Diana Taurasi and Elena Delle Donne have seen the hype surrounding the New York Liberty and the Las Vegas Aces.

But even as the superteams generate excitement, the former WNBA MVPs are not counting out their own squads.

When asked if the expectations heaped on the Liberty and the Aces had lessened the pressure for the Phoenix Mercury, Taurasi pushed back, noting that pressure comes from within each player and each team.

“I put pressure on this team every day to come in and be its best,” she said. “The one thing that I have learned is you can’t control the narrative.”

The Liberty and the Aces dominate the betting odds for the 2023 WNBA championship, with New York at +130 and defending champion Las Vegas at +110 to win the title, per FanDuel sportsbook.

Still, the 40-year-old guard, who is entering her 19th WNBA season, expects this campaign to be one of the toughest yet.

“I think it’s going to be one of the most competitive seasons we’ve had in a long time,” Taurasi said.

Delle Donne’s Mystics sit a distant third in title odds at +1400 as training camp begins. But the 33-year-old sees a full 40-game season ahead rife with possibilities.

“There’s some people that would think, ‘Just fast-forward to the end of the season and let those two compete for the championship,'” she said. “But that’s something we’re excited to make our mark and do what we’re going to do.

“The best movies, the underdog ends up on top. Remember that.”

The UEFA Women’s Champions League on June 3 will pit two of the game’s brightest stars against one another in Barcelona’s Alexia Putellas and Wolfsburg’s Alexandra Popp.

Both made returns for their respective clubs in the last few days. Popp had missed several matches with an Achilles injury but came back to score for Wolfsburg in her team’s 3-2 win against Arsenal in Monday’s Champions League semifinal.

Putellas made her first appearance since tearing her ACL last July in Barca’s 3-0 win over Sporting Huelva, which clinched their fourth straight Liga F title. Her team already had clinched its spot in the Champions League final.

So what can fans expect from the title matchup?

When did these teams last play one another?

Barcelona and Wolfsburg last faced each other during the 2021-22 Champions League semifinals. Putellas and Barcelona won 5-3 on aggregate but lost to Olympique Lyonnais in the final.

Wolfsburg have made six Champions League final appearances, with their most recent coming in 2020. Only Lyon have made more appearances in the final, which makes this familiar territory for the German club. But Wolfsburg haven’t won the Champions League since 2014.

Barcelona, meanwhile, won the UWCL just two seasons ago, beating out English club Chelsea for the title in 2021.

Who are the players to watch for each side?

While Popp and Putellas will be in sharper form by the June final, several other players also should feature heavily in this matchup.

Asisat Oshoala has been dominant for Barcelona this season, leading the team with 20 goals through 24 matches – a suitable follow-up to last season, when she led the team with 20 goals through 19 matches.

Midfielder Aitana Bonmati has helped to fill the hole left by Putellas, providing goal-scoring, playmaking and leadership inside the middle third. She’s leading the Champions League in assists, with seven through UWCL competition.

Popp has led Wolfsburg in scoring, with 14 goals through 17 matches despite missing several weeks due to injury. She’s followed by Ewa Pajor, who has 11 goals in 16 matches as well as seven assists. She ties Popp for a team-high 18 points.

Pajor has been the top scorer in Champions League competition, notching eight goals so far.

The Kansas City Current fired head coach Matt Potter just three matches into the season due to “issues around his leadership and employment responsibilities,” the team announced Wednesday.

In his first season as head coach in 2022, Potter led the Current to the NWSL championship match. But after a winless start to the 2023 season, Potter has been relieved of his duties.

The Current did not provide any details related to the leadership issues cited in Wednesday’s announcement.

“We watch the play on the pitch, we keep a pulse on the locker room, and we are constantly evaluating ways to improve our club,” general manager Camille Ashton said in the news release. “Through our ongoing process of continuous improvement, we believe now is the right time for this change.”

Potter brought previous experience at the college level (as the head coach at Washington State and Oklahoma) and at the U.S. national level (as the U-23 coach) with him to Kansas City when he was hired in January 2022.

Kansas City finished with a 10-6-6 record in the 2022 regular season. After entering the playoffs as the No. 5 seed, the team made a run to the NWSL final against the Portland Thorns.

In the offseason, the Current signed top free agent Debinha along with other standout NWSL veterans, but they have not clicked on the pitch. They also have generated some controversy off it, as third-round draft pick Mykiaa Minniss claims to have received “less than professional” treatment from the club before she was cut from the preseason roster.

Caroline Sjöblom, who served as an assistant coach under Potter, will take over as interim head coach effective immediately. She will lead the Current into Wednesday night’s Challenge Cup opener, a road contest against the Houston Dash.

Rough & Tumble Pub, which bills itself as Seattle’s home for women’s sports, is putting its money where its mouth is.

The women’s sports bar — which features a “Billie Jean Wings” appetizer in honor of tennis legend Billie Jean King, among other aptly named menu items — is pledging 1% of its revenue toward gender equity in youth soccer, the Seattle Times reported Saturday.

With the pledge, Rough & Tumble joins longtime OL Reign defender Lu Barnes, San Diego Wave defender Naomi Girma and other NWSL players who are doing the same with their earnings. The money from the players and the pub is going toward Football For Her, a nonprofit dedicated to providing spaces and resources for young people who identify as female or nonbinary.

The pledge is made in partnership with Common Goal, an organization which wants to direct 1% of soccer’s annual revenue across the globe toward social change.

Barnes, Girma and Reign defender Alana Cook, who also pledges 1% of her salary to Football for Her, attended an event in celebration of Common Goal and Football for Her at Rough & Tumble last Thursday.

When Barnes was growing up, she had the opportunity to play soccer for free, which helped her both start and stick with the sport. Such opportunities are fewer and farther between as youth sports becomes more professionalized.

With their pledges, NWSL players and Rough & Tumble could help change that.

“When I go to stadiums after games and go to sign autographs, you see kids light up when they see someone who looks like you,” Cook told the Seattle Times. “If it takes 1% of my salary, one minute of my time to give them a role model, to give them an idea that this could be their pathway, it’s a no-brainer.”

The players who attended Thursday’s event also reveled in the atmosphere of the women’s sports bar, which also features a salads named after Barnes, Breanna Stewart and Serena Williams, as well as a fried chicken dinner named after Sue Bird.

“I feel like this is something that could happen in so many places and to see them push women’s sports to the forefront and really emphasize women is really good,” Girma told the Seattle Times.

San Diego Wave coach Casey Stoney took issue with the packed NWSL schedule in the wake of her team’s 1-0 loss to OL Reign on Saturday.

This weekend, the league returned from an international break. On Wednesday, the Challenge Cup will kick off, with 10 teams playing their first games of the tournament. And next weekend will bring another round of regular-season matches.

While Stoney would like to make adjustments with her squad, the quick turnaround will make that difficult.

“We ain’t got a lot of time to work on anything in practice this week because the league, joyfully, off the back of an international window, put three games week in, which is ridiculous,” Stoney said sarcastically.

The Wave will face the Portland Thorns at 10 p.m. ET Wednesday, followed by in-state rivals Angel City FC at 8 p.m. ET Sunday.

Coaches of all three teams — San Diego, Portland and Angel City — also discussed the importance and the difficulty of load management coming off the international window and heading into the NWSL schedule crunch.

Canada women’s national team captain Christine Sinclair ended up missing the Thorns’ match Friday against the Houston Dash, which ended in a 1-1 draw. Delayed flights scrambled Sinclair’s travel back from her national team duties, and she arrived in Portland on Thursday evening, coach Mike Norris said.

Norris called the situation “very unfortunate, but frustrating as well.” Still, Sinclair’s health came first in the decision to rest her for the match.

“I think if you look at player safety, it was the right thing to do,” he said. “Could we have dressed her? Could we have used her? Maybe? But yeah, we took the decision what we felt was right, her safety and what’s coming ahead.”

Angel City rookie Alyssa Thompson played a full 90 minutes last Tuesday for the U.S. women’s national team, which came as a surprise to her NWSL coach Freya Coombe. Thompson had joined the USWNT as a late addition in the international window after an injury to Mallory Swanson.

“Obviously she had a mini adventure previously in the week, which was fantastic for her. We’re very supportive of that,” Coombe said. “It was important for us to manage her minutes coming back in because she had a journey and played the 90-plus minutes for the USWNT. She’s always looking dangerous when she comes in.”

NWSL Challenge Cup schedule: April 19

  • Orlando Pride vs. North Carolina Courage, 7 p.m. ET
  • Gotham FC vs. Washington Spirit, 7:30 p.m. ET
  • Houston Dash vs. Kansas City Current, 7:30 p.m. ET
  • Angel City FC vs. OL Reign, 10 p.m. ET
  • San Diego Wave vs. Portland Thorns, 10 p.m. ET
  • BYE: Chicago Red Stars, Racing Louisville

Sinead Farrelly’s “surreal” return to soccer took another twist Friday, as she will start for the Ireland women’s national team in Saturday’s friendly against the USWNT.

Just last week, the 33-year-old midfielder played in her first NWSL match since 2015. She had left the sport after experiencing sexual abuse at the hands of her coach, but she went public with her story in 2021, prompting major investigations into the league.

Farrelly returned this year, joining Gotham FC for the preseason as a non-roster invitee before singing a contract for the 2023 season. She made her debut in the club’s most recent match against OL Reign, and she slipped “seamlessly” into the flow of the game, her teammate Lynn Williams said.

While the match ended in a 2-0 loss, Farrelly made an immediate impact when she entered in the 70th minute, bringing “a lot of control to the midfield,” Williams said on the latest episode of Snacks. And she does the same day in and day out.

“Every day when I see her at training, she’s so technically good that half the time I’m like, ‘Sinead, give me the ball.’ If I’m defending her, I’m like, ‘Just give it to me!’ But I can’t get it off her,” Williams said.

Now Farrelly can show her skills on the international stage, as she joins Ireland for its pair of friendlies against the USWNT, starting with the first at 2:30 p.m. ET Saturday.

Ireland is preparing for its first-ever World Cup appearance, and Farrelly is getting the start in just her first camp. Coach Vera Pauw announced the lineup decision Friday, just hours after Farrelly officially joined the roster.

“She has been the standout player, to be honest,” Ireland midfielder Denise O’Sullivan said.

Farrelly’s father is from Ireland, and she spent part of her childhood living there. She maintains dual citizenship, which opened the door for this opportunity.

“Ireland’s always been really interwoven into our life and my family life,” she said Friday. “And so it feels a little surreal, but I feel really honored and proud to be wearing this badge.”

While Farrelly and the Ireland team had been in contact, whether she would be able to join the team came down to the timing of her return, she said.

“I was still trying to figure out if I could do this and my body could do this, and I wanted to try to make a team in the U.S. first and have a solid club,” Farrelly said. “And so I think the timing of getting invited into this last camp to train was exactly how it was supposed to be and perfect for both of us.”

While Farrelly is thrilled by this latest opportunity, she still is giving herself grace as she works her way back into the game.

“The only thing I’ve learned in this journey back to soccer for me is one day at a time, one session at a time,” she said. “I can get really overwhelmed and I can be really negative and critical with myself. And really the most important thing for me is just to show up and try my best and keep a positive attitude. So that’s just what I want to do every day.”

Iowa women’s basketball has paused its season ticket sales for the 2023-24 season due to unprecedented demand, the Des Moines Register reported Thursday.

Caitlin Clark’s historic run through the NCAA Tournament has helped drive the surge in interest for the Hawkeyes’ next campaign, which will see the team look to avenge its loss to LSU in the national championship game.

Iowa sold 6,500 season tickets for the 2022-23 season at 15,000-capacity Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Most of the school’s teams see a renewal rate of at least 90% among season ticket holders, which would set a conservative estimate of around 5,900 returning buyers for Clark & Co.

And thanks in large part to the Hawkeyes’ success during March Madness, the team also has received 6,700 new season ticket requests. Half of that number came between the Sweet 16 and the Final Four, according to Matt Henderson, Iowa’s deputy director of athletics for external relations.

Such numbers perhaps should not be surprising, especially considering the large contingent who followed the team to the Final Four in Dallas.

The clamor for tickets has led the athletic department to pause ticket sales as it plans for the upcoming season. The Hawkeyes will need to save tickets for students, for visiting teams and for special events; not all 15,000 fans in the stands can be season ticket holders, even if the team could sell that many.

“We’re going to do our best so that those fans who want to support women’s basketball at Iowa get that opportunity,” said Henderson, who oversees ticket sales.

One regular season ticket for the 2022-23 season cost $125 total, with discounts available for senior citizens and children. The prices for the 2023-24 season have not yet been decided.

The just-completed season saw the Hawkeyes set team and Big Ten records for average attendance, with 11,143 fans per game coming to Carver-Hawkeye Arena. They seem poised to break those records again in the upcoming season.

“I hope that when people see women’s basketball at Iowa, they want to be a part of it,” coach Lisa Bluder said after her team’s tournament run. “There’s room. There’s room to join along with us.”

There’s room. Just not too much.

UCLA senior guard Charisma Osborne is forgoing the 2023 WNBA Draft, electing instead to use her extra year of NCAA eligibility.

As a WNBA coach told Osborne and UCLA coach Cori Close, the decision could be a smart move.

To provide her players with the best possible advice about their futures, Close frequently touches base with WNBA coaches. One coach offered Close and Osborne a stark assessment about life in the professional league, the New York Times reported Sunday.

“Does Charisma want to make more money and stay in college and get massages, fly charter, have everything paid for, have a nutritionist and have her own trainers that are paid for?” Close said, quoting the coach. “Or does she want to have none of those things and fly Southwest with us?”

The latter scenario would hold true only if Osborne made the cut for a WNBA roster. The 12-team league is facing a roster crunch, with just 36 draft picks and 144 roster spots but more than 80 players on the draft entry list.

“We have all these people growing and mastering their craft, with no place to go in the United States,” Close said. “It’s just really sad that those are the conversations we’re having to have with our league and our college game being so healthy and vibrant and growing.”

Osborne had declared for the draft after UCLA’s Sweet 16 exit from the NCAA Tournament, but the 5-9 point guard has withdrawn her name. The WNBA Draft will be held at 7 p.m. ET on Monday in New York, and if draft entrants choose to withdraw, they must do so at least five days before (so, by Thursday).

Los Angeles Sparks guard Lexie Brown pushed back against some of the criticism of the WNBA, tweeting Tuesday: “Y’all really think we don’t have massage therapists, trainers, and nutritionists?”

Still, future top draft picks are weighing their options, including Iowa junior Caitlin Clark and UConn junior Paige Bueckers. Most of this season’s juniors and seniors have the option to use the extra year of eligibility granted to college athletes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tennessee senior Tamari Key laid out reasons players might choose to stay after she and her teammate Rickea Jackson opted to return for another season with the Lady Vols. Among them was the name, image and likeness policy, which opens up NIL deals to students.

Key also mentioned chartered flights, which have been a sticking point for WNBA players over the last few seasons.

“I’m not speaking for everyone when I say this, but I’m sure if you asked collegiate women’s basketball players that are staying an extra year, you would probably get an answer similar to any of these,” she wrote.

Ashley Owusu came to the Virginia Tech women’s basketball team as a star transfer. But almost a year after she entered the portal, her season ended in infighting with her Hokies teammates and with Owusu reentering the transfer portal.

How did the once-promising partnership reach the breaking point? Just Women’s Sports presents a timeline of Owusu’s year with Virginia Tech, from her transfer announcement to the social media stir after Friday night’s Final Four loss to LSU.

April 5, 2022

The 6-0 guard announced via Twitter her decision to leave Maryland after three seasons.

“Unfortunately, events that have transpired on and off the court this year have led me to the very difficult but necessary decision to continue my education and basketball career elsewhere,” she wrote.

After her sophomore season with the Terrapins, she won the Ann Meyers Drysdale award as the top shooting guard in the country, which Iowa’s Caitlin Clark has won this season. In her junior season, she averaged 14.3 points and 3.7 assists per game. But she elected to spend her senior season elsewhere.

April 30, 2022

“Wassup Hokie Nation,” Owusu wrote in an Instagram post, revealing her destination for the 2022-23 season.

She joined Virginia Tech as one of the top transfers of the offseason. “I love it here,” she tweeted on July 3, and she echoed the same sentiment on Instagram with a video of herself practicing with her new team.

Nov. 7, 2022

In her first game for Virginia Tech, Owusu featured in the starting lineup, posted 9 points, 4 assists and 2 rebounds in 28 minutes in a 101-45 win against Mount St. Mary’s.

Nov. 27, 2022

The senior guard scored a season-high 21 points in 26 minutes in Virginia Tech’s 89-28 win against Longwood.

Dec. 1, 2022

Owusu broke her pinkie finger in the first quarter of the Hokies’ 85-54 win against Nebraska. She had started the first seven games of the year for her new squad, but the injury and subsequent surgery kept her out of the lineup for the next seven weeks.

“Very unselfish — she never really tried to go outside of what we were doing, just trying to figure it out,” Virginia Tech coach Kenny Brooks told ESPN in December following the injury. “She had some games where she was a little bit in a lull because she was trying to figure it out, and then you kind of see — unfortunately for us — right before she got hurt, she was starting to figure it out.

“I thought she was going to get on a roll and then she gets hurt.”

Jan. 19, 2023

In her first game back from her injury, Owusu played 21 minutes of the bench, scoring 5 points on 2-for-8 shooting. She did not play as many as 20 minutes again for the rest of the season.

Feb. 26, 2023

In Virginia Tech’s regular-season finale, a 65-52 win against Georgia Tech, Owusu played just five minutes and did not score. She would not play again for the Hokies, remaining on the bench for the entire postseason.

Two days before this game, she tweeted “freee meee” in response to a video of her playing for Maryland.

March 3, 2023

The Hokies played their first game of the ACC Tournament, but Owusu did not appear in the 68-42 win against Miami. When asked after the game what she needs to do to get back on the court, she redirected the question to Brooks.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “You’ll have to ask him.”

Virginia Tech went on to win the tournament title, but Owusu did not play in any of the three games.

Brooks told The Roanoke Times that his team found its identity while Owusu was working her way back from injury.

“Everybody can just look and see and tell that we’ve got things going in a tremendous direction,” Brooks said. “[The injury] was an unfair situation — not only for her but for us because it usually takes transfers a little while to get used to your system. And the time they’re usually getting used to it, she was out.

“During that time, we formed a different identity — one that probably would’ve been different if she were healthy and playing.”

March 31, 2023

No. 1 seed Virginia Tech made a historic run to the first Final Four in school history. During the semifinal contest, a fierce battle with No. 3 seed LSU, Owusu sat on the bench with her team in the first half but did not return to the bench after halftime in the eventual loss.

The team said Owusu “was not feeling well,” The Next’s Mitchell Northam reported. But in response to a tweet asking after Owusu’s whereabouts, teammate Kayana Traylor tweeted, “hmm idk check the lsu bench.” Traylor’s post was retweeted by several teammates, including Elizabeth Kitley and Taylor Soule.

Ashley’s father Emmanuel Owusu responded to Traylor’s tweet, writing: “Maybe you should the truth about how he hasn’t spoken to several kids in the team for months. How about the special group chat the coach has with 7 of the kids.”

Owusu’s former Maryland teammate Angel Reese, who now stars for LSU, tweeted after the game, “FREE MY DAWG @Ashleyyowusu15,” to which Virginia Tech guard Cayla King replied, “She’s been free.”

Brooks and his players were not asked about the apparent tension between Owusu and her teammates at the postgame press conference, though simmering tempers seemed to boil over on Twitter in the aftermath of the loss.

April 4, 2023

Owusu entered the transfer portal after the end of the season, Virginia Tech confirmed to ESPN. She has one year of COVID-19 eligibility remaining.

Her decision to enter the portal represents a reversal from her stance in early March, when she told The Next she planned to go pro rather than return for a fifth year.

While Iowa star Caitlin Clark did not end her season with a championship ring, she has filled her trophy case with individual accolades.

Tuesday brought her latest win, the 2023 Wooden Award for the best women’s college basketball player, which completed her sweep of the national player of the year awards. She also won the Naismith Trophy, Wade Trophy, Associated Press Player of the Year and USBWA National Player of the Year.

The 6-foot junior guard finished the season with 27.8 points (second-most in the country), 8.6 assists (most in the country) and 7.1 rebounds per game. She posted five triple-doubles, including a 41-point triple-double in her team’s Final Four win over previously undefeated South Carolina.

While Iowa fell 102-85 to LSU in the national championship game, Clark scored a game-high 30 points, and she finished the tournament with 191 total points — breaking the record for the most points scored in a single NCAA Tournament, women’s or men’s.

Clark beat out 14 fellow finalists, including South Carolina senior and reigning winner Aliyah Boston, for the award.

LSU sophomore Angel Reese was named the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament after the Tigers’ title win, but she was not nominated for the Wooden Award. LSU confirmed to ESPN that Reese was ineligible for the award, as she does not meet all of the criteria.

According to the criteria for the award, candidates must prove more than just their on-court abilities, including: being a full-time student making progress toward graduation with a cumulative 2.00 GPA since enrolling, exhibiting strength of character on and off the court, and excelling in both offense and defense.