Tracking the notable women’s basketball players returning in 2024-25, including UConn’s Paige Bueckers

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:

Updated: March 2