We are about a month away from the start of the NCAA Tournament, which is both exciting and kind of unbelievable. The women’s college basketball season has progressed quickly, and it’s about to move even faster.

So, in the interest of fairness and keeping you informed, here are five teams in the AP Top 25 that I haven’t talked about enough.

Iowa State

I watched the No. 6 Cyclones play Kansas State the other day, and I had two major takeaways. The first was the play of Emily Ryan, who is second in the country with 7.2 assists per game, behind only Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark. While Ashley Joens gets all of the attention from opposing defenses, Ryan quietly makes things happen. As the sophomore picks apart defenses, she creates looks for herself and her teammates. Ryan almost always makes the correct decision, and her play makes Iowa State tough to guard. With her at point, the Cyclones are an incredibly difficult matchup.

The second key takeaway from Iowa State’s 70-55 victory in that game was the way the Cyclones defended Ayoka Lee. After she dropped 38 points in their previous matchup, the Cyclones made small but crucial adjustments, forcing Lee one step farther away from the basket than she’s comfortable with. Thanks to that defensive game plan, Iowa State held her to 12 points and proved to me that this Cyclones squad has a high basketball IQ.

UConn

Seeing the Huskies on this list might be jarring, but I’ve mostly left them alone since Paige Bueckers went out with a knee injury. I haven’t been ignoring No. 10 UConn, but I have been taking a “wait and see” approach. It’s hard to judge a team that’s without its best player, and the Huskies have battled through other stretches without core players like Azzi Fudd and Olivia Nelson-Odada. It’s been an unprecedented season for UConn, to say the least. Last week, the Huskies dropped a game to unranked Villanova, marking their first conference loss in nine years.

All the chaos aside, I think UConn will find itself right where it usually does next month: deep into the NCAA Tournament. Generally, when a star player gets hurt, one of two things can happen: 1) The team completely falls off the rails, or 2) everyone else gets better. On the surface, it seems like option one is occurring, but if you dig a bit deeper, you’ll see a UConn squad that has young players — namely Fudd and fellow freshman Caroline Ducharme — finding themselves. With their confidence rising and Bueckers’ return looming, all the lows the Huskies have suffered this season won’t really matter if they make a late-season surge.

LSU

The No. 11 Tigers started the season with a respectable loss to No. 25 Florida Gulf Coast, and since then, have done exactly what you want to see from a team that opens with a loss: They’ve gotten better week after week. There’s not a bad loss in their 21-4 record, and they’ve managed to pull off some impressive wins along the way.

The game I want to focus on is LSU’s 66-60 loss to South Carolina on Jan. 6, because it offers an excellent snapshot of what makes this LSU team worthy of the No. 11 national ranking. The Tigers didn’t have to do anything crazy to stick with South Carolina. Instead, they just played their game. LSU’s top-three scores this season — Khayla Pointer, Alexis Morris and Faustino Aifuwa — were their top-three scorers against South Carolina. And South Carolina’s Big Three — Aliyah Boston, Zia Cooke and Destanni Henderson — all had excellent showings of their own: Boston recorded 19 points and 18 rebounds, Cook had 17 points and Henderson finished with 16 points. LSU, not known for its 3-point shooting, made just one attempt from long range and still stuck around in the game.

Do ya thang, KP3

📺 https://t.co/quxy22UQhV pic.twitter.com/xb16fRHu0P

— LSU Women's Basketball (@LSUwbkb) February 11, 2022

Based on that performance, the Tigers are clearly good enough to nearly knock off the nation’s top team without needing any kind of luck or fluke situation. That is a great sign for the Tigers going forward.

Florida

The No. 17 Gators are both a great example of a team peaking at the right time and a testament to the work of interim head coach Kelly Rae Finley. In fact, early-season Florida and late-season Florida are two very different teams. A squad that loses to Towson and George Mason has no business being in the top 25, but a team that’s defeated LSU, Tennessee and Georgia has no business being unranked. Florida is both of those teams, and the most important thing is that those losses came in November and the wins in January and February.

The Gators are a good reminder that those of us who aren’t playing (media and fans) shouldn’t get too high or too low on a team at the beginning of the season. Florida just needed a little more time to develop. With three double-digit scorers and two other players averaging at least seven points per game, Florida is running a balanced attack. Although star sophomore guard Lavender Briggs won’t return this season after injuring her shin, Florida’s three biggest wins came after Briggs’s injury, meaning the balance the Gators have perfected is playing off.

BYU

Last on my list of teams that deserve more attention is No. 20 BYU. I’m a firm believer in giving credit to teams that perform well, even if they don’t play in the greatest of conferences. I am a Gonzaga grad, after all, so it doesn’t take too much critical thinking to understand why I feel that way.

The two-loss Cougars don’t have the chance to play many ranked teams, and the WCC doesn’t boast the steepest competition, but that doesn’t mean BYU hasn’t been tested. The defense I’ve used for Florida Gulf Coast in other weeks also applies to BYU. Teams like these can essentially only go down in the poll and the eyes of basketball critics, because every game on their schedule is one they should win. In other words, victories don’t really give them a bump, but losses certainly push them downward. That is exactly what happened to the Cougars when they suffered a bad loss to Portland on Feb. 3. The got back on track two days later, however, with a road win over a Gonzaga squad that’s getting votes in the AP poll.

Led by Shaylee Gonzales’ 18.7 points a game, BYU is 21-2 and the clear favorite to win the WCC Tournament for an automatic March Madness bid.

.@shayleegonzales career-high 3️⃣3️⃣ points❗️❗️❗️#WCChoops | @byuwbb pic.twitter.com/ToWY4iojY6

— WCC Basketball (@WCChoops) February 12, 2022

Poll talk

I don’t have any Poll Talk this week, as my rankings are very similar to the AP top 25. That doesn’t usually happen, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty more poll opinions to share this season. Until then, I’ll leave you with my rankings and sign off.

JWS’ Top 25 in Week 15

1. South Carolina (23-1)
2. Stanford (21-3)
3. Louisville (22-2)
4. NC State (23-3)
5. Indiana (18-4)
6. Michigan (20-4)
7. Iowa State (21-3)
8. Arizona (18-4)
9. Tennessee (21-4)
10. LSU (21-4)
11. UConn (17-5)
12. Baylor (19-5)
13. Oklahoma (20-4)
14. Georgia Tech (19-6)
15. Texas (17-6)
16. Florida (19-6)
17. Maryland (19-6)
18. BYU (21-2)
19. Ohio State (19-4)
20. Notre Dame (19-6)
21. Georgia (17-7)
22. Virginia Tech (19-6)
23. North Carolina (19-5)
24. Iowa (16-7)
25. Florida Gulf Coast (22-2)

Eden Laase is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports. She previously ran her own high school sports website in Michigan after covering college hockey and interning at Sports Illustrated. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

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.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

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.