With ratings at an all-time high, record attendance numbers and NIL deals galore, women’s college basketball is having a moment. This isn’t an anomaly. The game has been growing consistently in quality and coverage throughout the decades, and now it’s starting to reach its potential.
It’s not just the attention that’s rising—the new kids can play! This season has introduced a plethora of talented freshman who are making an impact on their programs on day one—something unheard of, minus a few rare exceptions, before.
With so many year-one college players making noise, we’ll be taking a look at freshmen throughout the rest of the season, highlighting some of the players you should be keeping an eye on—not just this season but also in the years to come.
We begin not with one of the most known names, but with a big from the Bronx balling in Maryland: Hawa Doumbouya.
Doumbouya is far from being a leader or star at Maryland, but she has all the tools to be great. At 6-foot-7, she has the frame and build to be a force on the inside for the Terps. There isn’t much tape of her at the collegiate level, as she has played in just seven games. But when she has played, it’s been encouraging.
She played eight minutes in the season opener against the Towson Tigers and…
