For football fans who are joining college basketball, particularly the women’s college basketball party after the finale of the NFL season, welcome. You have tuned in at the perfect time.
Women’s college basketball is deep in conference schedules, with rivalry match-ups weekly leading up to conference tournaments and March Madness around the corner.
What teams are contending? What stars will look to step into the paths carved by the likes of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese?
Here’s all you need to know as March awaits.
Big Teams You Need to Know
Despite winning the national title last season and only conceding three losses in the last three seasons combined, the South Carolina Gamecocks have dropped three games this season: one early in the season to now former number one UCLA, one on Super Bowl Sunday to SEC newcomer Texas behind the play of sophomore Madison Booker, and one this week by the UConn Huskies 87-58 at home.
This was the Gamecocks’ worst loss at home since Dawn Staley took over the helm in 2008. The Gamecocks are now ranked 6th in the country, their first time out of the top five all season. However, this by no means takes the Gamecocks out of the running to return to the Final Four and title game. You can never count out a team coached by three-time national champion Staley.
However, the Gamecocks’ recent losses left an opening for the top spot in the SEC and an important matchup yesterday between the Texas Longhorns and LSU Tigers. The Longhorns perhaps are not talked about enough for their potential for a long run in the tournament behind long-time head coach Vic Schaefer and sophomore sensation Madison Booker, who is averaging 16.6 points per game. They put any doubt of their talent and place at the top of the SEC to rest by defeating LSU, who has a team full of weapons with senior Aneesah Morrow and junior star Flau’Jae Johnson. Again, despite this loss, expect to see LSU with a high seed in the tournament, most likely a two-seed, with Texas and South Carolina taking one seeds. Additionally, expect to see a large draw of SEC teams make the tournament as the conference this year is extremely competitive, with seven teams in the top 25.
Outside of the SEC, perhaps the most dominant teams this season have been UCLA, Notre Dame, USC, and UConn. Sophomore Kiki Rice and junior transfer Lauren Betts lead UCLA. The Bruins had earned the top spot in the rankings for knocking off the Gamecocks in November. UCLA had been tearing through their opponents in the Big 10, going 11-0, until they met their Los Angeles rivals last week and lost to USC, with Trojans sophomore JuJu Watkins contributing more than half of her team’s points with 38 in this crosstown rivalry. This loss dropped UCLA from the number one spot in the top 25 to #3 and moved USC up to #4 in the polls. Again, despite this loss, UCLA and USC should expect to have one or two seeds going into the tournament.
Perhaps one of the most exciting teams to watch this season is now #1 Notre Dame with their triple threat of Hannah Hidalgo, Olivia Miles (leading the nation in triple-doubles), and Sonia Cintron. Notre Dame is undefeated in conference play, and Hidalgo is second in the conference in points per game behind Florida State’s Ta’Niya Latson, who leads the ACC and the nation. The Fighting Irish took two losses early in the season to TCU and Utah in the Cayman Islands tournament but also took big wins against USC, Texas, and UConn.
The last team to watch is a team with a tradition of winning in big moments and the tournament, the UConn Huskies. No team has won more national titles than the Huskies, but it has been nine years since the title has returned to Storrs, Connecticut. The Huskies took two losses to USC and Notre Dame early in the season and most recently fell to Tennessee. However, they bounced back, beating South Carolina by 29 points, which placed them firmly back in the fifth spot in the top 25 this week.
There is no doubt the Huskies are talented, with freshman sensation Sarah Strong and fifth-year seniors Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd trying to will their team to a championship, especially after both Bueckers and Fudd have battled injuries throughout their careers. The criticism of the Huskies is their conference is rather weak, so time will tell when they enter the tournament how far they go, but expect them to have a high seed, either a two or three.
Big Stars
Despite the absence of the 2024 WNBA rookie class, including Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Rickea Jackson, Cameron Brink, Aaliyah Edwards, and Kamilla Cardoso, there are plenty of stars left for this year’s March Madness tournament.
This year’s big stars are the sensational sophomore class, including Madison Booker (mentioned above), Hannah Hidalgo, JuJu Watkins, and Audi Crooks. Although only 5’6”, Hannah Hidalgo is second in the nation in scoring, third in steals, shooting 42% from three-point range, and notched her 1,000th career point only 44 games into her career.
It is hard to follow up on what USC’s Juju Watkins did her freshman year, setting the single scoring record for a freshman and scoring 51 points, the most in a single game, but she has continued her dominance this season. What makes Watkins so special is her consistency – she ranks fifth in the nation in scoring and has scored in double figures in all of her games this season, including her most recent 38 points against UCLA. However, it didn’t take long for Watkins’ freshman scoring record to be broken as Sunday night Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes set the NCAA single-season freshman scoring record with 55 points.
Iowa State sophomore Audi Crooks doesn’t get enough praise and recognition for her game. She recently became the first center from the Big 12 to reach the milestone of 600 points this season. She is fourth in the nation in points and the fastest player in Iowa State history to reach 1,000 points in only 49 games. Despite her team flying under the radar this year, expect her to have a big presence in the Big 12 and March Madness tournaments.
Headliners for March
Again, despite this tournament missing the rivalry between Caitlin Clark and Iowa and Angel Reese and LSU, there are plenty of storylines to follow. First, will UConn get over the hump and finally win a title again? It has been nine years since the Huskies lifted the trophy, and for fifth-year seniors Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, who are in the top five in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio and three-point percentage (47%), this is their last chance at redemption.
Second, Neile Ivey is still searching for her first national title win as Notre Dame’s head coach. Ivey won two championships as an assistant alongside Muffet McGraw but is still searching for a title of her own. If she wins this year, she will be one of the only players to bring home a championship as a former player, assistant, and now head coach.
Third, can the California schools make a deep run? Last year, UCLA didn’t make it out of the Sweet 16 round, losing to LSU, who would go on to the Final Four, and USC made it to the Elite Eight before dropping to UConn. Both teams have been in the top 10 throughout the entire season, but can the West Coast teams make a deep run this year and get to the Final Four? UCLA has never made it to the Final Four in its program’s history, and for USC, it has been since the mid-1980s when legends Cynthia Cooper and Cheryl Miller led the team to three Final Fours and two national championships in 1983 and 1984.
The California schools aren’t the only ones seeking their first title. Vic Schaefer at Texas is looking for one of his own as he won the 2011 national title as an associate head coach at Texas A&M. Schaefer is hungry to prove he has what it takes to get back to the Final Four and national title game. He is no stranger to it. In his former stint at Mississippi State, the Bulldogs were national runners-up two years in a row (2017 & 2018). So far, in Texas, he and the Longhorns have yet to crack the ceiling of the Elite Eight and bust through to the Final Four. Maybe this will be their year.
Lastly, are the Goliaths – will LSU or South Carolina end up back on top? No team has seen a turnaround to dominance quite like South Carolina. Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks have not missed the Sweet Sixteen since 2014, the Elite Eight since 2015, and have been to the Final Four six times in the past ten years, winning a title in 2017, 2022, and 2024. And then there are the LSU Tigers. Since Kim Mulkey took control of the program in 2021, LSU has been to the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight in back-to-back years in 2023 and 2024, making it to the Final Four to go ahead and win the title in 2023.
Yes, this tournament will be different without the logo threes of Caitlin Clark and the rebounding double-double machine of Angel Reese, but that doesn’t mean that this tournament doesn’t have stars and storylines alike, and viewership will still be high. Perhaps we won’t see a number as high as last season, with an average of 18.7 million fans watching the national championship game. Still, we should see numbers in the double digits as women’s basketball’s popularity is fully solidified even without Clark, thanks to the new stars carrying the sport forward.
