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With the ‘Fab Four’ freshmen, South Carolina basketball is in good hands

South Carolina’s freshman class: No. 23 Bree Hall, No. 20 Sania Feagin, No. 44 Saniya Rivers and No. 25 Raven Johnson. (South Carolina Athletics)

When Bree Hall’s parents dropped her off at college, they didn’t cry. Neither did she. Everyone knew she was in good hands, and South Carolina had felt like home long before she stepped on campus.

“There was just so much confidence in where I was, there was nothing to cry about,” Hall says.

Hall was walking into a situation that would make any basketball player jealous. First, there’s the history of the Gamecocks women’s basketball program: a national title in 2017 and three Final Fours in the past seven years. Then there’s the present: a team with talented, experienced players like Aliyah Boston, Zia Cooke and Destanni Henderson, poised for a run at the national championship. And the future: at least seven more years of head coach Dawn Staley, whose value is priced at $22.4 million, but even that might be an undersell.

And if all of that isn’t enough to put a young hooper’s mind at ease, Hall and South Carolina’s three other freshmen can turn to a group chat affectionately named “The Fab Four.”

Staley eventually gave the moniker to South Carolina’s freshmen class, made up of Hall, Raven Johnson, Saniya Rivers and Sania Feagin. The nickname is a perfect description for the top-ranked recruiting class in women’s basketball this season, but when they started talking via text, the Fab Four wasn’t even the Fab Four yet. They were four high school seniors trying to weigh their options and pick the correct team and school.

Staley encouraged the players to talk even before they signed with the Gamecocks. The recruiting process can be an intimidating one. And unless a recruit has parents or siblings who went through the same thing, it can be isolating.

So Staley had a message for the recruits she hoped would one day become Gamecocks: Talk to each other, and help each other find the right fit, even if it’s not South Carolina.

“We all looked at our offers together and started doing pros and cons lists,” Rivers says.

Eventually, one school came out on top, and it was the same for all four of them.

“Next thing you know, we all committed at about the same time,” Rivers says.

When they did, the nickname came about, and Rivers, Feagin, Hall and Johnson renamed their group chat to reflect their newfound South Carolina identity.

Together they are Staley’s Fab Four, but separately, they are four individuals whose twists and turns led them down the same path.

Raven Johnson

There are two key pieces to Raven Johnson’s personality. The country’s No. 2-rated freshman (and No. 1 point guard) describes herself as a girly-girl who is also fiercely competitive. The first piece made her think she would hate basketball, and the second made her fall in love with the game.

“I was like, basketball is a boy’s sport. It’s too rough,” she says with a laugh. “But my grandpa told me, ‘You’re just not gonna do no cheerleading.’ ”

Raven’s grandfather took her and her twin brother, Richard, to the gym, where they played one-on-one. In that moment, Johnson’s competitive streak took over. She realized that she wanted to win, but not at just anything: She wanted to win at basketball.

“I was like, ‘Yeah, basketball is the sport for me,’ ” she says.

This year, however, Johnson will be playing cheerleader for her team after sustaining a season-ending knee injury against South Dakota on Friday.

But Gamecock fans might want to keep an eye on the sidelines to see what kind of street clothes Johnson is sporting. Because before she was one of the Fab Four, Johnson had another nickname, and it’s one she still uses: Hollywood.

During one of her first AAU practices as a tween, Johnson walked into the gym fresh off of a shopping spree at Justice.

“I was wearing glittery shoes — I think they were Chuck Taylors — glittery pants and a matching jacket to go with it. I just thought I was cute,” says the Atlanta native. “They took one look at me and said, ‘Yeah, your nickname is gonna be Hollywood.’ ”

She’s not wearing Justice anymore, but Johnson still embodies her nickname, so much so that she even has it in her Twitter handle. Hollywood likes anything beauty-related, she says. Lately she’s upgraded from Justice to Fashion Nova and takes pride in mixing up her look.

“I can go from wearing a dress to sweats and a cute little crop top,” she says. “I can wear pretty much anything as long as my hair is done and my face looks cute.”

Saniya Rivers

One of the first Christmas gifts Saniya Rivers remembers getting was a Fisher Price basketball hoop. The sport, she says, is in her blood. Her older sister Nanna Rivers played at North Carolina State, her dad played for a few years at Elon and her mom was a standout at UNC- Wilmington.

Rivers grew up in Wilmington, the town where Michael Jordan famously didn’t make his varsity team. So Rivers has been attached to basketball since the beginning, and it to her.

The No. 4 freshmen in the country received her first scholarship offer — from South Carolina — when she was in eighth grade.

Rivers was playing AAU for a team that coaches didn’t really have their eyes on, but she was tearing it up. On the last day of the tournament, Rivers was playing in the championship game and recognized Staley sitting in the front row.

“We ended up losing, but I got a phone call later that night with the offer, so that was big,” Rivers says.

For Rivers, South Carolina is step one in a plan she’s had since about the time she received that first offer. She has a love-hate relationship with her hometown. She’s received great support from people, but she’s also dealt with others trying to bring her down.

“All I’ve ever wanted growing up was to make it out and go to college and make it to the pro leagues,” Rivers says. “I want to give back to my city when I make it.”

Sania Feagin

For Sania Feagin, the choice to go to South Carolina wasn’t something she needed to think about; it was something she just knew was right.

“I put my trust to the Lord, and he guided me to where he felt was best for me,” she says.

Feagin grew up with faith and family as the cornerstones of her life. And through the two, basketball came naturally. When she was a young kid, her parents — who both competed collegiately — would play in various rec leagues, and when they finished, Feagin would run onto the court to get as many shots up as she could before they packed up and went home.

“I was ball-happy,” she says of her first days playing. “I would get it and just take off. I wanted to score.”

And basketball didn’t go away when they left the gym. Some of Feagin’s favorite memories are of playing in her driveway with her entire family — parents, siblings and even cousins. They’d play knockout, war, or adults vs. kids matchups. And even with a family full of collegiate athletes, they knew when to turn the competition off.

“Those games were always just fun,” Feagin says. “It was never doing nothing too much. We just had a good time.”

When she’s with her family, Feagin keeps things relatively low-key. Outside of basketball, one of her preferred hobbies is babysitting her 1-year-old nephew.

“When I was taking care of him before I came to school, he was so small and he would cry all the time,” she says. “He couldn’t even crawl. Now he barely even cries. He’s running around. He’s a handful.”

Bree Hall

When she was 6, Hall remembers playing sports with the kids in her neighborhood. It didn’t matter what the game was, because she loved them all. But when she picked up a basketball, parents and local coaches noticed. Hall was just having fun, but to those adults, she had a future in the game.

So as she grew, her dad, Bryan, started taking her to the gym to run drills. Unlike her fellow freshmen, who grew up with basketball players for parents, Bryan was just a helping hand and cheerleader for his daughter, the No. 14-ranked freshman this season.

“He was absolutely not a basketball player,” Bree says with a laugh. “He was that guy at the Y or the nearby gym that you would call, like, your local LeBron, but he never even played in high school.”

South Carolina first piqued the Ohio native’s interest when she was a sophomore in high school. Her AAU teammate, Zia Cooke, had committed to the Gamecocks, so Hall visited the school.

“I watched them play against UConn and they ended up winning,” Hall says. “And [Henderson’s] family was there, and they sat me down and gave me some good advice about the recruiting process and about how this was probably the place for me.”

The future of South Carolina

Once the Fab Four officially committed to South Carolina, the fun started.

They texted about serious things, like the COVID-19 pandemic that had marked all of their high school careers, but mostly the chat remained light-hearted.

“Before we had that group chat, we didn’t really know each other,” Hall says. “But before we got to campus, we were all so excited, talking about what colors we were going to have in our rooms and where we could get our nails and hair done.”

Hall, Feagin and Rivers live together, while Johnson lives with sophomore Kamilla Cardoso, her former AAU teammate who, as a transfer from Syracuse, is also new to the team.

Last year, the four freshmen watched as South Carolina made its way to the Final Four and lost a nail-biter to Stanford. They all agreed that watching the Gamecocks was surreal, and found themselves switching back and forth between cheering on their future teammates and trying to analyze where they might fit in on the court.

When they got to campus, fitting in with their teammates socially was a breeze. The Gamecocks like to listen to music together, have movie nights and occasionally break into ultra-competitive rounds of UNO.

“It’s not just on the court,” Rivers says. “Cards get thrown. It gets ridiculous.”

But transitioning from high school and even AAU ball to college basketball proves to be a lot more difficult than fitting in with a new group of friends.

But you don’t go to South Carolina expecting to easily slide into playing time.

“I’m going to be honest, high school and college are two different types of ball games,” says Johnson, who won four straight state championships at Westlake High School. “You have one or two players on the team who are really, really good, but in college the pace is different. You got more players, the whole team is good.”

Many skills players could pull off in high school suddenly don’t work in college. Rivers, for example, said she’s in the process of changing her shot because she noticed it getting blocked too much during preseason practices.

Until Johnson went down with a knee injury, she, Rivers, Feagin and Hall — four five-star recruits who had their pick of programs — were all fighting for a sliver of game action.

Because even before signing the best class in the country, South Carolina was already stacked. The Gamecocks not only returned their starting five, but also their sixth and seventh players off the bench. And they added the 6-7 Cardoso, one of the most sought-after transfers in the offseason.

So yeah, this is a whole different ball game, but it’s one the freshman class is ready for. They all know what coming to a program like South Carolina means. It’s not about instant college stardom, but the opportunity to play for a legendary coach and to compete with some of the country’s best players.

“I enjoy it because nothing is going to come easy,” Feagin says. “I know I’m going to have to work hard. Like for me, going against Aliyah [Boston] in practice every day is going to push me. Because she is bigger, stronger and more experienced than me. So that is going to make me a better me.”

Before long, Feagin will play the role of Boston for a new recruit. So will Rivers, Johnson and Hall. For now, they’re a group of talented freshmen. But soon, South Carolina basketball will belong to the Fab Four.

Eden Laase is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports. She previously ran her own high school sports website in Michigan after covering college hockey and interning at Sports Illustrated. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

WNBA Drops 2025 Draft Details, Invites Fans for Second Straight Year

South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley greets fans at the 2024 WNBA Draft.
The 2025 WNBA Draft will be open to the public for the second year in a row. (Mariel Tyler/NBAE via Getty Images)

The WNBA released details about the league's 2025 Draft on Wednesday, dropping timing, venue, broadcast, and ticketing information ahead of the event's April 14th return to New York.

Following last year’s success in which the league included an audience of fans for the first time in the Draft's history, the 2025 edition will once again be open to the public.

To include more fans in this year's iteration, the WNBA is relocating the event from the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the higher-capacity The Shed at Hudson Yards, located on the west side of midtown Manhattan.

For fans who can’t attend, the 2025 WNBA Draft will air on ESPN starting at 7:30 PM ET, after the 7 PM ET WNBA Countdown.

"At a time when the passion and excitement surrounding the WNBA has never been higher, we continue to focus on creating elevated events that WNBA fans won’t want to miss," said WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert in the league's statement. "The tremendous fan engagement we enjoyed at draft last year was a precursor to a season in which we ultimately set records for viewership, attendance, digital consumption and merchandise sales."

"We look forward to welcoming in a new set of WNBA rookies in a memorable way."

UConn players Azzi Fudd, Caroline Ducharme, Paige Bueckers, and Aubrey Griffin pose for a photo at the 2024 WNBA Draft.
UConn star Paige Bueckers will likely exit April's draft as the 2025 WNBA No. 1 pick. (Kees Kees/NBAE via Getty Images)

First the Orange Carpet, then the rush to make a WNBA roster

As is tradition, top prospects like expected overall No. 1 pick Paige Bueckers will attend a celebratory lighting ceremony at the Empire State Building to begin the day, and walk the iconic "Orange Carpet" prior to the Draft.

Once the broadcast begins, Engelbert will announce each draftee, sending the top pick to the 2025 Draft Lottery-winning Dallas Wings, and the second to the Seattle Storm.

The Washington Mystics currently hold the third and fourth selections, while 2025 WNBA expansion team Golden State will recruit their first-ever rookie Valkyrie with the night's No. 5 pick.

With the league's 29th season tipping off on May 16th, the selected college and international players will face a baptism by fire, with one month to relocate and then prove themselves worthy of making a WNBA roster.

How to buy tickets to the 2025 WNBA Draft

Tickets to attend the 2025 WNBA Draft go on sale at 10 AM ET on Friday, March 21st, with fans able to register their interest now via WNBA Experiences.

Naismith Taps Top NCAA Stars as Defensive Player of the Year Award Semifinalists

UCLA's Lauren Betts and USC's JuJu Watkins look up during an NCAA basketball game.
Both UCLA center Lauren Betts and USC guard JuJu Watkins are 2024/25 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year semifinalists. (Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The Naismith Awards unveiled their 2024/25 National Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) semifinalists on Tuesday, with the 10-player lineup highlighting some of NCAA basketball’s biggest stars.

Each athlete represents a different team, all of whom finished the regular season in the Top 25 AP Poll. Six hail from the nation's Top 10 teams.

No. 1 UCLA junior Lauren Betts and fellow center Sedona Prince out of No. 6 TCU lead the list's frontcourt players, which also includes a pair of senior forwards in No. 15 Ohio State's Taylor Thierry and No. 23 Florida State's Makayla Timpson.

Holding down the backcourt are six guards, highlighted by a trio of sophomore stars in No. 4 USC's JuJu Watkins, No. 8 Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo, and No. 20 Tennessee's Talaysia Cooper. Senior veteran experience rounds out the group in No. 5 Texas's Rori Harmon, No. 10 LSU's Aneesah Morrow, and No. 16 West Virginia's JJ Quinerly.

With three semifinalists each, the SEC and Big Ten lead the field, while the ACC and Big 12 each claim two of the list's standouts.

Naismith Defensive Player of the Year semifinalist Aneesah Morrow reaches for a rebound during LSU's 2024/25 regular-season finale win over Ole Miss.
Aneesah Morrow's rebounding leads the Power Four by a wide margin. (Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images)

Naismith semifinalists lead the nation in defensive stats

On the Division I stat sheet, Hidalgo tops all other Power Four players in steals per game with 3.7, while Morrow leads the country in rebounds with an average of 13.6 per game.

Morrow's rate is unquestionably impressive, eclipsing the next Power Four athlete on the list, Timpson, by a full three rebounds per game.

Speaking of Timpson, she joins Betts and Prince in Division I's Top 5 players for blocks per game.

Three semifinalists have already claimed some DPOY hardware for their 2024/25 performances, with Hidalgo, Quinerly, and Betts earning the honor for the ACC, Big 12, and Big Ten, respectively.

Many of the season’s best defenders are also in the mix for National Player of the Year (POY), with Betts, Hidalgo, and Watkins leading the charge for the season's top individual award.

The most noteworthy POY candidate missing from Tuesday’s DPOY group is No. 3 UConn senior guard Paige Bueckers, who averages 4.5 rebounds and 0.7 steals per game.

Of the 10 semifinalists, only four will make the award's final cut on March 18th. The 2024/25 Naismith DPOY will be crowned on April 2nd, just days before the NCAA tournament's Final Four tips off.

US Tennis Stars Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula Fall at Indian Wells

US tennis star Coco Gauff prepares a return in her Round of 16 loss at the 2025 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.
Gauff lost in three sets in Wednesday’s Round of 16. (Robert Prange/Getty Images)

With Sunday's final match looming, the competition is heating up at the 2025 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells — though several top US players are no longer feeling the fire after falling short in the Round of 16.

Unseeded 28-year-old Swiss contender Belinda Bencic claimed arguably the tournament's biggest upset thus far, with the wild card ousting world No. 3 Coco Gauff on Wednesday.

Despite Gauff taking the first set, 2020 Olympic champion Bencic prevailed, fighting through multiple medical timeouts to snag the win.

Fellow US standout No. 4 Jessica Pegula suffered a similar fate, losing to Ukraine’s No. 23 Elina Svitolina in a three-set match heavily impacted by three hours of rain delays on Tuesday.

With the 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 come-from-behind win, Svitolina advances to her first Indian Wells quarterfinals in six years.

World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and defending Indian Wells champion No. 2 Iga Świątek continued their dominance through the Round of 16, with each booking their quarterfinals berth without dropping a single set at the tournament.

US tennis star Madison Keys tosses up a serve during her 2025 Indian Wells Round of 16 victory.
Madison Keys is the lone US player still standing in the 2025 Indian Wells tournament. (Robert Prange/Getty Images)

Bencic to face last-standing US player Madison Keys

Another US star stands between Bencic and Friday's semifinals, as 2025 Australian Open champ and freshly minted world No. 5 Madison Keys continues her winning form in California.

The endurance and tenacity that earned Keys her first-ever Grand Slam title is on display at Indian Wells, where she outlasted Belgium's No. 28 Elise Mertens after three back-and-forth sets on Monday before surviving a difficult battle against Croatia's No. 19-seed Donna Vekić in Wednesday’s Round of 16.

By winning the 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-3 clash, Keys is now riding a 15-match victory streak into Thursday's quarterfinal.

"I kind of just started deciding I was going to go for a little bit more," she said afterwards. "Really happy to be able to get that match and get that win and play another match here."

World No. 2 tennis player Iga Świątek returns the ball during a 2025 Indian Wells match.
Świątek's title-defense path runs through 2024 Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng. (John Cordes/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images)

How to watch Thursday's 2025 Indian Wells quarterfinals

Thursday's quarterfinal round kicks off with Świątek taking on China's 2024 Olympic champion No. 8-seed Qinwen Zheng in a gold-medal rematch at 2 PM ET.

Svitolina will take on No. 9-seed Mirra Andreeva at 4 PM ET, with Keys set to contend with Bencic at 5:10 PM ET.

Sabalenka will close out the round at 8 PM ET, when she'll face her first seeded opponent all tournament in No. 24-seed Liudmila Samsonova.

Live coverage of all matches will air on the Tennis Channel.

Chicago Stars Forward Mallory Swanson to Miss 2025 NWSL Kick-Off

Chicago's Mallory Swanson chases down the ball during a 2024 NWSL game.
Chicago Stars forward Mallory Swanson has still not reported to training camp. (Alika Jenner/Getty Images)

USWNT forward Mallory Swanson has yet to join the Chicago Stars for 2025 play due to a personal matter, with the NWSL club confirming Wednesday that the standout striker will not feature in their Friday season opener against the reigning league champion Orlando Pride.

Chicago originally noted Swanson’s absence alongside their preseason roster announcement, adding that the organization is "fully supportive of her decision."

"I'd like to thank the club and the fans for their understanding during this time," Swanson said in the club's January release. "I appreciate the kindness and encouragement from my teammates and all the Stars staff and hope to be back with the team and playing in front of our fans as soon as I can."

Triple Espresso dwindles to a single shot

After lighting up the Paris pitch last summer, the USWNT's gold medal-winning attacking trio of Swanson, Sophia Wilson (neé Smith), and Trinity Rodman — self-dubbed the "Triple Espresso" — have yet to reunite on the national team roster, due in part to load management.

While a lingering back issue has kept Rodman out of every USWNT camp since the 2024 Olympics, the Washington standout made her return to play as a second-half substitute during the Spirt’s 2025 Challenge Cup win last Friday.

Portland Thorns star Wilson — who hasn’t played with the US since October — is officially out for the entire 2025 NWSL season after announcing her first pregnancy last week.

As for Swanson, a return timeline for both club and country remains unclear, with Chicago now preparing to open the season without their celebrated striker.

"Top player in the world, but the game still goes on," Stars head coach Lorne Donaldson told media Wednesday. "We still have players that we have to focus on, and I think that just gives somebody else another opportunity to come out and just say, 'Okay, I can do it,' because the game is not going to wait for us."

In a year without a major international tournament, maintaining player health on and off the field is massively important, leaving clubs adjusting to their shorthanded rosters and fans cheering for a very different NWSL than last season.

Portland star Sam Coffey prepares a corner kick during a 2025 NWSL preseason match against Utah.
Portland will kick off the 2025 NWSL season against the KC Current on Saturday. (Soobum Im/Getty Images)

How to watch the 2025 NWSL season kick-off

The first peek at the new NWSL rosters in action hits fields this weekend, with all 14 clubs notching their first minutes by Sunday night.

The Chicago Stars will kick off 2025 play against the Orlando Pride at 8 PM ET on Friday, with the match streaming live on Prime Video.

At the same time, Rodman's Washington Spirit will take on a new-look Houston Dash, streaming live on NWSL+.

With Wilson sidelined, the Portland Thorns will face 2024 NWSL semifinalists KC Current in their 12:45 PM ET season opener on Saturday, with live coverage airing on ABC.

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