Eight years ago, Becky Hammon made history as the first full-time female assistant coach in the NBA. On Monday, she was officially announced as the next head coach of the Las Vegas Aces, three days after signing a five-year deal that will reportedly make her the highest-paid coach in the WNBA.

Hammon’s return to the league might have come as a surprise to those who thought she’d be the first woman to serve as a head coach in the NBA. Since Hammon joined Gregg Popovich’s San Antonio Spurs staff in 2014, six other women now hold assistant coaching jobs in the NBA, including Teresa Weatherspoon, Hammon’s former New York Liberty teammate who is currently with the New Orleans Pelicans.

On Monday, Hammon called NBA jobs “hard to get.”

“In some ways, I feel like the NBA maybe is close,” she said. “In other ways, I feel like they’re a long ways off from hiring [a woman head coach]. I don’t know when it could happen.”

Hammon has interviewed for NBA head coaching jobs on multiple occasions, and said that, in some ways, she feels like she “was very close” to finally landing a head coaching gig. When Aces owner Mark Davis and president Nikki Fargas met with her about the Las Vegas opening, she knew she was ready to lead a basketball team.

“I sat in a lot of head-coaching interviews,” Hammon said. “Two things that people always said: ‘You’ve only been in San Antonio, and you’ve never been a head coach.’ Well, Mark Davis met me. Nikki met me. And they said, ‘That’s a head coach right now.'”

But Hammon isn’t looking at the Aces as a stepping stone. It’s a head coaching job in a major professional sports league, and it’ sa league she spent 16 years playing in — eight with the Liberty and eight with the San Antonio Stars. While she had never closed the door on the WNBA, Hammon said she hadn’t intended to leave the NBA until the Aces pursued her.

“A lot did go into this decision, a lot of sleepless nights,” Hammon said. “I came to the conclusion that this was the best spot for me and my family, and an opportunity for me to sit in the big chair and be a head coach of a major professional sports league.”

Fargas said Hammon made such an impression when the Aces retired her jersey in September that they decided to try to lure her away from San Antonio.

“Being the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces is a step forward and a step in the right direction for myself and for women’s basketball,” Hammon said. “I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this opportunity that I have. There’s something to being a head coach.

“I feel like I’m ready to have my own team. And this is the organization that made it very, very obvious they wanted me really, really bad. And so it’s always good to be wanted.”

She also recognizes how big of a deal it is that more WNBA teams are hiring women. Now, six of 12 teams have female head coaches, with the New York Liberty expected to make it seven when they officially name Sandy Brondello as head coach. The Phoenix Mercury are the only other team with a job opening.

“It matters because representation matters,” Hammon said. “I think once we can start peeling back the layers of society and what is viewed as [a leader], we can start hiring people based on what they bring to the table.

“There are so many great women coaches out there who should be leading their own teams and given those opportunities. We have never had these press conferences when it came to a man leading a women’s team, but there are all these conversations about women leading a men’s team.”

Hammon also wants the narrative between men’s and women’s basketball to change.

“Quite frankly, I’ve been watching the WNBA for a long time and stealing all their plays for a while,” she said. “[WNBA coaches] have great basketball minds, and they are 100 percent invested in what they do, and they are the best at what they do.

Long thought to be Popovich’s replacement when he retires, Hammon now takes over one of the best teams in the WNBA. Bill Laimbeer will remain with the Aces and assist in roster-building during free agency while Hammon finishes out the NBA season with the Spurs. Las Vegas ended 2021 as the second-best team during the regular season before falling to the Mercury in the semifinals.

Despite a few shocking upsets in the early rounds of the 2025 NCAA soccer tournament, the ACC has retained its status as the conference to beat, with the powerhouse sending three teams to this season's College Cup semifinals on Friday.

With two tickets to Monday's national championship match on the line, four-time title-winners and No. 3-seed Florida State will take on College Cup debutants TCU in Friday's first semi, with the No. 2 Horned Frogs booking their semifinals spot by ousting fellow SEC standout No. 1 Vanderbilt 2-1 last Saturday.

The nightcap, on the other hand, will be an all-ACC affair, as No. 2 Duke continues their hunt for a first-ever national title against the tournament's overall No. 1 seed, Stanford.

The three-time NCAA champ Cardinal has been unstoppable, outscoring their opponents 21-5 across the tournament's first four rounds to set up a season-first matchup with the Blue Devils.

The 2025 College Cup will take place for the first time at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, home of the NWSL's Kansas City Current.

How to watch the 2025 College Cup semifinals

Friday's 2025 College Cup semifinals will begin with No. 2 TCU vs. No. 3 Florida State at 6 PM ET, with No. 1 Stanford's clash against No. 2 Duke kicking off at 8:45 PM ET.

Both semifinals — plus Monday's 7PM ET championship match — will air live on ESPNU.

Playa Society is honoring the 25th anniversary of the classic sports film "Love & Basketball" this week, with the popular women's basketball outfitter dropping a capsule collection entitled "First Quarter: Ball Better Than You" — an homage to one of the film's iconic quotes.

"This is a love story, about our love for 'Love & Basketball,'" notes Playa Society about the collection. "Our love for [lead character] Monica, who served as the first representation of an unapologetic female athlete in film. Our love for [writer and director] Gina Prince-Bythewood for her persistence in delivering culture and truth. And our love for the energy of it all that inspired Playa Society to fill in the gaps for women in sports."

"I am so humbled by the enduring impact of the film on both ballers and non-athletes, who are inspired by characters who believe in themselves enough to fight for an impossible dream," Prince-Bythewood said of the project.

With New York Liberty teammates and girlfriends Natasha Cloud and Izzy Harrison serving as models, the "First Quarter" collection includes T-shirts, hoodies, and more.

This week's drop is just the first in the works between Prince-Bythewood and Playa Society founder Esther Wallace, with the LA Sentinel describing their collaboration as "blending nostalgia, culture, and women's sports in a way that honors the film while pushing the narrative forward."

How to purchase from Playa Society's "Love & Basketball" collection

All items from the "First Quarter" collection are now available in limited quantities at PlayaSociety.com.

The inaugural North American iteration of World Sevens Football (W7F) kicks off in Fort Lauderdale on Friday, when eight standout clubs will battle for three days for the the largest share of the 7v7 competition's $5 million prize pool.

All eight clubs boast championship backgrounds, including the reigning NWSL Shield-winning Kansas City Current, 2023 NWSL Shield-winners San Diego Wave, Liga MX Femenil Apertura winner Tigres UANL, current Northern Super League Shield-winner AFC Toronto, and more.

This weekend's edition is the second-ever W7F tournament, after the new venture launched with a Europe-centric competition in Portugal last May, crowning Bayern Munich as its debut champions.

In W7F, the 11v11 clubs instead field seven players per side on a pitch half the size of a regulation field, with matches comprised of two 15-minute halves along with smaller goals, no offside rule, and rolling substitutions throughout the games.

All eight clubs will compete in the group stage on Friday and Saturday, with the top four teams advancing to Sunday's knockout rounds.

How to watch this weekend's W7F tournament

The North American debut of W7F kicks off when the NWSL's Kansas City Current faces Brazilian powerhouse Clube de Regatas do Flamengo at 5 PM ET on Friday.

All games, including Sunday's 4:30 PM ET championship match, will air live on HBO Max as well we either TNT or truTV.

The SEC displayed its basketball dominance on Thursday's courts, as the conference won all four of the 2025 ACC/SEC Challenge Day 2 matchups to feature at least one Top-25 team.

No. 2 Texas handled No. 11 North Carolina 79-64 while No. 3 South Carolina and No. 13 Ole Miss survived nail-biters against No. 22 Louisville and No. 18 Notre Dame, respectively.

"I thought [our players] got out and made big plays for themselves in the fourth and building the five-point lead," said South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley. "It was a turning point for us, whether we were going to succumb to losing the game or fight to get back in it."

No one had a better night than No. 5 LSU, however, as the Tigers faced their season's first Power Four opponent to a 93-77 result over unranked Duke, erasing a 14-point deficit behind six double-digit LSU scorers — led by 18 points from star guard Flau'jae Johnson.

"We scored 93 tonight, and look how poor we played in the first quarter. We were behind. Scoring the ball is not going to be a problem," said Tigers head coach Kim Mulkey. "Our problem is we have to just continue to get better on the defensive end and take care of the ball."

Across the 16 total 2025 ACC/SEC Challenge games, the SEC took 13 victories, with only unranked Syracuse, Virginia Tech, and SMU earning ACC wins — over Auburn, Florida, and Arkansas, respectively — this week.

How to watch Top-25 NCAA basketball this weekend

This weekend's NCAA docket sees the nonconference schedule cool down, with No. 16 USC hosting No. 21 Washington in the only ranked battle.

The Trojans and Huskies will tip off in LA at 8 PM ET on Sunday, with live coverage airing on the Big Ten Network.