Haley Cavinder sprinted toward the Miami bench, her hands in the air, balled into celebratory fists. From the sidelines, Hanna Cavinder worked her way to Haley, arms outstretched, ready to embrace her twin sister.

At halfcourt, the two collided into an airborne hug, sharing a moment before continuing the chaotic celebrations with their teammates.

“Hanna is always the first person I’m going to run to,” Haley says.

No. 9 Miami had just knocked off No. 1 Indiana at Assembly Hall, 70-68 on a last-minute shot, leaving the Hoosiers faithful confused and dejected in the stands. For Haley and Hanna, this was the moment they’d been waiting for. To play spoiler in a tournament they’d watched together as little girls, to help the Hurricanes advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 31 years — that’s why they’d come to Miami.

“It’s hard to put into words,” Haley says, then pauses to self-reflect. “I know that’s corny, but this is why we came here, this is why we chose to transfer, chose to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations.”

Things were comfortable for the twins at Fresno State, where they played for three seasons before transferring to Miami. When they entered their names in the transfer portal last March, and eventually picked the sunny beaches of Miami to call home, there was an assumption that the twins made their decision for better NIL benefits.

They won’t deny that Miami has better business opportunities, but that was just a bonus. The Cavinder twins weren’t hurting for sponsorship dollars at Fresno State, either. They were already the national leaders in NIL deals, worth nearly $1 million when they entered the transfer portal.

When you Google their names, Haley and Hanna have an assigned Internet label: media personalities.

It’s undeniable that the twins are making waves as influencers, taking full advantage of the NCAA’s nearly two-year-old Name, Image and Likeness era. With over 560,000 followers each on Instagram and 4.5 million followers on their shared TikTok account, the Cavinders lead the NCAA Women’s Tournament field this year in NIL value at $835,000 each, according to On3. Next on the leaderboard is LSU freshman Flau’jae Johnson, with a valuation of $654,000.

But, first and foremost, Haley and Hanna consider themselves basketball players. Transferring, therefore, was a basketball decision.  And in just one year, the move is paying off.

The Cavinders dominated in the Mountain West conference, with Haley averaging 19.8 points, 9.4 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.5 steals per game in her last season at Fresno State. She set an NCAA record in 2021-22 by shooting 97 percent from the free-throw line and was named to the All-Mountain West Team. Hanna had similar success that season, averaging 14.5 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.8 steals per game.

Together, they started every game and played upwards of 37 minutes per contest. But with all of their success, one thing still eluded the Cavinders: the NCAA Tournament. By opting to transfer, they opened themselves up to new challenges and possibilities, but one thing had to stay the same.

Hanna and Haley are a package deal.

“We’ve always played the sport together,” Hanna says. “That’s why I love basketball, is playing with Haley.”

That makes everything worth it for the twins, even if they are playing different roles at Miami than they did at Fresno State. Hanna, in particular, has had to adjust. With the Hurricanes, the senior comes off the bench in a sixth woman role, with her court time hovering around 17 minutes per game. In Miami’s win over Indiana on Monday night, Haley had nine points and eight rebounds in 37 minutes, while Hanna got in for 19 minutes.

It’s something Hanna was prepared for when the twins decided to leave Fresno State.

“I knew I was going to have a different role,” Hanna says. “We play the same position and I’m not the most physical player, so I knew I would have to prove myself. I accepted the role that I have. I’m a competitor. I want to help my team win, so whatever position I’m in, I’m going to stay ready.”

Hanna and Haley are talented and fiercely competitive, but they also recognize that Power 5 basketball is different from mid-major basketball. There aren’t many 5-foot-6 guards playing at the top Division I level, and having two undersized players on the court at the same time is a challenge.

But when they do get to be on the court together, the twins embrace every second of it.

“I’ll never take that for granted,” Hanna says. “Playing with your twin sister is obviously a unique situation, so whenever we get on the court together, we try to optimize it as best we can.”

Haley Cavinder is cold for this 🤭 @CavinderHaley | @CanesWBB pic.twitter.com/ZDw6NugHIt

— espnW (@espnW) March 21, 2023

This season, Haley is averaging 12.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.5 assists in her starting role. Hanna puts up 3.9 points, 1.7 assists and 1.4 rebounds coming off the bench. It’s a point that critics like to latch onto, and one that Haley is quick to shut down.

“If someone says something about Hanna’s (stat line), it’s like, ‘Do you even know the game of basketball?’ It’s not all about points. It’s about what she does for her team when she gets on the court,” Haley says.

Being in the influencer space means Hanna and Haley’s lives are often the subject of conversation and criticism. People assume that if the twins post a TikTok, they are taking time away from the gym, or that when they post a swimsuit photo on the beach, they aren’t taking basketball seriously enough.

It’s a misconception the two have learned to live with, but that doesn’t mean they like it — for themselves, or for other athletes and influencers. Hanna and Haley post on social media every day, giving people a glimpse into their lives, but what they show is actually a small percentage.

“With love, there comes hate,” Haley says. “I’m a firm believer that you shouldn’t judge someone based on their social media. I’m proud of what I put on my social media, but I wish people would understand, not to make someone one-dimensional. You can be a basketball player and an influencer.”

It frustrates the twins to feel like they are being put in a box, but leaning on each other helps lessen the effects. They craft much of their public image around being twins. They feel it makes them marketable.

But Hanna and Haley don’t spend time together only because it’s good for the brand.

The Cavinders have always been close, even if they had their share of fights growing up.

Once, when they were juniors in high school, Hanna threw a Gatorade bottle at Haley. They can’t remember all the details of the fight but know it was over boyfriends, something they laugh about now. Another time, they went a week without talking.

Now, Haley and Hanna have learned to recognize when they need space. They are always together online, but solitude is an important part of their real lives.

Hanna and Haley also balance each other out. Haley is more deliberate, choosing to think things through and living at a more laid-back pace. Hanna is more direct and outgoing. Sometimes, after practice, when Haley is ready to take a break and relax, it’s Hanna that motivates her to keep on top of their jam-packed schedule. Because of her “go, go, go,” attitude, Haley affectionately calls Hanna her “twin-ager.”

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The very public position the twins are in — the NIL deals, the fanbase, the Sweet 16 — wouldn’t be possible without each other. Eventually, Haley and Hanna know they will have to put some separation in their relationship. That could come as soon as next season, with Haley committed to playing a fifth year and Hanna still contemplating her options.

“It’s hard for me,” Haley admits. “I want Hanna to play, I want her to come back, but I also want her to be her happiest.”

Even if they aren’t together on the court or walking the campus of Miami, Hanna says they will always live in the same state.

For now, they are embracing every moment together. That includes Miami’s Sweet 16 matchup against Naismith Player of the Year finalist Maddy Siegrist and No. 4 Villanova on Friday, with a chance to continue their magical NCAA Tournament run.

As they get older, Hanna and Haley know things will change even more, but no amount of change can lessen their bond.

“There is going to be a time where we get married and have families and stuff — I’m still gonna be on the phone with her all the time,” Haley says, as the two share a laugh.

Eden Laase is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

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.