Women’s college basketball is in a fantastic place as the NCAA Tournament opens, and star power is the reason why. The sport has so many headliners, players and coaches who capture the public’s attention through their ability and mentality.
That is what makes this tournament so interesting: Every path to the Final Four in Cleveland will have to go through many excellent teams and fantastic players. Whoever emerges with the national title will have gone on the type of run that makes legacies forever.
There’s a lot to lose and even more to gain as action tips off tonight. Here are the people with the most on the line in the women’s NCAA Tournament:
Caitlin Clark and Lisa Bluder, Iowa
Clark is already among the most decorated college basketball players ever. What she has now is the chance to become the rare modern folk hero, an athlete whose legend is told just as much by word of mouth as by their highlight tapes and statistical accomplishments.
If Clark leads Iowa to the national championship, fighting through an incredibly tough region and presumably toppling undefeated South Carolina in the final, she will have ascended to that highest plane of athletic legend. We will tell our kids and grandkids about the experience of watching her play, and the video footage of the deep threes and out-of-nowhere dimes will be unnecessary next to our recollections of watching one of the greatest to ever do it.
Bluder, for her part, boasts a stacked resume of her own: She’s a five-time Big Ten Tournament champion, two-time Big Ten regular season champion, three-time Big Ten Coach of the Year with a Naismith College Coach of the Year award tacked on for good measure. The one thing that is missing, which would give her a seat at the table with the greats, is that national championship.
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Dawn Staley, South Carolina
You only need to read the second paragraph of the above section to understand why Staley is on this list. Everyone is penciling the Gamecocks into at least the Final Four, and most will pick them as champions. It’s fun to be that great, but that also comes with expectations.
Only four coaches have won at least three women’s NCAA championships: Geno Auriemma (11), Pat Summitt (eight), Kim Mulkey (four) and Tara VanDerveer (three). It’s easy to make the case that those are the four greatest coaches in the history of women’s college basketball. That’s the list Staley will join if the Gamecocks complete their undefeated season.
JuJu Watkins, USC
Watkins is the only name on this list that faces virtually no downside in this NCAA Tournament. Watkins is only a freshman, and USC was not expected to be this good this season; if the Trojans bow out early, the prevailing sentiment will be that Watkins has plenty of chances to learn from this experience.
The upside, though, is so great that Watkins must be on this list. Watkins earned First-Team All-American honors and already boasts the fourth-highest scoring freshman season of all time before the tournament even tips off. Everything we have seen so far indicates that Watkins is the heir apparent to the departing Clark as the face of women’s college basketball. If she leads the No. 1-seed Trojans to the Final Four, the hype meter might break. If she leads the Trojans to a national championship as a freshman, we might see folks’ heads explode.
Paige Bueckers, UConn
It wasn’t long ago that Bueckers was the next top dog in women’s basketball. And as much as UConn fans who became accustomed to watching their team cut down the nets might disagree, it hasn’t been that long since UConn was the ultimate standard in the sport.
In 2016, the Huskies blew out Syracuse for their fourth-straight title and 11th in total under Auriemma. Since then, the Huskies have only made one national final, which they lost handily to South Carolina in 2022. Bueckers recovered from surgeries to both her right ankle and left tibia during that season, then missed the 2022-23 season with a torn ACL.
In spite of all that, Bueckers has been consistently excellent throughout her career, especially this season. She started all 34 games and was named Most Outstanding Player as UConn won the Big East tournament. The Huskies are a tier below the top contenders as a 3-seed, but Bueckers is the type of star who can restore glory at UConn.
Cameron Brink, Stanford
Brink was a crucial contributor to Stanford’s 2021 national championship team, becoming a regular starter and easily leading the Cardinal in blocks. However, there’s a difference between winning it all as a contributor and winning a title as a team’s best player.
Stanford has taken a step back in the NCAA Tournament each year since that championship, losing in the Final Four in 2022 and the second round in 2023. Now, though, Brink has a big-time running mate in Kiki Iriafen, and the two form one of the most productive frontcourts in the country. But make no mistake: Brink is the leader of this team. This is her last chance to add another title, this time as the crux of the Cardinal.
