The still-defending champions are facing a season as difficult as any in the college landscape.

Thankfully, Baylor has experience re-loading. For three straight years, the Lady Bears dominated the Wade Trophy for the national player of the year. Brittney Griner won in 2012, when Baylor won a national title, and again in 2013; Odyssey Sims followed in 2014.

The next season may have been Kim Mulkey’s most significant challenge in terms of replacing talent. And while Baylor continued to dominate the Big 12, they couldn’t find their way past the Elite Eight until 2019, when they finally reached the mountain top again, and claimed another NCAA title.

This year, Baylor not only needs to find a new rotation, but they’re also dealing with all the schedule irregularities that have begun to hound college basketball due to the pandemic.

Forward Lauren Cox and guards Te’a Cooper and Juicy Landrum were all drafted to the WNBA after combining for 45.1% of the team’s points per game and 49.4% of the team’s assists. Entering the season, senior guard DiDi Richards and junior forward NaLyssa Smith were expected to be the only full-time starters returning from last year’s squad that went 28-2 overall and 17-1 in the Big 12.

 Now, the AP poll’s 3rd-ranked team in the preseason is figuring out how to move forward from the indefinite loss of Richards. In a preseason practice, Richards and Moon Ursin were injured in an accidental collision. According to Baylor, Richards suffered a spinal-cord injury without radiographic abnormality, which causes temporary impairment. She has been treated, released, and is making progress from her injury. Ursin has been in concussion protocol.

Get a peak into the road to recovery for DiDi Richards#SicEm https://t.co/lChgAgbDYE

— Baylor Lady Bears (@BaylorWBB) November 30, 2020

“I said at my first press conference, the teams that survive and win this year will be those who have the most depth and most experience,” Mulkey said. “We, as of today, have nine players who will play. When DiDi gets back, she will be the 10th player. While we do have five or six players who had significant minutes (last season), their roles will now change. And that does matter. While we have the talent and experience back, we don’t have them in the role they played last year.”

Last season, Richards earned the Naismith and WBCA awards for national defensive player of the year. In her junior year, her second as a starter, she averaged 8.2 points, 4.9 rebounds, 5.7 assists, and 1.7 steals. This season, the coaching staff was hoping to turn Richards into a point guard after seeing something in a season in which she had a team-high 170 assists last season and had just 58 turnovers in 896 minutes.

“I watched a lot of games. I definitely watched the Iowa State game, the one we lost. I watched it at least 20 to 30 times, I’m not kidding. But I watched a lot of games. I didn’t want that to happen again,” Richards said in the offseason. “I worked hard this summer trying to get my game to another level and my confidence built.”

So far, it seems that sophomore Jordyn Oliver and freshman Sarah Andrews will assume the duties of point guard. Ursin will also be a candidate to replace backcourt minutes.

Here’s Sarah Andrews’ first bucket ???? as a Lady Bear!#SicEm pic.twitter.com/ZWBxsxXozS

— Baylor Lady Bears (@BaylorWBB) November 26, 2020

After a brilliant sophomore season, NaLyssa Smith will step into a much bigger role as a junior. In just 24.1 minutes per game, she led Baylor in scoring with 14.3 points per game and was second in rebounding at 8.0 per game. Her next step will be increasing her shooting range — she took and missed just four 3-pointers last year.

Queen Egbo, the Big 12 Sixth Person of the Year, will likely be the second post player in a two-big lineup. Last year, she averaged 10.8 points and 6.8 rebounds per game. Behind Smith and Egbo, Hannah Gusters arrives as a freshman from MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas. The No. 16 ranked recruit will benefit from the experience ahead of her without having the pressure to perform immediately.

Despite coming from the same high school, Andrews is in a different spot with the immediate need for production at the point guard position. In practice, UCLA transfer Jaden Owens and Penn State transfer Kamaria McDaniels will add competition, but neither can play this season.

The transfer who can make an impact is DiJonai Carrington, a grad transfer from Stanford. Carrington was picked as the Newcomer of the Year in the Big 12 by ESPN.

In a breakout junior year alongside Alanna Smith and Kiana Williams, Carrington started 36 games and averaged 14 points and 7.5 rebounds. After the season, she had knee surgery, and five games into her senior season, she shut it down after re-injuring the knee. After graduating with degrees in Psychology and African & African American Studies, Carrington transferred in hopes of playing in a new offense.

Carrington said that Mulkey has stopped practice to instill a more aggressive mindset, but she will not be hearing it from just her coach. Richards, who is not expected to play in Game 1, will be a force on the sideline.

“If my role is yelling and being the voice on the sideline,” she said, “I’m prepared to do that.”

U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that the USWNT will play their last home game on July 16th in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Send-Off Match against Costa Rica will take place at Washington, DC’s Audi Field — home to both the Washington Spirit and DC United — at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 16th. The friendly rounds out a four-game Olympic run-up campaign under incoming head coach Emma Hayes’ side, with the last two set to feature the finalized 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team roster.

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Hayes will appear on the USWNT sideline for the first time this June, helming the team as they embark on a two-game series against Korea Republic hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on June 1st followed by Allianz Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 4th. 

The team is then scheduled to meet a talented Mexico squad on July 13th at Gotham FC’s Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, where the Olympic-bound lineup will attempt to rewrite February’s shocking 2-0 loss to El Tri Femenil in the group stages of this year’s Concacaf W Gold Cup. And while clear roster favorites have emerged from both of this year’s Gold Cup and SheBelives Cup rosters, a spate of recent and recurring injuries means making it to the Olympics is still largely anyone’s game.

Broadcast and streaming channels for the USWNT's final July 16th friendly at Audi Field include TNT, truTV, Universo, Max, and Peacock.

The USA Basketball Women's National Team is still considering Caitlin Clark for a spot on the Paris Olympics squad, says selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti. 

On Monday, Rizzotti told the AP that the committee will be evaluating the college phenom’s Olympic prospects by keeping a close eye on her first few weeks of WNBA play with Indiana.

The move is somewhat unconventional. While Clark was invited to participate in the 14-player national team training camp held earlier this month — the last camp before Team USA’s roster drops — she was unable to attend due to it coinciding with Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

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Judging by the immense talent spread throughout the league in what might be their most hyped season to date, competition for a piece of the Olympic pie could be fiercer than ever before.

"You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it's for now or the future," said Rizzotti. "We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It's got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It's still not going to be fair to some people."

Of course, Clark isn’t the first rookie the committee has made exceptions for. Coming off an exceptional college season that saw her averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 4 assists per game for UConn, Breanna Stewart was tapped to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil less than two weeks after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm. Eight years prior, fellow No. 1 pick Candace Parker punched her ticket to the 2008 Games in Beijing just two weeks after making her first appearance for the L.A. Sparks.

In the lead-up to Paris’ Opening Ceremony on July 26th, USA Basketball Women’s National Team is scheduled to play a pair of exhibition games. They'll first go up against the WNBA's finest at the July 20th WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix before facing Germany in London on July 23rd.

While an official roster announcement date hasn’t yet been issued, players won’t find out if they’ve made this year’s Olympic cut until at least June 1st.

For the first time in history, three different WNBA teams have completely sold out of season ticket plans well before the league's May 14th kick-off.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect, attribute it to this year’s tenacious rookie class, or look to the skyrocketing visibility of veteran players across the board. But no matter the cause, facts are facts: Tickets to the 2024 WNBA season are selling like never before. 

On Monday, the Dallas Wings became the third team to sell out of season ticket memberships in the league’s 27-year history. The announcement from Arlington came shortly after the Atlanta Dream issued their own season ticket sell-out statement, also on Monday, and almost seven weeks after the back-to-back WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces made headlines by becoming the first-ever WNBA team to sell out their season ticket allotment.   

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According to the Wings, season ticket memberships will fill nearly 40% of the 6,251 seats inside their home arena, College Park Center. The club also said that their overall ticket revenue has ballooned to the tune of 220% this year, spanning not just season tickets but also a 1,200% increase in single ticket sales. There’s currently a waitlist to become a Dallas season ticket holder, a status that comes with extra incentives like playoff presale access and discounts on additional single-game tickets. 

In Atlanta, season tickets aren't the only thing flying off the shelves. The Dream also announced that they broke their own record for single-game ticket sales during a recent limited presale campaign. Sunday was reportedly their most lucrative day, with five different games totally selling out Gateway Center Arena. Individual tickets for all upcoming matchups will hit the market this Thursday at 8 a.m., while a waitlist for season ticket memberships will open up next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

"Excitement around women's sports, particularly basketball, is at an all-time high and nowhere is that felt more than here in Atlanta," Dream president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in the team’s statement. "We’ve continued a record-setting growth trajectory over the past three years under new ownership — both on and off the court — and 2024 is shaping up to be our best season yet."

As of Tuesday, season ticket sales revenue for Caitlin Clark’s hotly anticipated Indiana Fever debut haven’t yet been announced by the club. But if these numbers are any indication — not to mention the explosive demand for Fever away games felt by teams around the country — it won’t be long before we see some scale-tipping figures coming out of Indianapolis.

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

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The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.