Despite a two-week extension due to COVID-19 delays and a current military conflict in Eastern Europe, the EuroLeague regular season has officially wrapped up, the playoffs are set and several WNBA stars are in contention for league MVP.

While WNBA players who were competing in Ukraine, such as the Washington Mystics’ Ariel Atkins, have safely returned home after Russia invaded Ukraine last week, those posted in Russia and elsewhere in Europe remain abroad. As of Sunday night, several athletes in Russia were making plans to return stateside through their agents.

As the wartime situation unfolds, Jonquel Jones and Natasha Howard, both playing in Russia but on different teams, are on the list of MVP hopefuls and are set to face off in the first round of the playoffs in a best-of-three series starting March 8. Jones and Howard are joined by Kahleah Copper, Brionna Jones and Kayla McBride as those who have set themselves apart in EuroLeague action this season.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the top five WNBA candidates for MVP as they look to lead their teams to the EuroLeague championship game scheduled for April 10.

Jonquel Jones

The 6-foot-6 Bahamian-Bosnian power forward, in her fourth consecutive season with Russia’s UMMC Ekaterinburg, is striving to match Breanna Stewart’s 2018-19 feat by following up the WNBA MVP crown from the fall with EuroLeague MVP honors in the spring. Jones is tied with Howard for the most double-doubles this season with seven and is averaging 17.1 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game. She’s first in the league in both overall shooting percentage (62.3 percent) and second in average efficiency per game (23.5).*

📊 24 PTS | 10 REB in 22 minutes@jus242 is sending a message to the rest of the league ahead of the Quarter-Finals! 😤#EuroLeagueWomen pic.twitter.com/G4XlBbP5en

— EuroLeague Women (@EuroLeagueWomen) February 23, 2022

On a stacked UMMC roster that includes Brittney Griner, Courtney Vandersloot, Allie Quigley and Emma Meesseman, Jones has had to improve her accuracy in order to rise above the rest. One factor working against Jones in the MVP race is that she missed a couple of games at the start of the overseas season. Still, the fact that she’s followed up her stellar WNBA MVP season with a solid run at the EuroLeague equivalent speaks volumes to what her WNBA colleagues have known for some time: Jones is the real deal.

It also aligns with her “win now” mentality. After receiving the Connecticut Sun’s core designation guaranteeing her a one-year, $228,094 supermax deal, Jones agreed to a two-year deal for less than the supermax. Her team-first decision gave the franchise the cap space to bring back Courtney Williams, a player Jones believes is crucial to the Sun winning a championship in 2022.

Kahleah Copper

The reigning WNBA Finals MVP has continued to shine over in Europe. After taking some time off after leading the Chicago Sky to a WNBA championship in October, Copper joined Perfumerias Avenida and has been a dominant force with the Spanish club.

Through eight games, Copper is leading her team in scoring, rebounding and efficiency. Her 23.3 points per game also lead the league by a large margin (Brionna Jones is in second at 20.9 points per game), and she’s earned it while maintaining a 54.2 shooting percentage, seventh best in the league. Her 21.5 efficiency is tied for fifth overall, proving she’s doing her part on the defensive end while minimizing turnovers.

📊 32 PTS | 7 REB@kahleahcopper was born to be unstoppable in basketball.@CBAvenida | #EuroLeagueWomen pic.twitter.com/hltDm8OlhS

— EuroLeague Women (@EuroLeagueWomen) February 24, 2022

Copper’s claim to the 2022 EuroLeague MVP trophy faces the same problem as Jones’ since she has played only eight games, while other stats leaders are now at 13 or 14 games apiece. Still, it’s fun to speculate whether the WNBA’s seventh overall draft pick from 2016, who exploded into the national spotlight last season, could have maintained these numbers if she’d played the full season this year. Her Avenida team is a solid bet to make it to the EuroLeague championship game, so we could still get the pleasure of watching her earn another Finals MVP award.

Kayla McBride

Kayla McBride, averaging 19.3 points per game in 14 EuroLeague games, was the league’s leading scorer for the majority of the regular season until Copper and Brionna Jones very recently caught up to her. She’s tied for 10th overall in average efficiency with 4.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. The three-time WNBA All-Star played on four different European squads before joining Fenerbahce in Turkey last season and returning this year.

The former Notre Dame sharpshooter spent her first seven WNBA seasons with the Las Vegas Aces (previously the San Antonio Stars) before being traded last offseason to the Minnesota Lynx. Head coach Cheryl Reeve worked McBride into her system right away and she was the only player to start all 32 games for the Lynx last year. Across the water, McBride and her Fenerbahce teammates, including Elizabeth Williams, Satou Sabally and back-to-back reigning EuroLeague MVP Alina Iagupova, secured their spot in the playoffs as the top team in Group B.

In addition to leading all scorers for most of the year, the 5-11 guard joined the exclusive 50-40-90 club by shooting 54.7 percent from 2, 46.7 percent from 3, and 97.4 percent on free throws. Joining the 50-40-90 club is easier to do in the EuroLeague’s 14-game regular season than when Elena Delle Donne did it in 31 games in the 2019 WNBA regular season, becoming the first player in the league to achieve the feat before leading the Mystics to their first WNBA championship. Despite the asterisk, a 50-40-90 season gives McBride a strong case to win EuroLeague MVP.

Brionna Jones

The WNBA’s Most Improved Player in 2021 is the third WNBA award-winner from last season who has carried the momentum into Europe this winter. Currently first in the EuroLeague with a 24.1 average efficiency rating and fourth with a 60.1 total shooting percentage, Jones surpassed McBride to finish the season second in points per game at 20.9 while also snagging just under eight rebounds per game.

📊 32 PTS | 5 REB | 4 STL | 36 EFF@_bjones18 had herself a night as ZVVZ USK Praha finish the #EuroLeagueWomen Regular Season on a high note! pic.twitter.com/Vi6POgCaMW

— EuroLeague Women (@EuroLeagueWomen) February 19, 2022

Stateside, Jones has been with the Sun since they drafted her eighth overall in 2017 and earned her first WNBA All-Star appearance last season by putting up 14.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game alongside frontcourt teammate Jonquel Jones. Brionna Jones highlighted her strong showing this season for the Czech Republic’s Praha with a EuroLeague MVP honor for the month of December. Praha clinched their playoff berth weeks ago, giving Jones a chance to add to her rising stock.

Natasha Howard

Howard is the only EuroLeague MVP contender whose team was very much on the cusp of not qualifying for the postseason. Thanks in large part to Howard’s on-court efforts, Dynamo secured its playoff berth with a 2-0 head-to-head advantage over Group B’s Spar Girona.

Returning to Russia’s Dynamo Kursk after a half-season stint with the club in 2019, Howard has been surging in the second half of the season and was named EuroLeague’s MVP for the month of January. Currently tied for fourth with 19 points per game, and right on Jonquel Jones’ heels with a 22.5 average efficiency rating, Howard is leading all players in rebounding (11 per game) and is tied for first in double-doubles (seven). Coming off a knee injury that caused her to miss 15 games in 2021, her first season with the New York Liberty, Howard will ride the momentum of her MVP-caliber EuroLeague campaign into the WNBA season, where she’ll share the paint with free-agent signee Stefanie Dolson.

Notable stat rankings

Points per game

1. Kahleah Copper
2. Brionna Jones
3. Kayla McBride
4. Natasha Howard
8. Jonquel Jones

Efficiency per game

1. Brionna Jones
2. Jonquel Jones
3. Natasha Howard
T5. Kahleah Copper
10. Kayla McBride

Rebounds per game

1. Natasha Howard
6. Jonquel Jones
12. Brionna Jones
36. Kahleah Copper
T44. Kayla McBride

Double-doubles

Natasha Howard and Jonquel Jones (7)
Brionna Jones (2)
Kayla McBride (1)

*Efficiency is a total performance statistic that attempts to measure a player’s performance by adding positive actions (points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks) and subtracting negative actions (missed field goals, missed free throws and turnovers).

Tessa Nichols is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports.

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 16 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.