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.

With half of the Elite Eight now set, a few Big Ten underdogs still have a shot at disrupting the No. 1 seed stronghold at the 2025 NCAA volleyball tournament this weekend.

The No. 3-seed Purdue Boilermakers are through to the quarterfinals after defeating No. 2-seed SMU 3-1 on Thursday, while the No. 4-seed Indiana Hoosiers, No. 3 seed-Wisconsin Badgers, and the still-undefeated overall No. 1 seed Nebraska Cornhuskers all face stiff Sweet Sixteen competition on Friday afternoon.

Coming off a strong regular season, the Big Ten could still field half of the quarterfinal round — though that would require the first No. 1-seed upset of the 2025 national tournament in the form of an Indiana victory over top-seeded Texas.

Bolstered by their defensive leader, senior middle blocker Madi Sell, the Hoosiers booked just their second-ever Sweet Sixteen trip with last week's win over No. 5 Colorado, with Indiana now hoping their lucky run continues against the 2022 and 2023 champion Longhorns.

Meanwhile, the No. 1 Huskers will look to keep rolling against No. 4-seed Kansas while the No. 3 Badgers aim to snag another Big Ten spot in the Elite Eight by ousting No. 2-seed Stanford on Friday.

How to watch the 2025 NCAA volleyball tournament this weekend

The NCAA volleyball tournament's Sweet Sixteen action will wrap with four games on Friday, starting with No. 1 Texas vs. No. 4 Indiana at 12 PM ET.

The Elite Eight will then meet at the net on Saturday and Sunday to determine the last-standing teams heading to next week's Final Four in Kansas City.

All of this weekend's NCAA tournament games will air live across ESPN platforms.

Team USA is on a roll, officially taking the four-game 2025 Rivalry Series against Canada before the slate of friendlies is even over, with the US collecting three consecutive wins so far — and one shot left at making it a clean sweep.

The US downed their northern neighbors by a commanding 10-4 scoreline in Edmonton on Wednesday, marking Team USA's first-ever 10-goal victory against the reigning Olympic champs — all while upping the 2025 series' goal tally to 20-6.

While each team fine-tunes rosters ahead of the 2026 Olympics, one test remains for both international hockey titans before the Winter Games take the ice in February.

"The work doesn't stop. Our Olympic team is not named. There's still one more game to go," said USA captain Kendall Coyne Schofield, acknowledging that her squad is not taking their foot off the gas despite the recent lopsided results.

"We have one more game against them before the Olympics," echoed Canada captain Marie-Philip Poulin. "We're all aware of that."

How to watch Team USA vs. Canada in the 2025 Rivalry Series

The puck drops on the final match of the sixth annual hockey Rivalry Series between the USA and Canada in Edmonton, Alberta, on Saturday.

Live coverage of the clash will begin at 9 PM ET on the NHL Network.

The latest FIFA women's soccer rankings dropped on Thursday, with Spain widening their lead at No. 1 after winning a second consecutive UEFA Nations League title earlier this month.

The USWNT held steady at No. 2, ceding 7.48 points after losing an October friendly to No. 22 Portugal before going on to secure four straight wins over Portugal, No. 35 New Zealand, and No. 13 Italy to close out 2025.

Elsewhere in the FIFA Top 10, No. 3 Germany and No. 6 Brazil both saw boosts after successful fall runs, while Canada skidded to No. 10 amid a recent five-match winless streak, with Les Rouges's last victory coming against No. 43 Costa Rica last June.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Just Women’s Sports (@justwomenssports)

The biggest changes, however, occurred outside the top ranks, as No. 96 Nicaragua, No. 118 Burkina Faso, and No. 137 American Samoa all rose by 16 spots.

Notably, upcoming USWNT opponent Paraguay saw the largest drop in this month's Top 50, sliding five spots to No. 46.

Ultimately, as the USWNT battled to keep pace in a year of roster experimentation — and without a major competition on the team's 2025 docket — the many international competitions in Europe benefitted victors and challenged losers in this week's FIFA rankings update.

The No. 16 USC Trojans are gearing up for another top-ranked test, hosting the reigning national champion No. 1 UConn Huskies in the weekend's flashiest NCAA women's basketball matchup on Saturday.

Coming off their second ranked win of the season, USC topped No. 20 Washington 59-50 last Sunday, with 22 points and 12 rebounds from freshman Jazzy Davidson helping pull the Trojans to a 7-2 record.

"I saw a resolve in our team," said head coach Lindsay Gottlieb afterwards. "I knew we could get the next stop, I knew we could get the next play."

USC will face a particularly familiar foe against the Huskies — this time without sidelined star junior JuJu Watkins — after UConn knocked the Trojans out of the NCAA tournament two years in a row.

Notably, sophomore guard Kayleigh Heckel departed USC over the summer for the Huskies, with the former Trojan averaging 7.7 points per game entering Saturday's clash with her old team.

"I just try to take one game at a time, but I'm excited to go back," Heckel said ahead of her first trip back to LA since transferring. "I had a great freshman year there, and I learned a lot, and it was a great experience, a lot of fond memories. So I'm looking forward to it."

How to watch No. 1 UConn vs. No. 16 USC on Saturday

The Trojans will host the Huskies with tip-off set for 5:30 PM ET on Saturday.

Live coverage of the clash will air on FOX.