The hype around No. 1 prospect Lauren Betts is real, with the Grandview (Colo.) High senior gearing up to head to Stanford as one of the most anticipated additions to Tara VanDerveer’s basketball program.

“I’m honestly most looking forward to being challenged in the classroom and in the gym. I think it’s like the best of both worlds,” Betts told SLAM of her future at Stanford. “It’s going to be tough, but I think it’s going to teach me a lot, to just kind of balance those things, and I think that’s going to give me a lot of opportunities to just learn some life lessons. I think I’m gonna learn a lot from Stanford.”

Lauren looks forward to being challenged on the court and in the classroom when joining @StanfordWBB … It’s the best of both worlds. @laurenbetts12 https://t.co/n6PtUGaH14

— WSLAM (@wslam) June 10, 2022

After leading her high school to the Colorado Class 5A state title, participating in the McDonald’s All-American game and earning back-to-back Gatorade State Player of the Year awards, Betts is used to being the best. But the 18-year-old doesn’t expect that to be the case at Stanford — at least not right away.

“I don’t want to go to a school where I know I’m going to be, like, the best as soon as I walk in,” Betts told SLAM. “I want to go to a school where, obviously, my freshman year might not be as amazing as I want [it] to be, but we’ll see what happens. Once I get there, just know that each season is gonna get better and better, and I think that I chose the best school for that.”

Betts will join a stacked Stanford team that includes Haley Jones, Hannah Jump and Cameron Brink. The Cardinal finished with a 32-4 record last season, falling to UConn in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament.

“It’s definitely a dream, and it still hasn’t hit me yet,” Betts told SLAM.

The Seattle Storm is cleaning house, opting to not renew the contract of head coach Noelle Quinn following the team's first-round exit from the 2025 WNBA Playoffs last Thursday.

"On behalf of our organization, I would like to thank Noelle for her time with the Storm," Seattle GM Talisa Rhea said in Sunday's announcement. "Her commitment to the ongoing success of our organization and to furthering the development of our players was second to none. She put us in a position to win at the highest levels of the game and, for that, we are grateful."

After winning the 2018 WNBA championship as a Seattle Storm player, Quinn joined the staff as an assistant coach before claiming another title as the team's associate head coach in 2020.

The Storm named Quinn head coach in May 2021 after her predecessor Dan Hughes stepped down due to health reasons — minting her the first-ever Black woman manager in Seattle history.

In her five-year tenure at the helm, Quinn led the Storm to four playoff appearances and logged the second-most wins of any coach in Seattle history, with the 40-year-old exiting the franchise with an overall record of 101-97.

In those four playoffs, Seattle only advanced past the first round in 2022, with the team going 4-8 in all postseason play under Quinn.

The Seattle Storm finished the 2025 WNBA regular season as the No. 7 seed on a 23-21 record before falling to the No. 2 Las Vegas Aces in the first round to cap their postseason run last week.

The No. 1 Kansas City Current officially clinched the 2025 NWSL Shield on Saturday, taking down the No. 6 Seattle Reign 2-0 to lift the 2021 expansion club's first-ever piece of league hardware.

"I thought that we won with a statement," said Current head coach Vlatko Andonovski after the match. "We showed that throughout the season we were the best team in the league."

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Kansas City is now the fastest Shield winner in NWSL history, claiming the hardware — and the postseason's top seeding — with five regular-season matches still remaining.

Needing a 16-point advantage atop the NWSL standings to secure the Shield over the weekend, Kansas City's Saturday win combined with Washington's Thursday draw with Angel City to put the second-place Spirit out of reach of the 2025 regular-season title.

The Current's dominance this year has the club riding a 17-2-2 overall record, racking up 14 straight results as Kansas City haven't lost a match since May 2nd and haven't conceded an NWSL goal since June 14th.

"It's just justification of all the work that we've done this year, and last year, too," added Andonovski. "We talked last year that we had a great season, and we said we were going to come out stronger.... We proved that we are a better team than last year and we are going to keep growing as we go forward."

Las Vegas star A'ja Wilson is the 2025 WNBA MVP, with the league announcing Sunday that the Aces forward earned her fourth career MVP award to set a new WNBA record.

Wilson received 51 of the media panel's 72 first-place votes, beating out fellow 2025 MVP finalists Napheesa Collier (Minnesota Lynx), Alyssa Thomas (Phoenix Mercury), Allisha Gray (Atlanta Dream), and Kelsey Mitchell (Indiana Fever).

"These are the moments that I'm like, 'No, this is why you wake up every morning and do what you do,'" Wilson said upon receiving the award.

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Previously named MVP in 2020, 2022, and 2024, Wilson's new 2025 trophy officially puts her ahead of retired WNBA legends and three-time winners Sheryl Swoopes, Lauren Jackson, and Lisa Leslie on the career MVP list.

Meanwhile, this year's win has Wilson joining former WNBA icon Cynthia Cooper as the league's second-ever back-to-back MVP.

En route to making history, the 29-year-old led the league in average points (23.4) and blocks per game (2.3) on the year, finishing second in rebounds per game (10.2) while playing much of the season's second half out of position as the the Aces' starting center.

"There's no Mt. Rushmore," Las Vegas head coach Becky Hammon told Wilson. "You are the only one — you're Everest."

The No. 1 Minnesota Lynx took care of business on Sunday, overcoming a halftime deficit to top the No. 4 Phoenix Mercury 82-69 and open the 2025 WNBA semifinals with a 1-0 series lead.

Lynx stars Courtney Williams, Kayla McBride, and Napheesa Collier combined for 62 of Minnesota's 82 points in the win, as the home side outscored the Mercury 42-22 in the second half.

"We've been through a lot of adverse situations in the last two years together — we always know it's a team effort," McBride said. "We know in those moments when we need to brainstorm."

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After ousting 2024 champs New York on Friday, Phoenix failed to execute as confidently against the No. 1 team in the league in Minneapolis.

"They made adjustments, and I still think we had a lot of open shots," Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas said. "I felt like it was similar to the last series, where we just didn't hit open ones."

Phoenix dominated the paint in the first half, but struggled from behind the arc throughout the game, hitting just three of their 23 attempted three-pointers.

How to watch the Phoenix Mercury vs. Minnesota Lynx in Game 2

The No. 1 Minnesota Lynx will host the No. 4 Phoenix Mercury again in Game 2 of the 2025 WNBA semifinals at 7:30 PM ET on Tuesday.

The clash will air live on ESPN.