0
Class: 2024
Commitment: Undeclared

Morgan Cheli, 16, Archbishop Mitty HS (Calif.)
Hometown: Los Altos, Calif.
Height: 6-1
Class: 2024
Commitment: Undeclared

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Breya Cunningham, 17, La Jolla Country Day School (Calif.)
Hometown: Chula Vista, Calif.
Height: 6-4
Class: 2023
Commitment: Undeclared

Jadyn Donovan, 16, Sidwell Friends School (Washington, D.C.)
Hometown: Upper Marlboro, Md.
Height: 6-0
Class: 2023
Commitment: Undeclared

Hannah Hidalgo, 17, Paul VI HS (N.J.)
Hometown: Merchantville, N.J.
Height: 5-7
Class: 2023
Commitment: Undeclared

Mackenly Randolph, 16, Sierra Canyon School (Calif.)
Hometown: Encino, Calif.
Height: 6-1
Class: 2024
Commitment: Undeclared

Kennedy Umeh, 15, McDonogh School (Md.)
Hometown: Columbia, Md.
Height: 6-4
Class: 2024
Commitment: Undeclared

Judea Watkins, 16, Sierra Canyon School (Calif.)
Hometown: Sylmar, Calif.
Height: 6-1
Class: 2023
Commitment: Undeclared

Jada Williams, 17, La Jolla Country Day School (Calif.)
Hometown: San Diego, Calif.
Height: 5-8
Class: 2023
Commitment: UCLA

Mikaylah Williams, 16, Parkway HS (La.)
Hometown: Bossier City, La.
Height: 6-1
Class: 2023
Commitment: Undeclared

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

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Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.