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…

Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks put a decisive seal on an undefeated season in the NCAA women’s championship on Sunday. It’s no surprise that they open as the 2025 favorite to win it all again, with +150 odds on BetMGM. With only one player confirmed so far to be leaving  — Kamilla Cardoso has declared for the WNBA Draft — Staley’s third championship could ring in an age of a true dynasty. (Counterpoint: With a win in 2022 after another undefeated regular season, they already are one.)

Behind the Gamecocks, the odds favor Texas (+325) and UConn (+475). Both teams should be bringing back key starters for the 2024-25 season. Notre Dame +700, USC +1000 and UCLA +1200 round out a top tier of favorites before the odds start thinning out with NC State at +2200 and LSU at +3000.

All of the top five teams have shorter odds than the favorite in the men’s tournament, reflecting the continued gap in parity between the two.

But change is coming for the women’s tournament next year. Conference realignment will shift rivalries and set up new challenges for dominant teams — with USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington joining the Big Ten; Oklahoma and Texas joining South Carolina in the SEC; Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah moving to the Big 12; Oregon State and

With Iowa’s loss to South Carolina in the national title game, Caitlin Clark has officially played her last college basketball game. Lucky for all of us, there’s no shortage of star talent around the country. With the game’s parity, conference realignment and more games on national television, several players appear poised to burst either onto the national scene or even further into the national zeitgeist of American sports.

Here’s a look at the 10 biggest stars who could take over (or re-take) women’s college basketball next season.

(Editor’s note: Players’ class listed for 2024-25 season)

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1. JuJu Watkins, USC

Sophomore guard

This dominant freshman class is led by Watkins, who managed to capture the nation’s attention while being mostly tucked away on the Pac-12 Network for most of the season. She’s tasked with leading the USC resurrection as the Trojans move to the Big Ten. Conference realignment only helps Watkins’ star power and name recognition as she’ll now (finally) have games that are accessible to the whole country thanks to the Big Ten Network being partly owned by FOX. The fact that she’ll be playing in and around the three largest media markets in the U.S. and that the Big Ten, sans Caitlin Clark, will be looking for a new conference star to…

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…

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…

The Athletic has live coverage of Iowa vs. South Carolina in the women’s national championship game.

College coaches are the reason so many high school athletes choose a school in the first place. Whether the coach is successful, runs a specific style, develops athletes, creates a strong culture, the person in charge has an influence. With the transfer portal, more players eye coaches throughout their careers.

So The Athletic was curious: If players could choose any coach — other than their own — who would it be? On the flip side, which coach would they not want to play for?

We asked 95 NCAA Tournament players, including 85 in the Sweet 16, questions about their sport. They were granted anonymity to be as candid as possible without fear of repercussions. Some players abstained from answering certain questions. They provided their opinions on a wide range of topics, including the player they’d want to invite on their team and which of their peers are the biggest trash-talkers. We’ll run the rest of the series this week leading up to the Final Four.

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For the second straight season, players chose Dawn Staley as the coach — other than their own — who they would most like to play for. Like last year she won the poll by 41 votes, and it was a landslide again.

The top two…

PORTLAND, Ore. — The top of the 3-point line was marked 9 inches shorter at one end of the court for the first five games of the women’s NCAA Tournament’s Portland regional, the NCAA said, adding that it has corrected the issue ahead of Monday’s Elite Eight game between No. 1 USC and No. 3 Connecticut.

The NCAA got word on Sunday, just before No. 1 Texas and No. 3 NC State were set to tip off, that the two lines were uneven. The line by the Texas bench was correct, but the line by the NC State bench was too short. Both teams elected to play the game without the court’s correction.

The NCAA did not confirm how it first discovered the issue, but called it a “human error” by a finisher contracted by Connor Sports, the official vendor of the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournament courts since 2006. The NCAA apologized for the issue, writing in a statement that it wishes it caught the error sooner.

The incorrect 3-point line has been painted “with a color that matches as closely as possible the wood grain of the floor,” the NCAA said Monday. The correct 3-point line — 22 feet, 1 3/4 inches from the basket — will be marked in black.

After the NC State Wolfpack upset Stanford in the Sweet 16, coach Wes Moore arrived at the postgame news conference drenched with slick-back hair and said, “Just call me Elvis.”

At the end of his off-day media availability Saturday, Moore reiterated, “Hopefully Elvis will make another appearance tomorrow.”

The good news for NC State? Elvis has not left the building.

The Wolfpack trailed 4-0 in the opening minutes and traded the lead with Texas for the majority of the first quarter. But they took control of the game with a 6-0 run near the end of the period, capped off by — you guessed it — a 3-point jumper from Aziaha James and never looked back in a 76-66 victory.

“A flood of emotions and thoughts,” Moore said. “I think of Kay Yow, 34 years at NC State, and took this program to a Final Four in ’98. I think of the players two years ago that were a double-overtime game away from being in this exact spot. So I think of them. And then I think of these players, again, overcoming all the doubts and questions and just — Final Four, y’all.

“I mean, this is my 35th year as a head coach, and it’s amazing.”

The Wolfpack advance to face No. 1 overall seed South Carolina in the national semifinals Friday. The two teams last met in the 2021-22 season opener, when…

The court used at Portland’s Moda Center, one of the sites for the women’s NCAA Tournament Regionals, has dimension discrepancies for the 3-point line, according to the NCAA. The NCAA said that they were informed Sunday that the 3-point lines on the floor were “not the same distance.”

“The two head coaches were made aware of the discrepancy and elected to play a complete game on the court as is, rather than correcting the court and delaying the game,” the NCAA said in a statement.

The court will be adjusted before Monday’s Elite Eight matchup featuring UConn and USC, per the NCAA.

According to the ABC broadcast, the NCAA notified NC State coach Wes Moore and Texas coach Vic Schaefer at approximately 3 p.m. ET (12 p.m. local time) of the issue. Moore and Schaefer went onto the floor during pregame shootaround to see the discrepancy, measuring out in steps the distance from the free-throw line to the top of the arc.

Following the coaches’ request, the NCAA measured from the baseline to the top of the 3-point line and discovered a discrepancy at one end of the court from the other, per the broadcast. Despite this, Moore and Schaefer agreed to play the game, avoiding lengthy delays.

The three-point lines are different on each side of the court in Portland for the…

(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.)

The 2024 Final Four inches ever closer, each passing game pulling us toward the penultimate round of college basketball. The second weekend of the NCAA Tournament brought some of the best games of March Madness, as star freshmen continued to write their early legacies, fifth-year seniors added to their lengthy resumes, and eight teams willed their way to survival.

Incredibly enticing matchups await in the Elite Eight, with clashing styles and systems. South Carolina versus Oregon State and NC State versus Texas face off Sunday. LSU versus Iowa and USC versus UConn tip off on Monday evening.

Closing in on the final weekend, we’re on the brink of those defining moments that set players, teams and coaches apart. Headed into the Elite Eight, how does the remaining crop of teams stack up?