After leading No. 9 Miami (Fla.) to a historic upset in the 2023 NCAA women’s basketball tournament, head coach Katie Meier opened her press conference by recounting an apology to Villanova head coach Denise Dillon.

“I apologized to Denise in the hallway because I was so excited I forgot to shake their hands, and that’s just not my style. That’s the first thing I wanted to say,” said Meier.

Miami upset No. 4 Villanova, 70-65, to advance to the Elite Eight for the first time in program history and continue its NCAA Tournament Cinderella run after toppling No. 1 Indiana in the Round of 32. Miami is just the second No. 9 seed to reach the Elite Eight of the NCAA Women’s Tournament. The first program to accomplish the feat was Arkansas, which made it all the way to the Final Four in 1998.

“It feels great because now we’re the only eight teams in the country playing right now. And we’re going to continue to stay humble and blessed and take advantage of this opportunity, stay together and just enjoy these moments,” said Destiny Harden, who had 15 points and a team-high nine rebounds.

The Hurricanes were led in scoring by Jasmyne Roberts, who recorded 26 points nine rebounds.

“Her efficiency numbers are incredible,” Meier said of Roberts’ performance. “She’s beasting, she’s bullying. The whole team was on the Jas train.”

Miami also had to contend with the nation’s leading scorer in Villanova’s Maddy Siegrist.

“Maddy is everything she’s been advertised. And we really pride ourselves on our defense, and only thing I can kind of brag about is it took 29 shots for her to get 31 points,” said Meier.

With those 31 points, Siegrist extended her NCAA record of 20-point games to 36 straight.

“You’ve got to kind of respect her game,” added Harden. “We always said if she scores and we win, then it don’t matter how much she scored. But you do have to respect a player like that.”

Next up for the Hurricanes in the 2023 NCAA Tournament is an Elite Eight matchup against No. 3 LSU on Sunday (7 p.m. ET on ESPN).

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."

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."