Now that Caitlin Clark is a member of the Indiana Fever, it’s time to turn the page on the 2024 WNBA Draft and look ahead to what could be an even more talented class in 2025. This is the last group of players to be eligible for a pandemic bonus year, so the WNBA will have a true double draft of fourth- and fifth-year seniors, which will simplify the process for general managers who no longer have to wonder who will declare.

The relevant exception to that is the medical redshirt. Players still have an additional year of eligibility if they sit out for a season due to injury, as is the case with the top prospect on the board. However, the number of players who fall into that category is relatively small.

Given that the draft order isn’t set until after the 2024 WNBA season, which has yet to commence, this isn’t a mock draft. Instead, it’s a list of the top players without regard to team fit. This exercise also only considers domestic prospects, though we should expect internationals to factor heavily on draft day in 2025. After all, three non-NCAA players were taken in the first round of Monday’s draft.

GO DEEPER

WNBA Draft grades: Fever earn A for picking Clark, Sky receive C+ even with Angel Reese

Much is expected to change between now and then, but probably not the…

In August 2019, two swim coaches at San Jose (Calif.) State reported allegations they had heard about University of Kentucky head swimming coach Lars Jorgensen to a Title IX officer at their school. The allegations were that Jorgensen had been in a relationship with one of his swimmers at an earlier coaching stop and that he had sexually assaulted a woman on the swim staff at Kentucky. The Title IX officer at San Jose State then alerted a counterpart at Kentucky.

It was at least the third time Kentucky was made aware or should have been aware of an allegation of misconduct by Jorgensen.

In June 2012, Mark Howard, a former assistant swimming coach at the University of Toledo, sent separate emails to Gary Conelly, then Kentucky’s head swim coach, and UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart. “This is no joke at all and I cannot stomach the fact that (Jorgensen) will be coaching women again,” Howard wrote to Conelly, who had recently added Jorgensen as an associate head coach. He informed both men that a swimmer had told him that she had been in a sexual relationship with Jorgensen while he coached her at Toledo.

In October 2014, a former Toledo softball coach repeated the allegation that Jorgensen had been in a “long-term romantic relationship” with a student-athlete in a…

Congrats to South Carolina, which was the No. 1 team in all but one edition of this season’s rankings. The Gamecocks proved they were the best team in college basketball for all of 2023-24, just like last year, only this time they were able to cap their remarkable regular season with a national championship. South Carolina’s success was the primary validation of these power rankings, though the last poll did feature 15 of the Sweet 16 teams in the top 18 (apologies to Duke).

In case you’re interested in how well my first power rankings of 2023-24 held up, take a gander! Oregon State really came out of nowhere.

As we look ahead to 2024-25, a reminder that this is an indicator of how teams stand right now, though WNBA Draft decisions and transfers — keep an eye on Oregon State and Washington State following the dissolution of the Pac-12 — could substantially change the makeup of rosters. I’ve priced in some player improvement, particularly for younger players with high pedigree, but otherwise tried to assess these squads based on how the players finished this season. Let me know in the comments if you think I’m overlooking anyone.

Almost famous: Kentucky, Michigan State, Vanderbilt

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Why South Carolina over UConn?

South Carolina is losing Kamilla Cardoso, but otherwise…

Former Virginia Tech guard Georgia Amoore is transferring to Kentucky, she announced on social media Thursday, following former Hokies women’s basketball coach Kenny Brooks, who accepted the coaching job with the Wildcats on March 26.

Amoore entered the transfer portal Monday and had a “do not contact,” meaning she did not want coaches to reach out to her. That implied that Amoore likely already knew where she wanted to go or had a few finalists.

The news of Amoore heading to Kentucky comes a day after Virginia Tech announced it hired Megan Duffy as its next women’s basketball coach. Duffy spent the past five years coaching Marquette, taking the Golden Eagles to the NCAA Tournament three times.

Amoore started 124 of 126 games over her four-year tenure with the Hokies. She averaged 18.8 points, 6.8 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 0.9 steals on 41.2 percent shooting this season, leading the team in assists and steals. Her points, assists and field goal percentage were all career highs. She has career averages of 14.7 points, 5.2 assists and 2.6 rebounds.

The Victoria, Australia, native had a storied career with the program, initially being named to the ACC All-Freshman team after the 2020-21 season. She continued to stack accolades from there. They include being named an AP…

It could be an elevator, a hallway or a corridor this weekend at one of the Final Fours, the men’s in Arizona or the women’s in Cleveland. Greg Sankey, commissioner of the SEC, has a team in each, so doubtless he will be at both. Len Perna, meanwhile, has an idea, and if he sees Sankey he may do everything in his power to get a minute.

At most, Sankey will smile politely, nod and keep the conversation short. For now, the chances of Sankey and his conference wanting any part of Perna’s idea are about as good as the SEC giving up football as a varsity sport.

Because that’s essentially what it would be doing here.

The notion of a college football “Super League” has been percolating for a while, and one idea finally went public on Wednesday, when The Athletic reported that a number of power brokers, including the presidents at Syracuse and West Virginia and Perna, the CEO of TurnkeyZRG, were pushing for a 70-team permanent group, employing athletes as players, making its own rules and leaving non-football sports to the existing conferences, as is.

Publicly, the reaction among SEC power brokers was crickets: Sankey and the presidents at…

By Chantel Jennings, Sabreena Merchant and Hunter Patterson

Virginia Tech star guard Georgia Amoore has entered the transfer portal, a source with access to the transfer portal confirmed Monday.

Amoore has marked “do not contact,” meaning that she does not want coaches to reach out to her. That implies that Amoore likely already knows where she wants to go or has a few finalists. Her decision comes on the heels of former Hokies women’s basketball coach Kenny Brooks leaving to accept the coaching job at Kentucky.

Amoore started 124 of 126 games over her four-year tenure at Virginia Tech. She averaged 18.8 points, 6.8 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 0.9 steals on 41.2 percent shooting this season, leading the Hokies in assists and steals. Her points, assists and field goal percentage were all career highs.

Amoore has career averages of 14.7 points, 5.2 assists and 2.6 rebounds.

The Victoria, Australia, native had a storied career at Virginia Tech, initially being named to the ACC All-Freshman team after the 2020-21 season. She continued to stack accolades from there. They include being named an AP All-American, two-time All-ACC, two-time All-ACC tournament and the ACC tournament MVP in 2023.

The Hokies lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Baylor this season.

What this…

Kentucky has hired Virginia Tech women’s basketball coach Kenny Brooks, Virginia Tech announced Tuesday. The deal is for five years, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Brooks was a big swing for Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart, who understood the importance of investing in a women’s basketball coach during this time of significant growth of the sport. Kentucky is also in the process of completing an $82 million renovation of the Memorial Coliseum, where the UK women’s team plays its home games, which is expected to be finished ahead of the 2024-25 season.

The Wildcats are expected to make Brooks the third-highest-paid coach in the SEC behind LSU’s Kim Mulkey ($3.15 million per year) and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley ($3.1 million per year). While the exact dollar amount is not known, the contract will be more than the $1.1 million a year that Brooks was making at Virginia Tech. After leading the Hokies to their first ACC tournament title and Final Four appearance last season, Brooks signed a contract extension with Virginia Tech last July that would’ve kept him in Blacksburg through the 2028-29 season.

Brooks will replace Kyra Elzy, who was fired after four seasons on March 11 after the Wildcats finished this season 12-20 and failed to make the…

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Good morning! How much is your buyout?

Upsets! Kentucky’s no-good day

The first day of the men’s NCAA Tournament featured some juicy results. None were as shocking as No. 3 seed Kentucky’s stunning loss to No. 14 seed Oakland: 

• The Wildcats probably should’ve won this game, but what can you do when a bench player comes in and hits 10 3-pointers the way Jack Gohlke did? The Division II transfer who “looks like a high school history teacher,” per one teammate, saved the game of his life for the big stage. Hard to beat.
  
• Zoom out, and Kentucky coach John Calipari might actually be in trouble. “Previously unfathomable questions have to be asked,” writes Kyle Tucker. The Wildcats’ last four seasons ended like this: missed NCAA Tournament, first-round exit, second-round exit, first-round exit. That’s not good enough at Kentucky
  
• Calipari’s buyout is $33 million, which may sound cheap to college football fans, but remains financially onerous. That number drops to $27 million after next season. Hm. 

Kentucky wasn’t the only upset yesterday, either: 

• No. 11 seed Duquesne won the Lame Duck Coach title, beating sixth-seeded BYU to

The full NCAA Tournament bracket has been released with UConn leading the way as No. 1 overall.

(Editor’s note: This is part of the Bracket Central Series, an inside look at the run-up to the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, along with analysis and picks during the tournaments.)

March Madness is upon us.

Well, technically it began during a wild conference tournament season ahead of the NCAA Tournament. But now, we get the really good stuff. The Cinderellas. The players you hadn’t heard of before this week who are now household names. The buzzer-beaters. Ultimately, though, we all want to know who will be cutting down the nets in April. And so we present: the top 16 national title contenders in our NCAA Tournament Power Rankings.

We will update this ranking after every round and until the Final Four begins. If top-seeded teams fall, others will take their place. If some lower-seeded teams look stronger than expected, they’ll move up the list.

Who’s on top to start? Of course it’s Connecticut. Here’s a look at where things stand as we enter Thursday’s first round:

Sakima Walker hated wearing pants designed for boys.

As the only daughter in a family with four sons, she constantly heard how much she resembled her older brother, how they looked like twins despite their 3-year age gap. She didn’t want the comparisons to extend to their outfits too. But Walker was always tall for her age — she wore a size 9 in women’s shoes as a fifth grader and hit 6 feet entering her sophomore year of high school — so it was either wear pants like her brother’s or don an ankle-exposing style that might be considered a fashion faux pas.

Walker, now a 6-foot-6 senior playing for No. 1 South Carolina, grew to embrace the latter.

“Still to this day, I love my high waters,” she said. “I learned to love my high waters because I knew that’s as good as it’s gonna get for me.”

When Walker takes the court with the Gamecocks in the Women’s NCAA Tournament, she’ll stand out for her height — a natural advantage that can make the game look easy.

But the players who tower a few inches over their tall teammates and competitors, who are already well above average height, face a different challenge outside of the gym: finding clothes that fit their exceptional height or extraordinary wingspan.

Just ask Alec Puffenberger, an associate director of…