Stopped me if you’ve heard this one before, but UConn is once again poised to win multiple national championships. It may not start this next year — the landscape is far too precarious for any confident predictions — but championships are coming.

The squad is young and new, with just four returning players and no seniors. Evina Westbrook, who sat out last year after transferring from Tennessee, will lead six freshmen seeing the court for the first time.

The last time UConn had as many first-year players on its roster was 1988, when it won its first (of 18) Big East titles. This year will mark the return of UConn to the conference it made famous and is ready to dominate once again.

Then, as now, the young players are a source of optimism. Still, UConn will need its older players to step up. Juniors Christyn Williams and Olivia Nelson-Ododa will anchor any success UConn finds.

“We have been taking up that leadership role,” Williams said. “It’s a lot more responsibility, it’s been different. The younger players have a willingness to learn, and are competitive. They’ve made it easier for us.”

Williams is one of four top-ranked high school recruits to have signed with UConn in the past five classes. The others are Paige Bueckers, who is widely expected to have a standout freshman season, and Azzi Fudd, who will join UConn next year.

The #1 player in the country, Azzi Fudd, just committed to UCONN‼️ She’ll be teaming up with Paige Bueckers ????

Here they are working out together and they can’t miss ???????? @wslam @azzi_35 @paigebueckers1 pic.twitter.com/pSCJ5U1qaF

— SLAM HS Hoops (@SLAM_HS) November 11, 2020

“There is a direct correlation between if you sign those guys, at Connecticut anyway, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to be an amazing team for a couple of years,” Auriemma said. “Yes, that is a great possibility. Our track record proves that.”

Before last season was cut short, UConn was a lock to enter the tournament as a No. 1 seed. Since then, Megan Walker left early for the WNBA and Crystal Dangerfield graduated before going on to win WNBA Rookie of the Year with the Minnesota Lynx. Seniors Molly Bent, Evelyn Adebayo, Kyla Irwin and Batouly Camara also graduated.

Along with Bueckers, the freshman class also features guard Autumn Chassion, forward Aaliyah Edwards, guard Nika Muhl, forward Mir McLean and forward Piath Gabriel. This group is widely expected to put the Huskies over the edge. Already, Geno Auriemma has been impressed with Edwards, the second highest rated player in the class, and Muhl, whose experience is bolstered by time in the Adriatic League in Croatia, where she led the league with 6.2 assists per game in 2019.

”There are times that Aaliyah and Nika look like they’ve been playing college basketball for awhile. They fit right in,” Auriemma said. ”They slide right in. So Paige, Nika, and Aaliyah mix really well with our returning players. Mir, once in a while, Piath less, Autumn less. But everyone has gotten better.”

Aaliyah Edwards plays a physical game and has been likened to Napheesa Collier by Christyn Williams. Piath Gabriel, at 6-foot-5 freshman, was not a top-end prospect, but UConn’s coaches clearly saw something. And Mir McLean is athletic and versatile, but will probably be a spark off of the bench this season.

It’s me and my friends pic.twitter.com/kZEgEDcBPg

— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) November 6, 2020

The notoriously difficult coach has a team voted the 3rd-best in the preseason. Williams will still be running the show after posting 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game in her sophomore season, but should have more to offer if given the opportunity. The next of the four returners is Nelson-Ododa, a 6-foot-5 center who played a lot of minutes last season, even if they were not always the most predictive. Still, she was able to record 100 blocks last year, the eight-most in school history.

Aubrey Griffin had 5.4 rebounds per game but struggled with consistency. Anna Makurat will be tasked with spacing the floor as a catch-and-shoot 3-point shooter, where she averaged 7.9 points and 3.3 assists per game last year.

Then there is Westbrook, who also has some stroke from distance — she shot 38% from deep in the 2018-19 season. Still, she is recovering from knee surgery and has never played for UConn, so expectations for the redshirt junior should be kept in flux.

Of course, the team’s ceiling may depend on Bueckers. She was tabbed as the preseason Big East Freshman of the Year, but as she will be the first to say, it’s far too early to celebrate.

“I haven’t even done anything yet, I haven’t even stepped foot on a college court,” Bueckers said. “I have a lot to prove. I have a lot to work on.”

The good news is, she has some time—but not as much as you’d think.

While the 2020-2021 season may be a bit too hectic for even the sport’s most talented freshman to conquer, starting next year, with Azzi Fudd joining a more experienced Huskies squad, the expectation will be championships, plural.

That’s welcome news for Husky fans. For everyone else, well, we can try to enjoy at least this season.

The biggest victors in the WNBA last weekend were the Seattle Storm, as the fifth-place contenders took down the last two league champions to record six wins in their last seven games.

The Storm first took down 2022 and 2023 champs Las Vegas 90-83 on Friday before toppling reigning title-winners New York 89-79 on Sunday.

Guard Skylar Diggins and forward Nneka Ogwumike powered Seattle's two games, putting up 44 and 51 points, respectively, over the weekend.

Forward Gabby Williams also helped fuel the Storm's weekend with two double-double performances.

Seattle is now just one game behind the similarly surging fourth-place Atlanta Dream, while trailing the red-hot No. 3 Phoenix Mercury by 1.5 games.

"Staying ready is what the group is," Storm head coach Noelle Quinn told reporters on Friday. "They're professionals, they're vets."

Teams at the top of the WNBA standings aren't the only squads that saw weekend success, as the No. 6 Golden State Valkyries snagged their second win in a row with Sunday's 87-63 thrashing of the last-place Connecticut Sun.

Despite registering Friday losses, both No. 7 Las Vegas and the No. 9 Washington Mystics finished the weekend on a high note, earning big Sunday wins over the No. 8 Indiana Fever and No. 12 Dallas Wings, respectively.

How to watch the Seattle Storm this week

The Storm will suit back up for another tricky WNBA test on Tuesday, when Seattle hosts the always-dangerous Indiana Fever at 10 PM ET.

The game will air live on NBA TV.

The reigning champion New York Liberty battled through injury and absences over the weekend, narrowly retaining their second-place spot in the WNBA standings despite seeing their losing streak extend to two games with Sunday's 89-79 stumble against the Seattle Storm.

Already missing starting guard Leonie Fiebich, who is overseas competing at the 2025 FIBA EuroBasket tournament, the Liberty also played without center Jonquel Jones and guard Sabrina Ionescu.

While Ionescu is day-to-day with a neck issue, Jones will miss four to six weeks of action due to an ankle injury, the team announced on Saturday.

Despite dropping three of their last four matchups, the champs appear to be taking their recent downturn in stride.

"This isn't going to be the hardest thing that we face all season," said forward Breanna Stewart after Sunday's loss. "We have to kind of embrace the adversity a little bit, whether it's we're down players or things happen in the middle of the game."

New York wasn't the only team in trouble this weekend, though, as the Indiana Fever followed up last Thursday's stumble against the Golden State Valkyries with an 89-81 Sunday loss to the Las Vegas Aces.

Fever guard Caitlin Clark is now one-for-17 from behind the arc in her last two games, as Indiana struggles to break out of their eighth-place standing.

How to watch the New York Liberty this week

New York will hope for added firepower in order to snap their losing streak on Wednesday, when they'll face a rising Golden State squad at 10 PM ET.

Coverage of the game will air live on WNBA League Pass.

The NWSL is officially taking a breather, with the league kicking off the 2025 extended summer break after a roller-coaster weekend slate.

With half the of the 26-match regular season in the books, the No. 1 Kansas City Current extended their lead on the NWSL table to a towering eight points after defeating No. 11 Angel City 1-0 on Friday.

Helping balloon Kansas City's lead was No. 7 Racing Louisville, who kept No. 2 Orlando from claiming any points by securing a 2-0 upset win over the Pride on Friday.

With wins in five of their last seven matches, Louisville's refreshed roster has Racing entering the 2025 summer break with a 6-5-2 NWSL record, as the 2021 expansion side zeros in on a franchise-first playoff run.

"It's all about us. We're not really focused on the other team like we did a little last year," said midfielder Taylor Flint. "What are we going to do — what's our identity? I think that's a huge part of how we've been winning all these games."

On the other end of the table, the bottom four NWSL teams — Angel City, the No. 12 Houston Dash, No. 13 Chicago Stars, and No. 14 Utah Royals — will be looking for a major midseason reboot, after none managed to register a single win in the last five matchdays.

"We go from here, we break now, recharge, and we will be a very difficult opponent for a lot of teams in the second part of the season. That is our target now," said Angel City head coach Alexander Straus after Friday's loss.

There's still a lot left in 2025 NWSL play, with skidding teams banking on fresh starts while surging squads prepare to hit the ground running as soon as the season picks back up in August.

Australian golfer Minjee Lee came out on top at the 2025 KPMG Women's PGA Championship, lifting the third major tournament trophy of her career on Sunday.

Entering the final round atop the leaderboard, Lee never relinquished the lead, finishing the tournament a solid three strokes ahead of the competition.

"I definitely was nervous starting the day," the 29-year-old acknowledged following her win. "I looked calm, but not as calm as everybody thinks."

The win earned Lee both an 18-spot rankings boost to world No. 6 and a $1.8 million cut of the event's $12 million prize pool.

Finishing the 2025 KPMG Women's PGA Championship just behind Lee in a second-place tie were 21-year-old Thai pro and new world No. 29 Chanettee Wannasaen and 24-year-old US standout and new No. 49 Auston Kim. Each took home $944,867 thanks to their four-day performances.

Kim, in particular, cobbled together a massive comeback run, chipping away at her nine-stroke deficit entering the competition's final round to claim the best finish of her young career.

"I'm very proud of what I did," the LPGA Tour sophomore said afterwards. "Obviously, the result was really good, but I'm really happy how I handled myself, my emotions, all the adversity. The course is playing really, really tough, but I feel like this week my team and I were very locked in."

Notably, the tournament's top three finishers were the only participants to finish below par, as the field struggled with a punishing week of both Texas heat and windier-than-usual conditions.