Paige Bueckers is back.

After missing the 2022-23 season with an ACL injury, the UConn guard and 2021 Player of the Year has been cleared to play again, she announced Wednesday on her Instagram.

“All clear and ready for takeoff,” Bueckers wrote.

UConn’s roster was riddled with injuries throughout last season. In addition to season-ending injuries to Bueckers and freshman Ice Brady, Azzi Fudd, Caroline Ducharme and Dorka Juhász all missed significant time.

UConn still finished with a 31-6 record before losing to Ohio State in the Sweet 16, ending the program’s run of 16 straight Elite Eight appearances and 14 straight Final Fours. The feat was impressive, as UConn played parts of the season with just seven available players. But considering the squad’s historic postseason dominance, a Sweet 16 loss could still be categorized as disappointing.

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Now, with Bueckers healthy, the Huskies are poised to reassert their dominance.

The redshirt junior was also injured for a large portion of the 2021-22 season, so Huskies fans haven’t seen Bueckers at full strength since her Player of the Year campaign as a freshman. That season, Bueckers averaged 20 points, 5.8 assists and 4.9 rebounds while playing 36 minutes per game. In 2021-22, while not fully healthy, Bueckers put up 14.6 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game and led the Huskies to the NCAA championship game, where they lost to South Carolina.

Bueckers’ return has been highly anticipated, but she’s not the only weapon UConn boasts heading into the new season.

Aaliyah Edwards also returns for her senior season, after a junior campaign in which she played all 37 games for the Huskies and held the team together during difficult stretches. Edwards was named the Big East’s Most Improved Player and to the All-Big East First Team for her efforts. The forward, who spent the offseason representing Canada in the FIBA AmeriCup, averaged 16.6 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.1 blocks per game last season.

Fudd should also be healthy after a knee injury limited her playing time during her sophomore season. The 2021 No. 1 recruit played 15 games last season, averaging 15.1 points per contest and showing glimpses of her superstar potential.

Point guard Nika Mühl returns for her senior season after leading the team with 7.9 assists per game, and Aubrey Griffin will play as a graduate student after recording 11.3 points and 6.6 rebounds per contest in 2022-23.

Brady, the No. 5 recruit in 2022, is ready to make her UConn debut after being sidelined with a dislocated patella tendon. Ducharme, Ayanna Patterson, Amari DeBerry and Inez Bettencourt are also back, and the Huskies added two five-star freshmen to the roster (guards KK Arnold and Ashlynn Shade) and one four-star (forward Qadence Samuels).

Currently, the Huskies have one injury to contend with. Jana El Alfy, a 6-5 center who joined the team last January and did not play, will miss the 2023-24 season with a ruptured Achilles.

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

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

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Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.

With recent transfers Talia von Oelhoffen and Kiki Iriafen joining first-team All-American JuJu Watkins and the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class at USC next season, the Trojans look to transition from an up-and-coming squad to a legitimate title contender. 

Former Oregon State graduate student von Oelhoffen is the latest collegiate talent to commit to the program, announcing her transfer Monday via ESPN. She follows ex-Stanford leading-scorer Iriafen in the jump to the pair’s one-time Pac-12 rival.

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The 5-foot-11 Washington native was a two-time All-Pac-12 guard during her time at Oregon State. But after the recent dissolution of the Pac-12, the Corvallis side found themselves without a permanent home conference going forward. Many big name players opted to take their skill elsewhere as a result, with von Oelhoffen’s fellow ex-Beaver Raegan Beers announcing her own departure to Oklahoma on Monday.

According to DraftKings, USC is now tied with UConn for the second-best betting odds to win the 2025 NCAA women’s tournament. Dawn Staley’s tested South Carolina side, poised for a repeat performance, holds down the number one spot.

Last year, LSU loaded up in the transfer portal after beating Iowa to win the 2023 national championship. The Tigers were clear favorites coming into the 2023-24 season, but were bounced in the Elite Eight by Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes. Shortly thereafter, star transfer Hailey Van Lith opted to transfer a second time, this time signing with TCU. 

Yet while history proves that an excess of star power doesn’t always translate to on-court chemistry, on paper, USC sure looks ready to hold their own — in 2025 and beyond.

The United States and Mexico have withdrawn their joint bid to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup, per a Monday afternoon release from U.S. Soccer and the Mexican Football Federation.

According to the statement, they will instead focus on developing a "more equitable" bid for the 2031 tournament, with the ultimate goal of "eliminating investment disparities" between the men’s and women’s tournaments.

The federations went on to cite the upcoming 2026 Men’s World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as an opportunity to build support for local infrastructure, improve audience engagement, and scale up media and partnership deals in preparation to "host a record-breaking tournament in 2031."

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"Hosting a World Cup tournament is a huge undertaking — and having additional time to prepare allows us to maximize its impact across the globe," said U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone. "Shifting our bid will enable us to host a record-breaking Women’s World Cup in 2031 that will help to grow and raise the level of the women’s game both here at home as well as across the globe."

The decision leaves just Brazil and a joint bid from Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands in the running for the 2027 host spot. Brazil — the rumored frontrunner — has never hosted a Women’s World Cup, while Germany hosted the 2011 tournament as a solo venture. 

Furthermore, this postponement doesn’t mean the U.S. is a shoo-in for 2031, as it's been previously reported that 2022 UEFA Women's EURO host England is considering their own Women's World Cup bid. FIFA is scheduled to confirm the winning bid after the FIFA Congress votes on May 17th.