No. 4 UConn women’s basketball had a special visitor at practice this week, as three-time Olympic gold medalist and 2012 WNBA MVP Tina Charles made a surprise appearance.

The team shared a video Saturday showcasing Charles’ practice session with the Huskies. Charles even played one-on-one against starting forward Aaliyah Edwards.

Tina Charles vs. Aaliyah Edwards pic.twitter.com/eblIULUEpO

— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) January 14, 2023

At one point on Friday, associate head coach Chris Dailey told Charles to run, junior guard Nika Muhl said.

While she participated like one of the team, though, Lou Lopez Sénéchal, said the WNBA veteran also gave players valuable feedback.

“It’s really cool for us, having a vet like that that’s been here and has been in the league for many years and just learn from her,” Lopez Sénéchal told ESPN.

“You always think like, yes, they’re vets, she’s been in the WNBA for 13 years, that’s a long time. You expect them to be so good,” Mühl added. “But seeing that on the court, the way she plays, the way she reads the game, you can’t move her. She’s literally like a rock in the paint — it’s amazing. It’s just so cool to see that experience and so amazing for [the alumni] to keep coming back.”

In addition to Charles, former NBA star and Hall of Famer Ray Allen also made an appearance at practice.

Ray Allen is here at UConn practice too. Quite the star-studded affair in Storrs. pic.twitter.com/Wz7sMRrooO

— Lila Bromberg (@lilabbromberg) January 14, 2023

Charles is a free agent this offseason after finishing the 2022 season with the Seattle Storm. During her time at UConn from 2006 until 2010, Charles was a two-time national champion and won multiple Player of the Year awards in 2010. She was drafted No. 1 overall by the Connecticut Sun in 2010.

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."