The Associated Press dropped its NCAA preseason All-America team on Tuesday, with Trojan guard JuJu Watkins and forward KiKi Iriafen representing a highly anticipated new-look USC on the list.

The 30-member national media panel also named UConn superstar and projected 2025 WNBA Draft No. 1 pick Paige Bueckers, Texas sophomore Madison Booker, and Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo to the exceptional five-player squad. What's more, Watkins and Bueckers received unanimous nods.

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New-look USC faces high NCAA expectations

Last season, Watkins put together arguably the most impressive freshman campaign in NCAA basketball history, averaging over 27 points per game and setting a national freshman scoring record with 920 points.

Along with this week's AP nod, the sophomore secured the 2024/25 Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year vote last month.

In grad student Iriafen, USC landed this offseason's top transfer, as the Stanford standout flew south in the wake of both the Pac-12's 2024 dissolution and the April retirement of Cardinal leader Tara VanDerveer — the winningest coach in NCAA basketball history.

Last season, Iriafen averaged a double-double at 19.4 points and 11 rebounds per game. Now on the preseason No. 3 team, she'll aim, alongside Watkins, to improve on the Trojans' 2024 Elite Eight run — their best March Madness performance in 30 years.

USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb called Watkins the X-factor in Iriafen's transfer decision.

"Kiki came because she wanted to play with JuJu, who recruited her because she wanted to play with Kiki," she explained. "It’s exciting to see their personalities mesh."

Underclassmen lead the charge in NCAA preseason All-America team

With the sophomore trio of Watkins, Booker, and Hidalgo, young players are leading the 2024/25 NCAA season, even before the November tip-off.

"It’s unbelievable," remarked Gottlieb. "Those players excelled as freshmen and their teams won. They did it in multiple ways. It’s really exciting for the game and the future of it."

Last season, Hildago's 22.6-point average led Notre Dame to the ACC Tournament title and the NCAA tournament's Sweet 16.

Booker, on the other hand, had an unexpected breakout season after the star Texas guard Rori Harmon was sidelined with an ACL injury. The newly minted starter stepped up for Texas in a big way, ultimately averaging 16.5 points, five assists, and five rebounds through her freshman year.

Last season, Booker also led the Longhorns to a Big 12 Tournament title.

South Carolina snubbed?

Notably, the preseason All-America team does not include any players from reigning NCAA champion South Carolina, who went undefeated in their 2023/24 campaign. The news comes a little over a week after the Gamecocks topped the preseason AP women’s college basketball rankings.

"We knew we’d have a target on our backs this season as the reigning champions and this preseason ranking just confirms that," South Carolina coach Dawn Staley told the AP last week. "We appreciate the recognition, but I know our coaching staff and our team are more focused on what we see in the gym every day. And that’s every player working extremely hard to get better individually and as a team."

The publication first started compiling an NCAA preseason All-America team ahead of the 1994/95 season.

The 2025 WNBA season ended on a high note for Connecticut Sun star Tina Charles on Wednesday night, as the veteran center took home this year's Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award, an annual honor recognizing the WNBA player "who best exemplifies the characteristics of a leader in the community where they work or live."

Known for her career-long consistency on the court — where Charles leads the WNBA in all-time rebounds and sits second only to retired legend Diana Taurasi in career points — the 36-year-old standout is also deeply active with her nonprofit organization, the Hopey's Heart Foundation.

Founded in memory of Charles's late aunt Maureen "Hopey" Vaz in 2013, the family-run organization works to provide life-saving Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) to schools and rec centers. Hopey's Heart celebrated their 500th AED distribution this year.

Due to these efforts — as well as her other team- and community-based initiative work — the WNBA chose to recognize Charles for "her extraordinary commitment to service, social justice, and creating lasting impact in the communities she serves."

Notably, this isn't Charles's first time earning the Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award, with the WNBA star first receiving the honor for personally funding the building of a school for hundreds of children in Mali in 2012.

"Through my mother at a young age, I learned the importance of being a servant unto others, and receiving the Dawn Staley Community Leadership Award is truly special for me — especially for Hopey's Heart Foundation to receive this honor through its work in raising awareness for sudden cardiac arrest," Charles said in her acceptance speech on Wednesday night.

Along with her award, the WNBA is donating $10,000 to Charles's foundation alongside $20,000 from Connecticut's Yale New Haven Health.

Congress members are speaking up for the WNBPA amid the union's ongoing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations, with 85 lawmakers from the Democratic Women's Caucus and the House Democratic Caucus sending an open letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert on Tuesday demanding that the league "bargain in good faith to reach a fair CBA in a timely manner before the October 31 deadline."

Citing concerns "about the WNBA's delayed response, the differing accounts on the status of negotiations, and.. the needs of players," the letter vehemently voices support for the Players Association as temperatures rise in the tense CBA negotiations.

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The league and the WNBPA have struggled to find common ground, with both parties forced to consider filing an extension in the coming weeks.

"WNBA players receive no shared revenue under the current CBA," the Congress members explained in their letter. "This is drastic in comparison with other major professional sports leagues: National Basketball Association players receive 49 to 51%, National Football League players receive at least 48.8%, and National Hockey League players receive 50% of their respective shared revenues."

Players are also speaking out, with Seattle Storm star Gabby Williams recently telling CBS Sports, "The WNBA isn't enticing enough as far as money goes in order to keep us out of the other leagues."

Unrivaled Basketball is on the up and up, with the 3×3 league announcing expansion plans for its second season on Wednesday, growing from six to eight teams in 2026 following the venture's successful round of funding earlier this week.

Joining the offseason upstart in Miami next year will be Breeze Basketball Club and Hive Basketball Club.

The two new teams create 12 more roster spots, while another six will comprise the league's development pool — raising the total athletes on Unrivaled's payroll from 36 in its inaugural season to 54 in 2026.

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Unrivaled is also adding a fourth night of games each week to accommodate the incoming clubs, a move that will eliminate back-to-back matchups though each team will still play two games per week.

After nearly breaking even in their debut season, co-founders Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier are growing Unrivaled ahead of schedule, moving expansion to 2026 from the league's original 2027 target.

"We outperformed every goal we set for the league in year one, and with the incredible talent we have returning paired with the influx of new stars, it was a no brainer to add two more clubs this season," Unrivaled president of basketball Luke Cooper said in the league's Wednesday announcement.

Unrivaled currently has more than 90% of its 2026 roster confirmed — including Dallas Wings rookie superstar Paige Bueckers — with plans to release the full second-season lineup by the end of September.

The NWSL salary cap has become a hot topic in recent weeks, with big-name — and big-money — transfers like Angel City forward Alyssa Thompson's overseas move to Chelsea and North Carolina Courage striker Jaedyn Shaw's reportedly imminent trade to Gotham raising concerns about the league's financial edge.

While Shaw's reported league-record $1.25 million trade proves that US teams are willing to pay a premium for top talent, the disparity between flashy transfer fees and salary limitations could be holding the NWSL back.

"I know that in the NWSL there are ambitious clubs that want to be able to compete with the likes of a Chelsea, with the likes of a Barcelona," retired USWNT star Tobin Heath said on last week's episode of The RE—CAP Show. "These teams are capped out, they can't compete. They're going to lose their best players."

The league's most recent collective bargaining agreement sets each NWSL club's current salary cap at $3.3 million, which will titrate up to $5.1 million by 2030 while also adding potential revenue sharing options.

In 2024, the average league salary was $117,000. However, with 22- to 26-player rosters, teams often low-ball some athletes in order to afford to pay out for superstars.

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Soft salary cap overseas lures soccer's top players

In comparison, the UK's WSL and second-tier WSL2 operate with soft caps, recently shifting to a framework that allows teams to spend up to 80% of their revenue plus a capped contribution from club owners on player salaries.

"We have no intent to kind of 'cap' any players' earnings," WSL Football COO Holly Murdoch told The Guardian earlier this month. "We're at the investment stage of women's football, so we don't want to deter investment. We don't want to put in rules that don't make us an attractive investment."

With NWSL top earners Sophia Wilson and Trinity Rodman becoming free agents in 2026, the US league might need to rethink its model to stay competitive in an increasingly aggressive global market.