Fifth-year UConn star Paige Bueckers confirmed to Huskies legend Rebecca Lobo on Friday that she will indeed be declaring for the 2025 WNBA Draft, opting to forgo her final year of college eligibility.
“Honestly, I thought I declared a long time ago,” Bueckers joked, making it clear that she has always considered this season to be her last in a UConn jersey.
Her decision follows UConn guard Azzi Fudd's announcement that she will forgo the 2025 WNBA Draft. Instead, the 22-year-old will will return to the Huskies for the 2025/26 NCAA basketball season.
The 23-year-old's declaration came one day before she scored a career-high 40 points in the NCAA tournament's Sweet 16. The subsequent 82-59 blowout advanced UConn's March Madness run to the Elite Eight.
“Obviously, Paige was spectacular,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said after Saturday's win. “That was as good a game as I’ve seen her play the whole time she’s been here, at the most important time. When you’re a senior and you’ve been around as long as she has, this is what you’re here to do. This is why you came here.”
“Honestly, we just wanted to keep our season going as long as possible,” added Bueckers. “We all love playing together, we love playing here. We just love this program.”
Other expected top WNBA draft picks remain uncertain
Bueckers is considered a lock for this year’s No. 1 overall draft pick, currently held by Dallas. But uncertainty has loomed over other lottery slots, with the No. 2 and No. 3 picks recently exchanging hands.
Notre Dame senior Olivia Miles’s professional intentions remain unknown as of Saturday, with the projected No. 2 pick telling reporters she’s “leaning towards” declaring after crashing out of the NCAA tournament.
Eligible LSU junior Flau’jae Johnson is similarly undecided following Sunday’s loss to UCLA, with the soon-to-be 22-year-old also an expected top draft pick.
No. 1 seeds UCLA and South Carolina prevailed on Sunday, punching their tickets to the Final Four and putting a bow on a wild NCAA tournament weekend that nonetheless ended in chalk.
After surviving a surging No. 4 seed Maryland offense 71-67 on Friday, the Gamecocks took down No. 2 seed Duke 54-50 in Sunday’s Elite Eight, building a watertight defense to silence the Blue Devils.
Coming off Friday’s strong 76-62 win over No. 5 seed Ole Miss, the Bruins went on to blank No. 3 seed LSU 72-65, holding off the Tigers despite All-American center Lauren Betts’s early foul trouble.
“The game was lost in the second quarter,” said LSU coach Kim Mulkey. “That’s where the game was lost. We didn’t capitalize on Betts being off the floor.”
South Carolina, UCLA bring different strengths to Final Four
With both teams having topped this season’s AP Poll rankings, UCLA and South Carolina pose different physical threats fueled by similar mental resilience.
The Gamecocks will make their fifth straight Final Four appearance. As such, the reigning champs are managing to keep the repeat dream alive despite some shaky starts.
“We know that every night is going to be a battle, and we know that they’re going to come for us,” said senior Te-Hina PaoPao.
On the flip side, next weekend will mark UCLA’s first-ever NCAA Final Four.
“All season we’ve talked about how our talent is our floor and our character is our ceiling,” guard Kiki Rice said. “And to just be the tougher team every single day out there on the court is really the difference.”
Subsequently, maintaining poise down the stretch could be the key to winning this year’s NCAA title.
How to watch Women's March Madness Final Four games
UCLA tips off the Final Four at 7 PM ET on Friday, April 4th, before South Carolina takes the court at 9:30 PM ET. Both games will air live across ESPN platforms.
Fueled by Friday's victory over then-No. 3 Notre Dame, TCU made program history on Monday by securing the updated AP poll's No. 9 spot — their first-ever Top 10 ranking. With their rise, the Horned Frogs are now the only Big 12 team in the top tier of the poll.
Joining TCU in entering this week's Top 10 is No. 8 Duke, whose recent wins over then-No. 8 Kansas State and then-No. 9 Oklahoma propelled the Blue Devils to their best standing in 10 years.
Last week's mini-tournament chaos caused movement through most of the Top 10. The lone team to fall was Notre Dame, who crashed seven spots to No. 10.
On the other hand, both South Carolina and Texas climbed one spot to Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, after victories over then-No. 15 Iowa State and then-No. 12 West Virginia. Meanwhile, LSU cracked into the Top 5 by following up a narrow 68-67 victory over Washington with a poll-ousting 82-65 win over then-No. 20 NC State and a 131-44 beatdown of NC Central.
The final Top 10 riser was Maryland, whose three-spot leap to No. 7 came courtesy of consistent play.
After securing their first-ever No. 1 ranking last week, UCLA held steady at the top, with UConn staying strong just behind the Bruins at No. 2. The only other Top 10 team to maintain their poll position on Monday was No. 6 USC, who put together a pair of dominant wins against decidedly overmatched opponents last week.
It's still early days in the 2024/25 NCAA basketball season, and while teams enjoy their view from the top, this week's ranked games — highlighted by Thursday's No. 4 Texas vs. No. 10 Notre Dame and No. 8 Duke vs. No. 3 South Carolina battles — are guaranteed to shake things up.
The AP Top 10 college basketball poll
1. UCLA (8-0, Big Ten)
2. UConn (6-0, Big East)
3. South Carolina (7-1, SEC)
4. Texas (7-0, SEC)
5. LSU (9-0, SEC)
6. USC (6-1, Big Ten)
7. Maryland (8-0, Big Ten)
8. Duke (8-1, ACC)
9. TCU (8-0, Big 12)
10. Notre Dame (5-2, ACC)
LSU came out on top at the 2024 NCAA women's gymnastics championship in Fort Worth on Saturday, besting Cal, Utah, and Florida to capture their first-ever title.
The Tigers' win was far from a landslide. LSU took the first rotation handily thanks to 2024 All-Around winner Haleigh Bryant's team-leading 9.9375 backed by four additional 9.9+ scores from her teammates. But Utah then responded with three strong beam performances of their own, causing the Red Rocks to slide confidently into second place by the end of the second rotation.
By the halfway point, all four teams fell within .288 points of one another before Utah overtook the pack with a dominant floor showing after three rotations. LSU then went on to ace the beam event with Konnor McClain's meet-leading 9.9625 score, coming away with the highest collective score ever awarded to the event in NCAA championship history. The achievement propelled the Tigers to victory, ensuring them the title after the final rotation.
"This team is full of individuals that have incredible character and integrity and love for each other and all the things you hear from coaches when they sit at a podium like this in a moment of victory, but I promise you it's a real thing," said LSU coach Jay Clark in a post-meet press conference. "I'm just so happy for them."
Contributing to Saturday's atmosphere of excitement was the absence of last year's champion and this year's heavily favored Oklahoma Sooners. Hot off earning the highest team score in NCAA history just last month, the top-ranked Norman squad suffered a shocking loss in the semifinals, where five major mistakes contributed to a third-place finish and a season-low team score of 196.6625.
With Oklahoma out, it was truly anyone's game.
"Every team was out there fighting for their lives — all four teams, it could have gone any of four ways out there," Clark told reporters. "As much as I feel for what happened to Oklahoma in the semifinals, I think it made for a championship that became so packed with emotion because every team out there believed they could do it. It was just tremendous."
LSU is now the eighth program in the sport's history to earn an NCAA women's gymnastic championship.
They share the honor with Georgia, Utah, UCLA, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, and Michigan.
Hailey Van Lith is reportedly on her way to TCU, says Talia Goodman of The Next Hoops.
The former Louisville star joined LSU for the 2023-24 season, but a disappointing run in Baton Rouge saw her enter the transfer portal once again at the season’s end. Van Lith opted to use her fifth year of eligibility versus declaring for the WNBA draft.
Van Lith was admittedly less effective as a Tiger. Her field goal percentage decreased from .411 in 2022-23 with Louisville to .388 at LSU. She also went from averaging 19.7 points per game to just 11.6, due in part to a change of position from shooting guard to more of a point guard role.
At an end-of-season banquet last week, LSU coach Kim Mulkey used her speech to wish Van Lith well, calling her "one of the hardest working players that I’ve ever coached."
"Her aspirations were to get drafted this year," Mulkey said, according to NOLA.com. "And she realized, 'I need another year, and I need to go back to a place where I can relax and get back to my normal position.'
"And what do you do? You hug her, and you wish her well."
The decision to commit to TCU may come as a surprise after Van Lith paid a visit to Mississippi State last weekend. The Horned Frogs finished out the 2023-24 season 21-12 overall, coming in 9th in the Big 12 and scoring an average of 69.5 points per game. The program also made headlines in January when they held mid-season open tryouts in response to an onslaught of sidelining injuries.
The Chicago Sky made a splash in Monday night’s WNBA draft, taking Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese in the first round.
South Carolina’s Cardoso, who was the 2024 Final Four Most Outstanding Player, went third to the Sky. The day before, the team had swapped picks with the Minnesota Lynx to land the No. 7 pick as well, which they used on Reese, the 2023 Final Four MOP.
Now, the two will team up in Chicago after battling each other in both college and high school
"She’s a great player, and I’m a great player. Nobody's going to get no rebounds on us," Cardoso joked afterwards, while Reese expressed excitement about playing under new Sky head coach Teresa Weatherspoon.
"Being able to be a Black woman and as a head coach, and everything she's done at the NBA level, I just knew everything they were bringing to the table," Reese said of the Sky. "Player development is something that I was looking for and they looked for in me. I'm super excited for this move."
Former NBA star and Chicago Sky co-owner Dwayne Wade welcomed the pair to Chicago.
“The foundation is set,” he wrote.
The foundation is set. Welcome Kamilla Cardoso x Angel Reese @chicagosky @WNBA
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) April 16, 2024
The Sky have entered re-building mode after winning a WNBA title in 2021. This offseason, they traded franchise cornerstone Kahleah Copper to the Phoenix Mercury for a package that included the No. 3 picked used on Cardoso.
Now, Cardoso and Reese will be looking to jump-start the team's return to contention.
South Carolina was down but never out on Thursday, coming from behind in the fourth quarter to claim a 76-70 win over No. 9 LSU.
The team went on an 11-3 run to close the game, securing the win after Angel Reese fouled out with 4:02 to play. South Carolina remains the lone unbeaten team in Division I women’s basketball. All five starters for both teams finished with double digits.
“Angel is a talent. She’s aggressive. She’s poised. She’s very unselfish,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. “She’s mean, she’s physical, she is somebody that you want to play with because you know she’s going to play to the very end, she’s going to give it her all. That’s what you lose if you’re LSU and she’s out of the game for the last four minutes.
“When you lose Angel, you lose a big part of what they do, because she touches the ball and she makes the right decisions.”
“Experience — that was a big hit for us,” LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson said of Reese’s absence after fouling out. “We had four minutes left — that’s too much time to not have Angel Reese on the floor.”
It was the Gamecocks’ 28th consecutive road victory, the longest streak in SEC history and the sixth longest ever in D-I.
LSU had jumped out to lead by as many as 11 in the first half, with Staley saying that the Tigers “had their way with us.” But a 3-pointer to end the half from MiLaysia Fulwiley kept the Gamecocks within striking distance. After the half, the team outscored LSU 40-29.
“It was a game of runs,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. “They made big plays. We made big plays. The team that made the last play was the one that was going to win this basketball game.”
With the win, Staley moves to 15-0 against LSU since 2012, while LSU head coach Kim Mulkey is 1-4 all time against South Carolina (0-3 with LSU, 1-1 with Baylor).
“I think we’re one of the top teams in the country,” Mulkey said after the loss. “Losing to South Carolina the way we did sent a message that we’re not going away.”
Those wanting to watch South Carolina and LSU women’s basketball may be paying a hefty price tag to get into the building.
Ticket prices for the matchup between the two top 10 teams, which is set for 7 p.m. ET on Thursday in Baton Rouge, are currently sold out. The secondary market is an option, although ticket prices have soared to as high as $2,373 on SeatGeek if you are looking to sit courtside.
Upper level seats could come as cheap as $53, but seats in 100-level sections were retailing for around $844 a piece. By Tuesday morning, lower-level tickets on Vivid Seats ranged in the mid-$3,000.
ESPN will be airing the game, with CollegeGameday rolling into town beforehand.
Auburn women’s basketball took down No. 7 LSU 67-62 on Sunday night, ending the Tiger’s 16 game winning streak. It was LSU’s second loss this season after a season-opening loss to Colorado.
The defending national champions entered the game with the nation’s best scoring offense, but Auburn held their opponents to a season low in points.
Auburn forced 15 turnovers, including one from JaMya Mingo-Young that sealed the game as she stripped LSU’s Angel Reese.
“That’s what we’ve been working on, just when she gets the ball just crowd her,” Mingo-Young told ESPN postgame. “I didn’t do it the whole game. But I just knew she couldn’t see me when she spins, so I went and got the ball.”
“This one was on me,” Reese wrote on social media. “We good! Geaux Tigers!”
Auburn coach Johnnie Harris said that the team had been working on that exact play all week.
“We guarded that play all week,” Harris said. “We knew, from the way [Reese] caught the ball, what she was going to do. We knew that she was going to drive it in that situation. … Once she put it down, we knew she was going to score. She wasn’t going to pass it.”
The win was Auburn’s first over a top-10 opponent since beating No. 4 Tennessee on Jan. 27, 2022. It also was the largest crowd the Tigers had ever hosted in the history of their women’s basketball program, with 7,720 people showing up.
“Honestly, I don’t know if they were there for us, or if they were there just to see LSU,” Honesty Scott-Grayson, who led the team with 21 points, said. “But we knew we had to go out there and put on a show, either way. We weren’t backing down from [LSU] just because of the name.”
To LSU coach Kim Mulkey, the outcome of the game was simple.
“We knew Auburn would get in lanes and pressure you and make it hard to complete a pass,” Mulkey said. “Energy and enthusiasm, [Auburn] just came at us. … Their effort was better than our effort.”
Elsewhere, No. 9 USC upended No. 2 UCLA’s perfect season behind a JuJu Watkins double-double. The loss leaves South Carolina as the nation’s only undefeated team left.
As the new year approaches, the college basketball season is heating up, and so is the player of the year race.
The Naismith Player of the Year award recognizes the best players in NCAA men’s and women’s basketball. Several players on the 50-player watchlist have lived up to their billing. One in particular has done even more.
Here are Just Women’s Sports’ contenders in the player of the year race heading into 2024, in no particular order.
Caitlin Clark, Iowa
Not much more needs to be said here. Last year’s Naismith Award winner is putting on an even better show this season. At the time of publication, Clark averages a league-leading 30.5 points per game and is seventh in NCAA Division I in assists (7.4 per game). At her current pace, Clark could overtake Kelsey Plum’s college scoring record by February. And while she’s a high scorer, she also spreads the wealth around to her team.
In what could be her final year in the NCAA, Clark has also stepped up her defensive play. She’s gathered 91 defensive rebounds through 13 games played, and her turnover rate is at a career low.
For the second year in a row, Clark may well be the best all-around choice for player of the year.
Alissa Pili, Utah
Few players on this list have taken their team on their backs the way Pili has. When she shoots, she rarely misses. When she defends, she gives her all.
Pili averages just under 25 points per game, good for fourth in D-I. She also has a 69.7 shooting percentage, the fifth-highest in the NCAA. And she is making 56.5% of her 3-pointers, which ranks first in the NCAA.
Pili’s WNBA potential has been debated. But after the show she’s been putting on this season, there’s no question that she could thrive in the pros. Her size, scoring ability and athleticism make her an ideal draft candidate in 2024 — and perhaps a player of the year candidate as well.
JuJu Watkins, USC
The freshman guard is already making a huge impact for the Trojans. In the seven-week old college basketball season, Watkins has taken home six Pac-12 freshman of the week honors. And for good reason.
Watkins is averaging a staggering 26.8 points per game, placing her at second in D-I as a first-year player. She shoots over 46% from behind the arc, and she’s snagged 62 rebounds in her nine games played.
Before finishing her first semester of college, Watkins has cemented herself as a regular in USC’s starting lineup and as a favorite for national freshman of the year honors. And if she keeps it up, she could set her sights even higher.
Paige Bueckers, UConn
Bueckers started the 2023-24 season with something to prove. The redshirt junior guard had less than 50 college games under her belt due to injuries — a good amount lower than many other players in her year. But she hit the court without missing a beat.
The 21-year-old averages almost 19 points per game, shoots 48% from the three-point line and leads her team in points this season. Bueckers also averages more than three assists per game, and she’s snagged 23 steals in 12 games. She is stepping up her defensive game as well. So far, she’s batted a team-leading 16 blocks as a guard and she’s collected 50 defensive rebounds.
If she continues to heat up despite the pressure of leading a depleted UConn squad, she could play her way into the national award conversation.
Aneesah Morrow, LSU
Morrow is another player whose all-around skillset is serving her well early in the 2023-24 slate. Her versatility is allowing her to shine at LSU after her transfer from DePaul in the offseason.
The 20-year-old forward makes her presence known on the scoresheet, averaging 18.3 points and 9.5 rebounds per game. But her excellence continues on the other side of the ball. Morrow leads the Tigers with 34 steals and 17 blocks in 13 games played.
Through many challenges LSU has faced this season, including a prolonged absence for star Angel Reese and the removal of former starter Kateri Poole from the team, Morrow has taken everything in stride and remained a consistent and reliable player for the Tigers.
Honorable mentions:
- Cameron Brink, Stanford
- Aaliyah Edwards, UConn
- Deja Kelly, UNC
- Ta’Niya Latson, Florida State
- Jacy Sheldon, Ohio State