With no nets cut down for the 2019-20 season, it seems anachronous that another season should tip off. Nevertheless, here we are in the second week of November, and by the end of the month we will have college basketball.

Between the WNBA draft, the transfer portal and a sparkling class of freshman, there will be plenty of change for this upcoming season. (At the same time, UConn and South Carolina are again predicted to be among the game’s best, so has anything really changed at all?)

For one, a heavy fan presence inside arenas on game day seems pretty unlikely. While some programs have announced that they’ll allow between 15-25% capacity for home games, the vast majority of spectators will be tuning in from the comfort of their living room.

Regardless of how you catch them in action, below are the six players who I believe will define college hoops this year. From a unique freshman sensation to veteran players looking to boost their draft stock, these are the players to stop and watch when you’re flipping through the channels during this season like no other.

In no particular order…

 

PAIGE BUECKERS: UCONN, FRESHMAN

In the spring, we posed the question, “Will Paige Bueckers save UConn?” The answer then, and now, seems to be yes. The top recruit arrives at Hartford with the weight of the most decorated program on her shoulders, but everyone from her coach to her more than half a million social media followers expects her to perform in year one.

The words “generational talent” have been thrown around a lot with regards to Bueckers, and she is going to a program that has developed more than a few. The freshman point guard will have more eyes on her than anyone when she debuts on the collegiate stage. It is not a stretch to say that UConn’s ceiling in this pandemic season will depend on how quickly Bueckers is able to fare in the transition. Expectations are so high, it’s unlikely she’ll exceed them. But watching to see if Buckers can live up to the hype is enough of a reason to keep an eye on the Huskies.

 

HALEY JONES: STANFORD, SOPHOMORE

The top-ranked player in her class, Jones looked the part throughout her injury-shortened freshman season. Starting the final 12 games of the season, Jones averaged 12.9 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 2.6 assists per game over that span. Her shooting translated to the collegiate level at a 52.8% rate, and while the schedule difficulty was not exactly equal, Stanford was 16-2 with Jones in the lineup and 11-4 without her. With Jones healthy, Stanford was able to peak at No. 1 in the AP Poll without DiJonai Carrington or Maya Dodson, a critical sign for Cardinal fans, as neither player is available for this season. (Go deeper: read our summer interview with Haley Jones here.)

 

ALIYAH BOSTON: SOUTH CAROLINA, SOPHOMORE

WOMENS HOOPER WEDNESDAY- 6’5 South Carolina Freshman F Aliyah Boston is DOMINANT. The St Thomas, Virgin Islands native averaged 12.5 PPG 9.4 RPG 2.6 BPG this past season while also being named National Freshman of the Year. FUTURE WNBA FIRST ROUND PICK ???????? @aa_boston pic.twitter.com/9pIw7bFgwB

— Frankie Vision (@Frankie_Vision) September 30, 2020

The Freshman of the Year is poised to make an even bigger splash in year two with South Carolina. On a young team last year, Boston averaged 12.5 points, 9.4 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks per game for a team that went 32-1 and ended the year as the No. 1 team in the AP poll. After shooting an efficient 60.8% from the field, Boston’s game could expand as she grows into the midrange from her spot at center.

Arguably, Boston may need to assume an even bigger role, despite already being First-Team All-SEC last year and the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year. Her freshman season dazzled, but with the loss of Ty Harris and Mikiah Herbert Harrigan, South Carolina will need to find more production. No one would argue that Boston is not prepared, but watching her go to work is sure to be a treat.

 

DIJONAI CARRINGTON: BAYLOR, GRAD TRANSFER

WOMENS HOOPER WEDNESDAY- 5’11 Incoming Baylor Grad Transfer G DiJonai Carrington is TOUGH. The San Diego, CA native averaged 14.0 PPG 7.5 RPG 1.6 APG 1.1 SPG in the 2018-19 season while also being named All-PAC 12. FUTURE WNBA PLAYER ???????? @DijonaiVictoria pic.twitter.com/1rrJ8pISEZ

— Frankie Vision (@Frankie_Vision) September 9, 2020

Oregon and UConn vied for Carrington, but in the end the Stanford graduate chose to take her fifth year at Baylor. An elite scorer with a significant rebounding presence, Carrington will fit right in on a team that has previously incorporated high-profile transfers Chloe Jackson and Te’a Cooper.

Surrounded by talent and a coach that knows how to push all the right buttons, Carrington is a candidate to reach new heights. While the effects of her physical injuries remain to be seen, everything from Carrington’s past would suggest that she should flourish in any environment. She scored 14.0 points and hauled in 7.5 rebounds per game in her breakout junior season, with Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer expecting even more in a senior season that lasted just five games. Instead, Kim Mulkey will get to see what a full-strength Carrington can contribute in her lineup.

 

AARI MCDONALD: ARIZONA, SENIOR

For the second straight year, McDonald led the Pac-12 in steals, nabbing 2.3 per game last season and winning the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year award for her efforts. Impressive in its own right, McDonald also averaged 20.6 points per game to lead the conference for the second straight year, becoming the first in the Pac-12 to go back-to-back in steals and scoring. Her outsized importance to her Arizona team is evidenced by her 36.8% usage rate on offense, the fourth-highest in the entire sport.

In one game last season, McDonald dropped 44 points on a ranked Texas team. She is also in the midst of a 66-game streak of scoring in double figures, the longest active streak in the country. Last year, her hardware case had to make room for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, recognizing the top shooting guard in the country. After playing with Kelsey Plum her freshman season with Washington, McDonald has established herself as a similarly effective scorer for Arizona. If there is one area to grow, it is 3-point shooting, where she is not shy to try but has made just 28% of her attempts in her two seasons with Arizona. Seen as a top professional prospect last year, McDonald will be making her case for WNBA teams all year while playing on an Arizona team hoping to make some noise in March.

 

ELISSA CUNANE: NC STATE, JUNIOR

I miss the games but I also miss the March Madness stories about the student-athletes that play the game. Ken Neal of @RaycomSports is an AMAZING feature producer/director. Enjoy this inspirational story about @PackWomensBball Elissa Cunane & her family. pic.twitter.com/lttptUvf5Z

— LaChina Robinson (@LaChinaRobinson) March 16, 2020

Nearly averaging a double-double from the center position, Cunane was essential to NC State’s 28-4 season. A 54.7% shooter last season, Cunane fit right in on a team filled with 3-point shooters, making 17-of-38 from beyond the arc after taking just 12 in her freshman season. With 3-point shooters continuing to space the floor and the confidence to attack any defender one-on-one, Cunane will continue to get the point totals. Like others on this list, there is room to improve, which is exactly what makes her junior season so exciting. Last year, NC State won its first conference tournament in 29 years and reached No. 4 in the AP poll. How successful they are in the 2020-2021 season will be largely up to Cunane to decide.

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.