The NCAA women’s basketball season begins on Wednesday, November 25 and we are answering all your urgent questions before the college basketball season begins.
I still remember the last college basketball game I watched. It was the morning after Rudy Gobert’s diagnosis of positive coronavirus that started the quick stop in sports. Fairfield and Siena were facing off in the MAAC quarterfinals. It was a game that I probably wouldn’t have watched under normal circumstances if the Conference USA or Southland tournaments hadn’t been canceled, but it seemed more and more that that game was the last chance to see basketball for a long time.
And that’s what happened. The NCAA tournament was canceled soon after and the 19-20 college basketball season ended.
Now, it’s November, and it’s time to try this college basketball thing again. It won’t be good. There are justifiable reasons for thinking that this should not happen. But everything is in full swing on November 25, with a day full of basketball games.
There are many questions to be answered this coming season. Are we going to try to deal with some of them now?
NCAA women’s basketball season preview
Can anyone challenge Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks?
The 2021 NCAA title looks set to go through South Carolina. Whether that means the Gamecocks and trainer Dawn Staley won or if the eventual champion eliminating them in the Final Four is yet to be seen.
South Carolina would have entered the 2020 tournament as a favorite if it had happened. And even with the graduation of the main players Tyasha Harris and Mikiah Herbert Harrigan, SC opens 2020 as the No. 1 team in the ranking, thanks to its enormous depth. Second-year student Aliyah Boston – last year’s national freshman and the top player in the country for stock gains – is the highlight here. Already a great hitter and scorer, Boston will try to take another step forward on both ends of the court. She will be surrounded by a ton of talented players like Brea Beal, Destanni Henderson and Destiny Littleton on guard and Victaria Saxton on the inside.
Stanford may pose the greatest threat to Gamecocks. The only other team to win first place in the AP pre-season vote, Cardinal may be the strongest team in the country. They return all three players who averaged double-digit points last season at Kiana Williams, Lexie Hull and Haley Jones and sophomore Fran Belibi will try to take a step forward. They also added player number 3 on ESPN’s recruitment ranking, Cameron Brink.
Who is the best player in the country?
I don’t like to make statements like “the best player in the country is X”, but I will say that the best player in the country is probably Rhyne Howard from Kentucky.
The junior wing was second in the country in terms of scoring last season with 23.4 points per game and, on the defensive end, it added 2.3 steals and 1.1 blocks per dispute. Howard is an elite player at both ends of the field, someone capable of scoring across the floor. This may sound like an exaggeration, but there really isn’t much that Howard can’t do. She can carry out the attack. She can play with the ball. If there’s a player you watch this year, choose Howard.
Which teams will be pleasant surprises?
I officially jumped into the Arkansas movement.
Chosen fourth in the conference’s pre-season survey, the Razorbacks added the transfer of graduates to Destiny Slocum to a team that already has the All-SEC Second Team, Chelsea Dungee. Coach Mike Neighbors is a great offensive mind, who should have his best Arkansas team still behind this strong backcourt. Arkansas will also have WNBA star Kelsey Plum on the bench as a graduate assistant to help this team as well.
The state of Iowa may also be a surprise. The Big 12 is seen by many as a two-school conference with Baylor and Texas, but the Cyclones – led by striker Ashley Joens, whose 20.5 points and 10.9 rebounds per game last year were 11th and 19th in the country, respectively – have a chance to break through and claim second place if Texas and its strong freshman team fail to get gel.
Who fills the shoes of Sabrina Ionescu, Lauren Cox and Chennedy Carter?
It will be interesting to see how Oregon sails this season. Three key players have already helped Pato to succeed in recent years: Sabrina Ionescu, Satou Sabally and Ruthy Hebard.
Replacing that amount of production – they accounted for 59.3% of Oregon’s points per game last season – will be difficult. Erin Boley is the notable returner. She averaged 9.2 points per game last year. But in order for Oregon to avoid a year off and stay on top of the Pac 12, they will need the transfer of Sedona Prince – a former Texas top 10 recruit – and the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class in 2020 to have a immediate impact. It will be a difficult question, but players like Te-Hina Paopao and Sydney Parrish will try to acclimate quickly.
Baylor also needs to replace a large amount of lost production. Lauren Cox, Te’a Cooper and Juicy Landrum are gone. DiDi Richards suffered a spinal injury in the off-season and his status for the start of the season is mixed. This means that Lady Bears will have a lot of production to replace. That task begins with junior post NaLyssa Smith, the team’s top scorer last year. Central queen Egbo will also seek to continue Baylor’s recent tradition of strong pole play.
Another Baylor tradition: transfer guards playing important roles. This time, it’s DiJonai Carrington, who came from Stanford to Baylor. Carrington played just five games last year due to a knee injury, but during the 18-19 season, she averaged 14 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. She ranked among the top 200 in the country in rebounds among 3,234 college players – not bad for a 1.5-meter owner.
In a different part of central Texas, Texas A&M Aggies will try to move on after guard Chennedy Carter left College Station a year earlier to go to the NBA. A heavy senior team featuring an impressive attacking duo from Ciera Johnson and N’dea Jones, the Aggies entered 2020 with essentially the same team as last year without Carter. This was a major disadvantage, but they received a significant addition when the NCAA granted immediate eligibility to Destiny Pitts for the Minnesota transfer. Pitts is not Chennedy Carter, but she averaged 16.3 points from 15 games last season, and her 45.9 percent in the 3-point bracket adds a dimension that A&M did not get from its former star. Aggies must be in good shape to compete in the SEC.
Best freshmen to watch
There’s Paige Bueckers, one of the hottest high school basketball players in recent history, at UConn. Bueckers was already named to the Nancy Lieberman Prize watch list for best university point guard before playing a game. It is unclear how much she will have as coach of Geno Auriemma’s first year, but if she proves to be ready to deal with the intensification in the competition, Geno will put her on the field.
In fact, the point guard, in general, is in a deep position when it comes to freshmen this season. Caitlin Clark (Iowa), Diamond Johnson (Rutgers), Hailey Van Lith (Louisville) and Sarah Andrews (Baylor) should see many minutes in one.
In addition to these names, keep an eye out for North Carolina guard Deja Kelly. After leading his high school team to the Texas 6A championship in 2020 – the last sporting event I attended before COVID-19 – Kelly will operate as a combined guard for a UNC school that is recruiting very well lately and may be just a few years before reaching the next step in the university game.
WNBA Draft lottery selection
This is complicated.
See, under normal circumstances, we could list some of the best seniors here and move on, but with the NCAA allowing players an additional year of eligibility this year, there’s a good chance we don’t know who everyone will be in this draft class by the week. of the draft. This will make recognition of the draft much more difficult than it would be in most seasons.
Still, here is a useful list of seniors who theoretically have a chance of being picked in the lottery in April:
- Aari McDonald – Guarda – Arizona
- Natasha Mack – Advanced – Oklahoma State
- Arella Guirantes – Guarda – Rutgers
- Rennia Davis – Forward – Tennessee
- Michaela Onyenwere – Advanced – UCLA
In addition, juniors Charli Collier (forward, Texas) and Evina Westbrook (guard, UConn) meet the WNBA’s age requirement for early entry and may be in play.
Coaches on the hot seat
One of the biggest potential candidates has already been replaced, with the University of Texas leaving Karen Aston and bringing in Vic Schaefer before this season. This season is not going to look normal. I think this will contribute to some relative stability in coaching ratings. Perhaps a school like Michigan with Kim Barnes Arico or Washington with Jody Wynn could try to make a change if they have disappointing seasons.
Four final predictions
This seems like a strange season, but if I had to make a guess so early on the Final Four, I would go with South Carolina, Stanford and UConn as my block to be in it, with Baylor and Louisville fighting for the other location. Both teams have some key questions to answer that the other three do not, and the one who can figure out how to replace last year’s production, the best will be the favorite for fourth place. If I had to guess now, Baylor would. Kim Mulkey knows how to get new players to get used to his system in Waco.
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