MINNEAPOLIS — Before UConn’s two games in Bridgeport, the ones they needed to win to earn a 14th straight trip to the Final Four, the players took time to ruminate on the season they’d had.

There were injuries up and down the roster, including the three-month absence of star guard Paige Bueckers. There were humiliating losses to unranked teams. And on Monday, they’d lost key bench contributor Dorka Juhász to a gruesome wrist fracture.

Even for UConn, the 11-time national champion powerhouse, the odds of them making a run at the national championship seemed long during the low points. And this week, few pundits had them beating the reigning champion Stanford Cardinal on Friday without Juhász.

The players, and head coach Geno Auriemma, knew all of this. Instead of letting the adversity break them, they entered Friday night’s game stronger for it and outlasted Stanford in a defensive-minded battle, 63-58, to advance to the national championship game against South Carolina on Sunday, UConn’s first appearance there since 2016.

“So many years that we’ve come here, we’ve been a No. 1 seed, we had the best team going in. Everybody knew it, and it was, let’s just go do our thing and I don’t think anybody is going to be able to beat us if we play our A game,” Auriemma said.

“This year, I didn’t think any of that.”

UConn led Stanford for most of the game Friday night, but the advantage never felt safe.

Azzi Fudd and Aaliyah Edwards got into foul trouble in the second quarter, forcing Auriemma to dip into his reserves earlier than expected. Christyn Williams struggled to get into a shooting rhythm, going just 3-for-13 from the floor. Olivia Nelson-Ododa didn’t convert her first field goal until late in the third quarter, the result of a physical battle with Stanford’s Cameron Brink. And Paige Bueckers, UConn’s de-facto closer, was subbed out with 5:07 remaining in the game and later returned walking gingerly on her leg.

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So, when Stanford started to cut into UConn’s lead with under two minutes to play, it still seemed like anyone’s game. That was especially true after UConn, up 58-54 with 34 seconds left, beat Stanford’s press and Evina Westbrook inexplicably threw an errant pass out of bounds, giving the ball right back to the Cardinal.

In that moment, as Haley Jones hit a jumper at the other end, UConn could have caved. But this type of challenge was nothing they hadn’t seen before.

“We’re still not complete. We’re still missing Dorka and Aubrey [Griffin],” Nika Mühl said after the game. “We just stuck together, like every other time. I don’t think there was ever a doubt in ourselves.”

Fittingly, Fudd and Williams, who combined to shoot 24 percent from the floor Friday, sealed the win for UConn with clutch free throws down the stretch. Bueckers finished with a team-high 14 points, and Nelson-Ododa and Edwards had near double-doubles to help the Huskies out-rebound Stanford 46-37, but no player’s stat line jumped off the page.

Throughout UConn’s season, when one player went down, another stepped up. On Friday night, the recipe was the same, just more resolute after months of bending but not breaking.

Auriemma won’t think his team is the better of the two taking the floor Sunday night in the national championship game. South Carolina, the No. 1-ranked squad all season long, beat the Huskies (with Bueckers) by 16 points back in November.

UConn was a different team then. They were more complete, as the injuries hadn’t set in yet, but they were also more fallible. They hadn’t yet weathered the punches and come out better for it on the other side.

That other side, now, could very well include an NCAA trophy.

“Sometimes you don’t have to have the best team to win this game,” Auriemma said. “Sometimes you just have to play the best that night, and you have to make some big plays in big moments, and you do just enough with what you have.”

Hannah Withiam is the Managing Editor at Just Women’s Sports. She previously served as an editor at The Athletic and a reporter at the New York Post. Follow her on Twitter @HannahWithiam.

U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that the USWNT will play their last home game on July 16th in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Send-Off Match against Costa Rica will take place at Washington, DC’s Audi Field — home to both the Washington Spirit and DC United — at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 16th. The friendly rounds out a four-game Olympic run-up campaign under incoming head coach Emma Hayes’ side, with the last two set to feature the finalized 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team roster.

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Hayes will appear on the USWNT sideline for the first time this June, helming the team as they embark on a two-game series against Korea Republic hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on June 1st followed by Allianz Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 4th. 

The team is then scheduled to meet a talented Mexico squad on July 13th at Gotham FC’s Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, where the Olympic-bound lineup will attempt to rewrite February’s shocking 2-0 loss to El Tri Femenil in the group stages of this year’s Concacaf W Gold Cup. And while clear roster favorites have emerged from both of this year’s Gold Cup and SheBelives Cup rosters, a spate of recent and recurring injuries means making it to the Olympics is still largely anyone’s game.

Broadcast and streaming channels for the USWNT's final July 16th friendly at Audi Field include TNT, truTV, Universo, Max, and Peacock.

The USA Basketball Women's National Team is still considering Caitlin Clark for a spot on the Paris Olympics squad, says selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti. 

On Monday, Rizzotti told the AP that the committee will be evaluating the college phenom’s Olympic prospects by keeping a close eye on her first few weeks of WNBA play with Indiana.

The move is somewhat unconventional. While Clark was invited to participate in the 14-player national team training camp held earlier this month — the last camp before Team USA’s roster drops — she was unable to attend due to it coinciding with Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

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Judging by the immense talent spread throughout the league in what might be their most hyped season to date, competition for a piece of the Olympic pie could be fiercer than ever before.

"You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it's for now or the future," said Rizzotti. "We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It's got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It's still not going to be fair to some people."

Of course, Clark isn’t the first rookie the committee has made exceptions for. Coming off an exceptional college season that saw her averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 4 assists per game for UConn, Breanna Stewart was tapped to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil less than two weeks after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm. Eight years prior, fellow No. 1 pick Candace Parker punched her ticket to the 2008 Games in Beijing just two weeks after making her first appearance for the L.A. Sparks.

In the lead-up to Paris’ Opening Ceremony on July 26th, USA Basketball Women’s National Team is scheduled to play a pair of exhibition games. They'll first go up against the WNBA's finest at the July 20th WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix before facing Germany in London on July 23rd.

While an official roster announcement date hasn’t yet been issued, players won’t find out if they’ve made this year’s Olympic cut until at least June 1st.

For the first time in history, three different WNBA teams have completely sold out of season ticket plans well before the league's May 14th kick-off.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect, attribute it to this year’s tenacious rookie class, or look to the skyrocketing visibility of veteran players across the board. But no matter the cause, facts are facts: Tickets to the 2024 WNBA season are selling like never before. 

On Monday, the Dallas Wings became the third team to sell out of season ticket memberships in the league’s 27-year history. The announcement from Arlington came shortly after the Atlanta Dream issued their own season ticket sell-out statement, also on Monday, and almost seven weeks after the back-to-back WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces made headlines by becoming the first-ever WNBA team to sell out their season ticket allotment.   

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According to the Wings, season ticket memberships will fill nearly 40% of the 6,251 seats inside their home arena, College Park Center. The club also said that their overall ticket revenue has ballooned to the tune of 220% this year, spanning not just season tickets but also a 1,200% increase in single ticket sales. There’s currently a waitlist to become a Dallas season ticket holder, a status that comes with extra incentives like playoff presale access and discounts on additional single-game tickets. 

In Atlanta, season tickets aren't the only thing flying off the shelves. The Dream also announced that they broke their own record for single-game ticket sales during a recent limited presale campaign. Sunday was reportedly their most lucrative day, with five different games totally selling out Gateway Center Arena. Individual tickets for all upcoming matchups will hit the market this Thursday at 8 a.m., while a waitlist for season ticket memberships will open up next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

"Excitement around women's sports, particularly basketball, is at an all-time high and nowhere is that felt more than here in Atlanta," Dream president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in the team’s statement. "We’ve continued a record-setting growth trajectory over the past three years under new ownership — both on and off the court — and 2024 is shaping up to be our best season yet."

As of Tuesday, season ticket sales revenue for Caitlin Clark’s hotly anticipated Indiana Fever debut haven’t yet been announced by the club. But if these numbers are any indication — not to mention the explosive demand for Fever away games felt by teams around the country — it won’t be long before we see some scale-tipping figures coming out of Indianapolis.

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

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The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.