DALLAS — It was a celebration dripping in sequins.

The party started when Flau’jae Johnson ran over to the sidelines and sent a message to coach Kim Mulkey.

“You’re the GOAT!” she yelled. Then again: “You’re the GOAT!” And again. As her freshman guard shouted, Mulkey’s face wrinkled as she tried to fight back the tears pooling into her eyes.

The seconds ticked down, and Johnson couldn’t contain her excitement any longer. She ran over to Mulkey and lifted the coach off the ground, spinning her in a bear hug. Her purple uniform melded with Mulkey’s sequined, tiger-striped suit to create one blur of joy.

A season that started with criticism about a weak schedule ended in celebration on the ultimate stage. With their 102-85 win over superstar Caitlin Clark and Iowa on Sunday, the LSU Tigers were crowned national champions for the first time in program history.

Achieving that feat seemed unlikely at first, and unlikely still when the Tigers were blown out by South Carolina in the regular season, and when they lost to Tennessee in the SEC tournament.

Unlikely to outsiders, but predetermined to those within the program. Angel Reese has been talking about this since she transferred to LSU last spring. So has Kateri Poole, the friend who convinced Reese to make the campus visit when LSU wasn’t even on her radar.

“This is why I came to LSU,” Poole said after the game, with confetti swirling at her feet and her mother looking on with pure adoration in her eyes. An onlooker told Poole’s mom that she had confetti stuck in her hair; “I don’t care,” she replied with a grin.

In the background, Reese took photos with her brother, Julian. She took phones from spectators and recorded videos for them. And of course, she posed with her tiara, something that has become a staple for LSU celebrations this season.

Since the beginning of the season, the Tigers have pretended to crown Reese when she makes an exciting play or has a big game. At one point, they traded out the gesture for a real tiara. Reese, the queen of the tournament and the Final Four Most Outstanding Player, finished with 15 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. Alexis Morris finished with 21 points, 19 of which came in the second half, and LaDazhia Williams had 20.

None of them, however, was LSU’s leading scorer. That came from an unlikely source — but like the title itself, only unlikely to those outside the program. Inside the Tigers’ locker room, graduate transfer Jasmine Carson is a known scorer.

“Jasmine may be the second best pure shooter that I’ve ever coached in my career,” Mulkey said. “She can just light it up.”

Carson finished with 22 points, and the Tigers needed every single one of them.

JASMINE. CARSON.

That's the tweet. pic.twitter.com/tMQvdEPd74

— ESPN (@espn) April 2, 2023

The first half was laden with whistles, and Reese spent significant time on the bench in early foul trouble. Morris also picked up two quick fouls and went into halftime with just two points. Mulkey went to her bench, and suddenly it was Carson’s moment, one the Tigers knew was coming.

Emily Ward, a senior walk-on, noticed that Carson was hot in warm-ups.

“I went up to her and I was like, ‘OK Jas, you’re going to have a big game,’” Ward said. “None of us were shocked that she was doing that. She hits them all the time in practice.”

Carson scored 21 of her 22 points in the first half, going a perfect 7-for-7 from the field and 5-for-5 from the 3-point line during the stretch. Everyone on the LSU bench celebrated. And in a concert hall in Atlanta, so did Carson’s high school coach.

Phyllis Arthur’s boyfriend surprised her with tickets to a jazz concert a few days ago, not realizing the national championship game was the same day. But she wasn’t going to miss Carson’s biggest game at LSU, so as they waited for the opening act to go on, Arthur watched the Tigers on her phone.

Every time Carson hit a shot, Arthur jumped out of her seat.

Arthur has coached girls basketball at McEachern High School for 17 years. There, she coached Carson and coached against Flau’jae Johnson, so Arthur was thrilled for both players on Sunday.

Thrilled, but not surprised.

“That’s the Jasmine I know,” she said on a phone call during intermission of the concert. “I love her shot. And when she’s on, she’s on. And she was on tonight. Thank god.”

Carson is one of several LSU transfer portal success stories. She started her career at Georgia Tech before transferring to West Virginia for two seasons and closing out her fifth year with the Tigers, averaging 8.4 points per game this season.

Carson started throughout the regular season, but when the NCAA Tournament began, Mulkey opted to bring her off the bench in favor of having bigger bodies on the court.

Still, Carson stayed ready.

So ready that she didn’t need her usual pregame routine. Morris and Carson typically get up extra shots together in warm-ups, but today, when Morris asked her if she wanted to, Carson said no.

“I’m good,” she said.

And she was. She was really, really good. She was 22 points good. She was five made 3-pointers good. She was national champion good.

After the game, when Mulkey shuffled through the confetti barefoot, and Reese climbed a ladder to cut her piece of the net, and Johnson danced with her championship hat on her head, and Arthur cheered among a crowd of jazz fans, they all had Carson to thank.

“I didn’t have nothing to lose,” Carson said. “This was my last game of my college career, and I ended it the right way.”

She ended it as a national champion.

Eden Laase is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

When the WNBA announced that Golden State Valkyries coach Natalie Nakase won the 2025 Coach of the Year award last week, the honor underlined an incredible year for new coaching talent in women's basketball as this year's playoffs continue. 

Nakase made headlines all season, leading Golden State to a historic playoff berth in the 2025 expansion side's first year. She stocked a brand new roster that excited fans across the country, and built the team's locker room culture from scratch. The result was flashy, modern basketball, based on playing hard, stretching the floor, and keeping the on-court tempo high.

"Her unique approach to leadership and ability to hold players accountable with care, while staying true to her values has been remarkable," Golden State GM Ohemaa Nyanin said of the debut head coach. 

And as end-of-year award momentum grew, Nakase took the attention in stride.

"Nobody really cares [about awards], honestly," she said in early September. "I'm just being deadass, our goal is to make the playoffs. To think about it, it really should be coaching staff of the year."

Nakase's success is just another example of a league that's changing, as the coaching carousel widens and new philosophies enter the game, while younger prospects take on the mantle of head coach for the first time. Minnesota's Cheryl Reeve, New York's Sandy Brondello, and Las Vegas's Becky Hammon have become synonymous with the WNBA's elite, but new entrants like Nakase alongside Atlanta's Karl Smesko and Phoenix's Nate Tibbetts are infusing the league with new ideas — all while leading their teams to historic playoff berths.

A new generation of WNBA coaches make their marks 

Even with coaching staff experience, becoming the head coach of a professional basketball franchise is never easy, Tibbetts told JWS earlier this month. He made the leap to the head coaching ranks in 2024, after spending more than 10 years as an assistant coach with multiple NBA teams including the Portland Trail Blazers and Orlando Magic. 

"Any time you slide over those 12 inches, and go from one seat to the next seat, there's just changes," he said, noting that having the power of final say inevitably adds a whole new level of responsibility. 

"When you're a head coach, you make decisions every day, and it's not just basketball stuff," he continued. "That is probably the thing that overwhelms you."

Nakase also entered the WNBA armed with NBA experience, joining Hammon's Las Vegas staff as an assistant in 2022 after a successful stint with the LA Clippers. She later moved into the head coach's box with two league championships under her belt, announced as Golden State's inaugural boss in 2024 before immediately setting a tone for the team's future.

"I'm taking a little bit of everything [from my past]," Nakase told JWS ahead of the 2025 season. "And I'm still constantly learning." 

She recalled helping the Aces through their first title run in 2022, applying her small ball experience with the NBA to the team's matchup with the Connecticut Sun. "I remember Becky being super open with ideas, just kind of taking [that series] by the horns," she said.

In California, Nakase fell in line as a collaborative leader, transforming the squad from an unfamiliar lineup to a unified force by the end of their first regular season. 

"An assistant coaching role is way different than a head coaching role, but who Natalie is to the core has stayed the same," current Valkyries — and former Aces — guard Kate Martin recently told San Francisco Chronicle. "She wants the best out of us. She's going to love you up, but also tell you what needs to be fixed — what you need to do to be better. And I think you can always appreciate that from a coach."

Over in Atlanta, Smesko's background looked a little different. He coached at the college level, successfully leading Florida Gulf Coast for more than 20 years before making the leap to the pros in 2025. He was known as an analytic wonk in NCAA circles, earning tournament berths on a strict system of three-pointers and post layups. Though he knew working with professionals required a slightly different approach.

"I was pleasantly surprised how coachable and how eager the players at the W level are to learn," he recently told JWS. "They want to be good. They want to be taught things that are going to help them become better players."

Smesko's biggest learning curve was less about responsibility, and more tied to process. He was surprised how much less time he had to implement systems in the fast-moving WNBA, where professionals tend to be less immersed in day-to-day basketball operations than student-athletes on a college campus.

"I think that forces you, as a coach, to really be deliberate and efficient," he said of the shift. "What are the things you're going to cover, and what are you going to try to get better at that particular day?"

The rookie coaches behind the WNBA's three-point revolution

Instituting a stretch offense — where guards and forwards pose legitimate threats from outside while opening interior space up inside for post players who can shoot — has been an ongoing project in the WNBA, and the league's newest coaching class has continued its evolution. 

Basketball legend Candace Parker popularized the approach as a player in the 2010s, with Hammon later embracing it as a way to get the most out of versatile Aces forward A'ja Wilson.

While Smesko and his set certainly aren't draconian in their methods, stretch offenses have exploded in popularity this season. The highest-performing teams have consistently proven comfortable taking a healthy mix of shots from behind the arc. Nakase's Valkyries led the WNBA in regular-season three-pointers made with 427, followed closely by fellow postseason contenders Atlanta and Phoenix.

While established coaches like Brondello and Reeve also encourage players to let it fly, stretch offense devotees Nakase, Smesko, and Tibbetts helmed the year's top three teams in attempted three-pointers — with each landing more three-pointers than 2024's stat-leading team.

"It's just more space for everybody to work, more actual area for defense to cover and respect," Smesko said, noting that offensive decisions get easier when the opposing defense has to cover more ground.

Tibbetts credits the way the stretch system has entered the conversation at all levels. Coaching staffs are teaching players to optimize their points-per-shot percentage, essentially setting up every offensive action to be as efficient as possible well before they launch a high-value shot. 

"[It's] just maximizing shot attempts, getting your players to understand the true values of what a shot looks like from a points-per-shot basis," he summarized.

Phoenix registered the third-highest regular-season pace of play in the WNBA in 2025, allowing for more possessions per quarter, and subsequently more shot attempts — not to mention a higher volume of three-pointer attempts. Roster construction also played into it, with Tibbetts and the Mercury's front office making sure to surround veteran inside players like MVP finalist Alyssa Thomas with teammates that understand how to push tempo and create space.

No matter what system you run, of course, any good coach also knows it's all about balance. "I don't think you need to overdo it," said Tibbetts. "There's a ton of smart players in our league." 

Chasing WNBA teams — and coaches — at the top

There have long been plenty of smart coaches in the WNBA. And to some extent, Nakase, Smesko, and Tibbetts all run similar offenses to the league's current titans of success: Brondello, Reeve, and Hammon.

"We're all trying to catch those three," Tibbetts said, wondering aloud if WNBA teams have been casting wider hiring nets in an attempt to increase parity at the coaching level. "We've done a good job of adding talent in our league, but those three are the top tier, and we're all trying to get to that level."

Hammon received two WNBA Coach of the Year votes in the wake of Vegas's 30-14 run, while Reeves received two votes for her work leading the regular season's winningest team.

"All those teams have great players, and they're just very well coached," Smesko added, giving the Aces, Liberty, and Lynx props. "They're very disciplined. They have a plan. They follow that plan."

In Phoenix, Tibbetts posited that league experience and the proven ability to handle adversity make coaches like these difficult to de-throne. 

"It's not like we're reinventing the game. They've been doing it, and now they've all got championships under their belt," Tibbetts said. "Nothing is new to them when it comes to this league."

Putting coaching perspectives to the postseason test

The new WNBA coaching class saw quantifiable regular-season success, but the first round of the 2025 playoffs emphasized that there's still room to grow before they truly threaten the WNBA's tactical elite. 

Nakase's No. 8 seed Valkyries had their hands full against Reeve's No. 1 Lynx, ceding the series to the top seed in two games, despite a competitive final matchup at home. And despite sending the reigning league champion Liberty home with last week's decisive Game 3 win, Tibbetts's Mercury is off to a 0-1 semifinal start against Minnesota.

Smesko's Atlanta side also faced stumbling blocks, as the No. 3 seed suffered a last-minute Game 3 upset to No. 6 Indiana, stamping a successful season with a frustrating ending at home.

A playoffs exit stings, but it's far from a major setback for these early-career coaches. They value the intangibles over the Xs and Os, and players have responded to their guidance in kind. 

"The organization as a whole, it's in a great direction," Atlanta guard Allisha Gray said after the Dream's final loss. "Karl, he has so much faith in us, and we proved a lot of people wrong this year."

"I just credit 'Big Wheeze' [AKA Smekso] for the turnaround," Gray continued. "He did a great job this year and brought the vision, and we believed in it."

Regardless of their postseason performance, the Valkyries have taken Golden State by storm, selling out their home slate while establishing themselves as Northern California's premier women's sports franchise. Nakase has embraced the warm welcome, developing a reputation for supporting her players and not being afraid to speak her mind. 

"I love playing for a fiery coach who always wants to win and believes in her players so much," Martin said. "That hasn't strayed from Vegas to here, her belief in every single player she's coached." 

It's eyes on the prize for this WNBA coaching class

While vital, coaching is just one ingredient in any team's success. And Smesko believes that the WNBA's competitive upswing is primarily fueled by one thing: the talent in the locker room. 

"There's never been as many great players as there are right now," he reflected. "Combined with the movement that everyone is adopting, it leads to a really fun style to watch."

Even as their postseason hopes ebb, this generation of WNBA coaching talent is eager to get started on the future — especially as the league continues to pick up steam in both popularity and parity. 

"The game is evolving, the sport is evolving," said Tibbetts. "But I think more than anything, it's just all the new eyes on this game."

UEFA locked in the next steps in the path to the 2025/26 Champions League title last Friday, setting the matchups and schedule of the newly expanded UWCL league phase with the official draw.

Nine clubs battled through the competition's initial rounds to join the nine automatic qualifiers in the upcoming 18-team league phase.

This season's new format replaces the traditional group stage, in which teams previously faced three opponents twice.

Instead, while the 2025/26 season will see each qualified club again playing six total matches (three home and three away), they will do so against six different opponents — two from each of the three pods of teams.

The results from the league phase will then determine each team's placement in next year's knockouts.

With additional opponents on each team's docket, the new league phase is providing more top-tier matchups than the previous Champions League format.

Friday's draw set up elite fixtures with reigning champs Arsenal kicking off against French powerhouse OL Lyonnes while fellow heavy-hitter Barcelona faces Bayern Munich.

Later in the league phase, WSL side Manchester United will take on the newly fortified Paris Saint-Germain as well as OL Lyonnes, and Chelsea will meet 2024/25 semifinal foe Barcelona before capping their six matches against two-time UWCL winners Wolfsburg.

The first league phase matches kick off on October 7th before wrapping on December 17th, with the 18 European clubs still standing all eyeing a spot in next May's 2025/26 Champions League final in Oslo, Norway.

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."