Christen Press is in a league of her own.

The veteran forward has had a standout Summer Series, but for those following the USWNT, that comes as no surprise. Press has been a quiet force for the national team since her first cap in 2013, scoring three goals in her first two outings with the squad, becoming the only U.S. woman to do so.

On the mark 💥

With that goal, @ChristenPress pushes her 🇺🇸 career total to 61, breaking a tie with Shannon MacMillan to take sole possession of 9th on the #USWNT all-time scoring charts 📈 pic.twitter.com/0UjYhvZsHH

— U.S. Soccer WNT (@USWNT) June 17, 2021

In her 146 appearances with the USWNT, Press boasts a staggering 60 goals and 41 assists, stats which are even more impressive when you consider for how many of those games Press came off the bench.

Under former head coaches Pia Sundhage and Jill Ellis, Press was seen as a super-substitute and a game-changer, but not necessarily a starter. Despite being consistently shut out of the starting 11 for big tournaments, Press continued to make her mark.

In the 2019 World Cup, Press replaced an injured Megan Rapinoe in the USA’s starting lineup against England. She wasted no time in the World Cup semifinal, scoring a necessary goal in the 10^th minute to secure the lead and eventually win the match.

The career-defining moment only added to the belief that Press had been sorely underrated at the international level.

Christen Press finds the back of the net against England and #USWNT is up 1-0.pic.twitter.com/tEG49eTrrI

— CBS Sports HQ (@CBSSportsHQ) July 2, 2019

Press’ role on the national team has undergone a renaissance under current coach Vlatko Andonovski. With new leadership at the helm, Press has gotten more starts and more opportunities to energize the national team’s attack.

USWNT fans first got a taste of what an Andonovski-era Christen Press would look like in the 2020 CONCACAF tournament. The veteran forward scored an astounding five goals to capture the tournament’s Golden Ball Award. (And almost every one of her strikes was a work of art.)

A goal under 5 minutes. #CP20 not about to break the streak.

Also, that was N I C E 🤩 pic.twitter.com/ZTiSWM9ixp

— U.S. Soccer WNT (@USWNT) February 4, 2020

With the world on notice, Press has been on a tear for club and country over the last year, emerging as one of the most compelling attackers in soccer. She is peaking at the right time, hitting her stride in the USWNT’s June Summer Series ahead of the Olympics.

The veteran forward was the only player to start all three matches, upholding the team’s offense. After scoring against Nigeria and then assisting Lynn Williams, Press has now been directly involved in 34 goals in her last 35 games for the U.S., contributing 14 goals and 21 assists.

With such astronomical numbers, Press’ dominance is now finally undeniable.

Heading into the Tokyo Olympics, there’s no debate needed: Christen Press is the USWNT’s best and most important player on the pitch. After years in a supporting role, she is finally getting her moment in the spotlight — and making fans wish she’d been there all along.

WSL side Manchester City parted ways with manager Gareth Taylor on Monday, just five days before the club faces table-leaders Chelsea in Saturday’s League Cup final — and nine days before they meet Chelsea once again in the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals.

In his nearly five years at the helm, Taylor led Man City to an overall 117-15-29 record, picking up the 2020 FA Cup and 2022 League Cup along the way.

Taylor departs just one year into a three-year contract renewal with the club.

"Manchester City prides itself on competing at the top of the WSL and on its outstanding record of qualifying for European competition," said Man City managing director Charlotte O'Neill in a club statement. "Unfortunately, results this season have so far not reached this high standard."

Former City coach Nick Cushing — who led the team from 2013 to 2020 — will take over interim manager duties for the remainder of the season.

Taylor’s dismissal follows a number of big-name WSL coaching changes, with Arsenal’s Jonas Eidevall and Liverpool’s Matt Beard both exiting the league this season.

Eidevall has since taken over as head coach for the NWSL’s San Diego Wave.

Despite rumblings that Taylor could follow suit and fill the vacancy with the Wave’s SoCal rival Angel City, those rumors appear to be overblown.

Manchester City still in the hunt for non-WSL titles

Sitting 12 points behind Chelsea with just six matchdays left in their 2024/25 season, fourth-place Man City's WSL title hopes have dimmed. However, they remain very much in the running for the League Cup, FA Cup, and Champions League honors.

That said, the Citizens are staring down an unusually demanding gauntlet against one of the world’s top clubs this month.

After facing Chelsea in Saturday's League Cup final and next week's Champions League quarterfinals, City will again take on the Blues in a March 23rd regular-season matchup before wrapping up the pair's two-leg Champions League quarters on March 27th.

Ultimately, the pressure for top WSL teams to properly challenge Chelsea’s years-long dominance is mounting — and some coaches appear to be bearing the brunt of those ambitions.

The buzzer sounded on the eight-week regular season of Unrivaled 3×3 Basketball on Monday, as the inaugural league bids farewell to two teams who failed to advance to the four-squad playoffs.

Both the Mist and Phantom BC fell below the four-team cutoff line, eliminating each club from playoff contention and sending superstars like Unrivaled co-founder Breanna Stewart and Phantom center Brittney Griner home.

Neither team fully found their rhythm in 3×3 play, with both struggling out of the gate to ultimately take the longest to register their first wins in the offseason league.

That said, while the Phantom's elimination was clear-cut, the Mist fell from the playoffs on what was arguably a technicality.

Locked together with Vinyl BC on the Unrivaled table, the final postseason spot came down to multiple tiebreakers. With head-to-head records being equal at 1-1, the final semifinal spot went to the team with the better record against the other three playoff teams — the Lunar Owls, Rose BC, and Laces.

The Vinyl's 3-6 record against that trio edged the Mist's 2-7 record — though one of those three Vinyl victories came from a February forfeit by the injury-laden Laces.

That stat booked Rhyne Howard and the No. 4-seed Vinyl a semifinal matchup with co-founder Napheesa Collier and the top-seeded Lunar Owls, a team that blasted through the season to finish with five more wins than any other club.

After clinching the No. 2 seed, Rose BC — the only team to defeat the Lunar Owls all season — will battle Kayle McBride's No. 3-seed Laces in the second single-elimination semifinal. That said, Rose may be without star Angel Reese, who exited Monday's regular-season finale after re-injuring her wrist.

How to watch the 2025 Unrivaled 3x3 Basketball semifinals

The four squads still standing tip off Unrivaled's first-ever playoffs on Sunday, March 16th, setting the stage for Monday's championship game.

The first semifinal between the Rose and Laces will begin at 7:30 PM ET, immediately followed by the Vinyl's battle against the Lunar Owls.

Sunday's semifinals will air live on TNT.

ESPN’s women's college basketball coverage has exploded across the broadcast giant's platforms, with regular-season viewership 3% up from last year’s record-breaking run and 41% up from 2022/23.

ESPN reports that 2024/25’s overall ratings were their highest since the 2008/09 season, with 2.9 billion minutes of live women's college basketball games consumed.

While this year’s regular-season peaks outdrew last year’s top matchups, ESPN also saw significant growth in steady viewership.

Across the 87 games the broadcaster aired, each game averaged 280,000 viewers, with a record-breaking 15 games drawing over 500,000 viewers.

Due to network partnership deals, ESPN is still missing the rights to Big Ten coverage, while the SEC continues to pull in the heaviest numbers.

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Flagship channels see top women's college basketball viewership

The company's flagship networks also saw significant individual ratings growth in their NCAA women's basketball coverage. Games on ESPN drew an average of 511,000 fans, for an increase of 13% over last season's coverage on the network.

Even more, the three games the broadcaster upgraded to ABC gave the channel an average of 1.3 million viewers, for an overall increase of 120% over 2023/24 games.

ABC also the regular season's two biggest audiences.

Just one week after ESPN broke the 1 million viewer mark with then-No. 4 Texas' upset win over No. 2 South Carolina, ABC's February 16th UConn vs. South Carolina plus Texas vs. LSU shattered double-header that stat.

Then-No. 5 UConn’s 87-58 blowout of the reigning national champion Gamecocks attracted the season’s biggest audience, garnering an average of 1.8 million viewers with a peak of 2.2 million.

Texas’s 65-58 victory over the then-No. 7 Tigers snagged the 2024/25 season's second-biggest audience, peaking at 2.3 million viewers while drawing an average of 1.7 million fans.

Besides leading this season's ratings, those two blockbuster matchups registered as the third and fourth highest regular-season women's college basketball viewership in ESPN's history.

Monday night's NCAA Big East basketball final saw No. 3 UConn lift their fifth straight trophy, winning the conference tournament title with a 70-50 defeat of No. 22 Creighton.

Star senior Paige Bueckers led the Huskies' charge, finishing with 24 points, eight rebounds, three assists, and a pair each of blocks and steals.

Freshman Sarah Strong also showed out with her third straight double-double, registering 13 points, 11 rebounds, four assists, six steals, and three blocks.

Notably, Bueckers made UConn history with the win, exiting her college career with a perfect 66-0 conference record and becoming the first-ever Husky to win three Most Outstanding Player awards at the Big East tournament in the process.

"For her to be able to constantly come up with these kind of performances, time and time again, she just has that thing that those kinds of players have," said UConn head coach Geno Auriemma after the game.

UConn now holds a record 30 conference tournament titles — eight more than any other Division I program.

"We have a belief system in our program that this is the expectation," explained Auriemma. "I truly believe that the higher you set expectations, the closer you get to achieving those. And we have tremendously high expectations every year, those never go away. And some years you fall short, but most times we don't."

NCAA conference tournaments impact AP Poll rankings

Thanks to their command of the Big East, UConn became to the only Top 15 team to hold steady in Monday afternoon's AP Poll update, as the Top 25 list saw significant shifts in the lead-up to Selection Sunday.

After defeating USC for the Big Ten tournament title on Sunday, UCLA earned a three-spot rise to reclaim the No. 1 ranking, while their rival Trojans fell from No. 2 to No. 4 with the loss.

Meanwhile, South Carolina rose from No. 5 to No. 2 after downing former No. 1 Texas in Sunday's SEC finale, putting the defending NCAA champs in a neck-and-neck race with the Bruins for the No. 1 overall seed in this year's national tournament.

The Longhorns now clock in at No. 5, despite still being a likely candidate for one of Sunday's four No. 1 seeds.

Making history just behind Texas are Big 12 champions TCU, whose two-spot leap to No. 6 gave the Horned Frogs their highest-ever ranking.

The Top 10's biggest climber, however, was Duke, who jumped four spots to No. 7 after their title-winning upset run through the ACC tournament.

At the same time, once-No. 1 Notre Dame's slide continued, with the Irish dropping two more spots to No. 8 after exiting their conference tournament in the semifinal round.

Rounding out the Top 10 are ACC tournament runners-up NC State, who fell two spots to No. 9, and SEC semifinalist No. 10 LSU, whose one spot drop comes after injuries to the team's two top scorers hindered the Tigers' conference tournament play.

AP NCAA Basketball Top 25: Week 19

1. UCLA (30-2, Big Ten)
2. South Carolina (30-3, SEC)
3. UConn (31-3, Big East)
4. USC (28-3, Big Ten)
5. Texas (31-3, SEC)
6. TCU (31-3, Big 12)
7. Duke (26-7, ACC)
8. Notre Dame (26-5, ACC)
9. NC State (26-6, ACC)
10. LSU (28-5, SEC)
11. Oklahoma (25-7, SEC)
12. North Carolina (27-7, ACC)
13. Kentucky (22-7, SEC)
14. Baylor (27-7, Big 12)
15. Ohio State (25-6, Big Ten)
16. West Virginia (24-7, Big 12)
17. Oklahoma State (25-6, Big 12)
18. Maryland (23-7, Big Ten)
19. Kansas State (26-7, Big 12)
20. Tennessee (22-9, SEC)
21. Alabama (23-8, SEC)
22. Creighton (26-6, Big East)
23. Florida State (23-8, ACC)
24. South Dakota State (26-3, Summit League)
25. Ole Miss (20-10, SEC)