South Carolina is still No. 1 and the field is still loaded with Pac-12 teams at the top.
Bracketology season is upon us as February comes to a close. It’s almost March Madness, y’all.
On Thursday, the selection committee for the Division I women’s NCAA tournament revealed their top 16 seeds for the second and final time this season, giving fans a snapshot of where teams stand heading into the final games of the regular season and conference tournaments.
Some things have changed since the last reveal two weeks ago, and some things remained the same. Undefeated South Carolina is still the undisputed No. 1 seed, and the top-heavy Pac-12 still has the most teams projected to host with five teams in the top 16.
Here’s the full seed list from the committee as of Feb. 29:
South Carolina
Ohio State
Stanford
UCLA
Virginia Tech
Texas
Iowa
USC
LSU
UConn
N.C. State
Oregon State
Colorado
Indiana
Gonzaga
Oklahoma
Let’s take a closer look at the winners and losers with just 17 days to go until Selection Sunday.
Because of the NCAA’s COVID-era ruling, players from the 2020-21 class have an extra year of eligibility.
As the 2023-24 women’s college basketball season winds down, we’re going to get announcements – perhaps on senior nights, or in the forms of social media graphics – of seniors announcing whether they will use their extra year of eligibility.
Because of the NCAA’s rule during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020-21 season did not count towards a player’s eligibility clock. So, anyone who played that season has had the chance to play an extra season of college basketball. This has created an overflowing transfer portal, older teams, and to some degree, increased parity in the sport of women’s basketball.
The 2020-21 freshman class was a star-studded one, and the final class that will benefit from this rule. UConn’s Paige Bueckers has already announced her return, while decisions loom for other superstar players like Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, LSU’s Angel Reese, Stanford’s Cameron Brink and North Carolina’s Deja Kelly. Don’t be surprised if some of these players decide not to enter the WNBA Draft. We saw several of the game’s top players return to school last season.
With this list, we’ll keep track of all the players who have publicly declared that they will return to women’s college basketball for another season in the 2024-25 campaign:
It seems like JuJu Watkins’ name is popping up alongside the great Cheryl Miller more often as the season goes along.
We should have known that JuJu Watkins was going to find the bottom of the net with relative ease on Friday night after making a shot from behind the bench during warmups.
The freshman sensation led the USC Trojans to their seventh straight win in Los Angeles on Friday night, pouring in a stunning 42 points as USC topped Colorado 87-81. Watkins also piled up four assists, four steals and four rebounds, and set a few more records in the process.
It was Watkins’ 11th game of the season where she had scored at least 30 points, pushing her past the legendary Cheryl Miller for the most by a USC player in a single season.
Watkins’ 42 points are also the most points scored by any USC player – man or woman – in the Trojans’ Galen Center, which opened in 2006.
In case you live on the East Coast or called it an early night, here’s the highlights from another big night from Watkins. She – and Pac-12 After Dark – keep delivering this season:
Trojans win the heavyweight battle 🥊
JuJu Watkins drops 42 points as No. 7 USC pulls away late from No. 11 Colorado. Highlights ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/YBiXcNaUGC
After the game, Watkins had a crowd of fans waiting for her for photos and autographs.
Really awesome scene outside Galen Center after #USC win – close to 100 fans lined up waiting for JuJu Watkins, who spent close to 20 mins signing autographs and taking pictures with fans of all ages. @USCWBB@Jujubballinpic.twitter.com/csu3QPDqRP
While players like Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, LSU’s Mikaylah Williams, Fairfield’s Meghan Andersen and Iowa State’s Audi Crooks are having great season, Watkins seems like the frontrunner to win the National Freshman of the Year award. She’s second in the nation in scoring – trailing only Iowa’s Caitlin Clark – with 28.1 points per game.
And we’re all looking forward to seeing her score a bunch more.
JuJu Watkins had no idea postgame that she broke both Cheryl Miller’s record for most 30-point games in a season and the record for most points scored at the Galen Center.
Talia von Oelhoffen saved the day for the Beavers in crunch time.
In the final season of the Pac-12 as we know it, the conference is playing women’s basketball at an incredibly high level. In this past week’s first top 16 seed reveal by the NCAA selection committee, five Pac-12 teams were projected to host first-round games. The league has stars like JuJu Watkins and Alissa Pili, and great head coaches like Tara VanDerveer and Cori Close.
All of this is to say, the Pac-12 is extremely competitive this year, which has led to some great games and absolutely wild finishes.
Friday night was the latest example, as the end of the Oregon State versus UCLA game turned into pure madness, the kind of stuff we typically have to wait until March to see.
Here’s how the last 6.9 seconds went:
Angela Dugalic hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give UCLA a one-point lead.
Talia von Oelhoffen connected on a layup in traffic to retake the lead for Oregon State. 2.3 seconds remain.
On a sideline-out-of-bounds play, Lauren Betts swishes a long mid-range jumper, giving UCLA a one-point advantage with 1.1 seconds left.
Von Oelhoffen connects on a 3-pointer at the buzzer to seal the win for Oregon State.
See for yourself. It’s absurd.
IN 6.9 SECONDS,
there were, 4 made baskets, 4 lead changes, and a buzzer beater!
And yes, Geno Auriemma will be returning to the sidelines to coach Bueckers and the rest of the Huskies.
Paige Bueckers grabbed the attention of every women’s basketball fan Friday night when she announced that she wouldn’t enter the WNBA Draft and would instead return to UConn next season.
Bueckers battled injuries earlier in her career for the Huskies, missing a chunk of the 2021-22 season and all of the 2022-23 campaign with lower body ailments. She’s proving this season though that she’s still one of the top players in the country – and a highly sought-after pro prospect – by averaging 20.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.2 steals per game. Bueckers is one of just four players nationally putting up an average nightly stat line like that.
The UConn guard made her announcement to the crowd at Gampel Pavilion on Friday night before the Huskies beat Georgetown. It was senior night in Storrs, Connecticut, and Bueckers was honored. She grabbed the mic and said:
“Unfortunately, this will not be my last senior night.”
"Unfortunately this will not be my last Senior NIght"
The 69-year-old coach – who has won more national titles than anyone else in the sport – then joked about how Bueckers returning related to his own decision to come back and continue to coach the Huskies:
Geno Auriemma says he's returning to coach next season:
As long as Bueckers is on the court and Auriemma is on the sidelines, UConn will be a force to be reckoned with. Expect them to be among the preseason favorites again next year.
Clark broke the record in style too, hitting a logo 3-pointer for the record-breaker. She finished the game with a career-best 49 points – setting the Hawkeyes’ single-game program scoring record – as Iowa beat Michigan.
When it comes to discussing the all-time women’s college basketball scoring record, the words “NCAA” and “Division I” are important qualifiers and delineations. Without them, they brush aside the significant accomplishments of at least two players that paved the way and poured in points long before Clark.
The names Lynette Woodard and Pearl Moore might come up when the game’s all-time greatest scorers are discussed. And if you’re a women’s basketball fan, you should know them, and know why they are often overlooked.
Woodard played at Kansas from 1977 to 1981. She was a four-time All-American and led the Jayhawks to three straight Big 8 titles in 1979, 1980 and 1981. And in her four seasons in Lawrence, Woodard scored 3,649 points.
You might be asking yourself, “Wait, isn’t that more than Plum or Clark?”
Yes, it is.
Lynette Woodard #6, Point Guard for the United States women’s basketball team during a portrait photo session circa 1990 at the Allen Fieldhouse indoor arena on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. In 1985, Woodard became the first woman ever to play with the Harlem Globetrotters exhibition basketball team. (Photo by Tony Duffy/Allsport/Getty Images)
The NCAA does not recognize Woodard’s record because it did not govern women’s college basketball during her time at Kansas. From 1970 until the NCAA hosted its first Division I women’s basketball tournament in 1982, most women’s college basketball teams – and other women’s collegiate sports, like softball – played in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). The AIAW held its own tournaments and had its own record books for more than a decade before the NCAA entered the picture. In 1982, the AIAW Tournament lost much of its appeal when powerhouses at the time like Tennessee and Louisiana Tech opted to join the NCAA. Shortly after, NBC canceled the contract for the AIAW tournament, and the governing body dissolved.
Woodard went on to be the first woman signed to the Harlem Globetrotters, won an Olympic gold medal in 1984, and played two WNBA seasons in her late 30s. At the age of 39, she tallied 18 points, nine rebounds and three assists in a win for the Detroit Shock over the New York Liberty. She’s in the Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
Clark could still pass Woodard’s mark. After Iowa’s win over Michigan, Clark is 81 points away from passing her. With Clark averaging 32.8 points per game this season, she could surpass Woodard as soon as a Feb. 28 game at Minnesota, the penultimate regular season game on Iowa’s schedule.
However, Pearl Moore’s mark might be out of reach for Clark, unless she decides to come back for a fifth season of college basketball next year.
Moore played at Francis Marion University, an institution with an enrollment of less than 5,000 students in Florence, South Carolina. In 127 games across four seasons for coach Sylvia Hatchell – who would coach the North Carolina Tar Heels to a national championship in 1994 – Moore scored 4,061 points, an absurd and staggering figure.
Again, that’s more than Clark, Plum and Woodard.
And again, Moore’s mark is often overlooked.
She also played during the reign of the AIAW and Francis Marion competed in the governing body’s “small college” division. After the AIAW dissolved, Francis Marion played as an NAIA school for a few years and is now an NCAA Division II program.
It’s also important to remember that Woodard and Moore – both guards who could shoot from distance – played in an era and piled up all those points during a time when the 3-point line did not exist.
In Moore’s final game, she scored 60 points against UT-Chattanooga. A four-time small college All-American, Moore went on to play in the WBL – the short-lived predecessor of the WNBA that folded in 1981 – and has been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
Moore is a fan of Clark’s game, but she also wants to make sure that trailblazers like her are remembered. She recently told the Associated Press:
“She can lead her team, she can pass and she can score. Those are three key components to being a great player… Just tell those (TV) analysts to make sure they call it right.”
Woodard offered a similar sentiment in a widely released statement:
“In honoring Caitlin’s accomplishments, I hope that we can also shine a light on the pioneers who paved the way before her. Women’s basketball has a glorious history that predates the NCAA’s involvement. I applaud Caitlin for everything she has done and look forward to watching her score many more points for years to come.”
Indeed. Let’s celebrate Caitlin Clark, but also not omit the great players that came before her.
Messages for the Iowa star also came from Sue Bird and Billie Jean King.
A whole lot of people were tuned into Peacock on Thursday night to witness a bit of history.
In case you haven’t heard, Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark is now the all-time leading scorer in the history of Division I women’s college basketball. Clark entered the Hawkeyes’ games against Michigan needing just eight points to pass the mark set by Washington’s Kelsey Plum and wasted no time getting after it.
Clark sank a layup, swished a 3-pointer, and then hit another – the record-breaking shot – nearly from Iowa’s logo at midcourt in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. She scored Iowa’s first eight points, and a total of 23 in the first quarter.
And when Clark broke the record, messages of congratulations poured in from all over, including a few from women’s sports legends.
Yes, UConn is projected to go to the Albany regional. No, that will not change.
There are many ways in which women’s college basketball is different than the men’s game. When it comes to the NCAA Tournament, there is one especially glaring difference.
While the men play their entire tournament at neutral sites, the top 16 seeds in the women’s field get to host games on the first weekend. Which means, if you have a really good season, you’ll get to play your first two tournament games on your home court, making a top 16 seed incredibly valuable and something that teams strive for.
This month, the selection committee for the women’s NCAA Tournament unveils their top 16 seeds twice, giving a fans a glimpse into what they’re thinking, what they value, and where teams would be seeded if the season ended at that moment.
It seems to be a theory that Caitlin Clark subscribes to though.
On Sunday in Nebraska, with Kelsey Plum’s all-time Division I career scoring record within reach, Clark pulled out some extremely sharp and exclusive kicks to battle the Cornhuskers in – a team she is 8-0 all-time against.
The superstar Iowa guard wore a pair of black and white Mambacita Kobe 6s. The kicks were designed by Vannessa Bryant and are meant to honor her late daughter, Gigi Bryant. They were released on May 1, 2022, when Gigi would have turned 16.
Caitlin Clark wearing the "Mambacita" Kobe 6s on her potential record-breaking day 🐍
It’s unclear if Vanessa Bryant was involved in Clark acquiring these kicks, but it wouldn’t be the first time she’s done something similar. Last year, she gifted LSU sneakers ahead of their Elite Eight game against Miami.
Clark started the game well wearing the shoes, and passed another milestone that is both significant and absurd, as she became the first player in the history of Division I women’s college basketball to tally both 3,000 career points and 1,000 career assists.
For anyone who says Clark is a ball-hog or takes too many shots, that’s a stat they can be pointed to.
ANOTHER MILESTONE ✅
Caitlin Clark is the only player in D-I history to ever record 3,000 points and 1,000 assists in her career 👏 pic.twitter.com/tBycpA3VXA
Or you could tune into an absolutely loaded women’s college basketball slate that features ranked-on-ranked matchups, a classic rivalry, and Caitlin Clark chasing history.
Here’s your guide to a jam-packed slate of women’s basketball on Sunday.
