The last time we convened for power rankings, confetti was still on the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse court. The massive Oregon State transfer exodus was yet to come, and 2024 WNBA Draft decisions hadn’t been finalized.
Suffice it to say, much has changed in the world of college basketball, even without a single game played yet. Below are some of the questions as we take a look around the national landscape before the season tips off on Monday. But first, here’s The Athletic’s preseason top 25:
Almost famous: Kentucky, Creighton, South Dakota State
It seems sacrilegious to compare a freshman to A’ja Wilson, the greatest Gamecock of all time and perhaps the greatest basketball player alive. But the pedigree is hard to ignore for another South Carolina born-and-raised forward. Edwards arrives in Columbia as a top-three recruit and a decorated USA Basketball athlete. She has been playing up on the international circuit, much like Wilson a decade earlier. In the 2023 U-19 World Cup, Edwards was the best player for the USA’s gold-medal team despite suiting up next to rising college sophomores a full two years older than her.
GO DEEPER
Women’s college basketball preseason All-Americans: Paige Bueckers, JuJu Watkins, Hannah Hidalgo
In South Carolina’s first exhibition game against Memphis, all Edwards did was record a double-double in 11 first-half minutes, finishing with 19 points and 12 rebounds. Only seven freshmen reached those marks in the entire 2023-24 season.
The lone missing piece from the Gamecocks’ undefeated national champs squad is Kamilla Cardoso, but Edwards could make people quickly forget about the Chicago Sky center. She’ll make her official debut in Wilson’s new home of Las Vegas; if South Carolina comes out with a verve similar to its thrashing of Notre Dame last season, there won’t be enough superlatives for this year’s Gamecocks and their newest freshman star.
The Bruins brought in the nation’s top freshman class in 2022 and made it to the Sweet 16 in its first year. The top recruit in 2022, Lauren Betts, joined the group as a sophomore, and UCLA climbed to No. 2 in the polls, but once again, it peaked in the Sweet 16 with no Pac-12 titles. Betts is a bona fide superstar, but like the Stanford bigs she left in Palo Alto, she’ll need the requisite perimeter support.
The Bruins went back to the 2022 well in the transfer portal, bringing in two top-10 frontcourt recruits: Janiah Barker and Timea Gardiner. The guard play, however, will have to come from internal improvement. That means more consistent offensive production from Kiki Rice, who averaged 13.2 points and 4.5 assists per game last season, but also was held to single digits five times in conference play. UCLA was undefeated (9-0) in games when Rice hit two 3-pointers; if she comes back with a reliable jump shot, the Bruins can finally break through the Sweet 16 ceiling.
Without Emily Ryan for the first nine games of 2023-24, Iowa State’s results were uneven to start the year, which factored into the Cyclones getting a No. 7 seed and falling in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. This squad should have higher expectations in 2024-25, and that means racking up wins in November.
Although Iowa State won’t have to worry about bringing a host of freshmen up to speed or playing without a true point guard, it still has a few transfers who should factor prominently into the rotation: Lily Hansford, Kenzie Hare and Sydney Harris. All played at power conference programs last season, with Hansford advancing to the Elite Eight with Oregon State. Ryan makes the game easier for everyone, and getting the transfers acclimated quickly should be priority No. 1 in the non-conference.
Big things coming this season for the Floor General 🫡
🌪️🏀🌪️ pic.twitter.com/IZk3nwe7VW
— Cyclone Basketball (@CycloneWBB) October 28, 2024
Duke has one of the nation’s deeper teams, returning all but two players from last year’s Sweet 16 squad. The problem is Kennedy Brown and Camilla Emsbo were centers, and there aren’t any obvious candidates to fill those roles, especially with freshman Arianna Roberson lost for the season with a knee injury. Coach Kara Lawson has been unconventional and hyper-aggressive with her defensive schemes, but they’ve been successful only with a back-line defender.
Lawson has some hyper athletes on this year’s roster, specifically Jadyn Donovan and Toby Fournier. If Duke can turn those wing-sized players into rim protectors, the Blue Devils could create some havoc with small ball. They certainly have the guard depth to run a deep rotation, especially with Vanessa de Jesus back and Riley Nelson transferring from Maryland. However, the center spot will require some creativity. How Duke addresses that position is one of the most interesting questions of the early season.
The L.A. schools figure to be atop the Big Ten in their first season in the conference, but there isn’t a clear third team in the pecking order. It really should be Ohio State, with Cotie McMahon entering her junior season, top-two recruit Jaloni Cambridge incoming, and veteran guards Madison Greene and Taylor Thierry surrounding them. However, this formula relies on McMahon being a capital S star, and she fell short of that last season.
McMahon’s offensive attack has become too predictable, with defenders sitting on her spins in the paint. They’re also willing to send her to the free-throw line since she dropped to 62.3 percent on foul shots as a sophomore and hasn’t cracked the 30-percent barrier from 3-point range. McMahon has the physical tools to be the best player whenever she steps foot on the court, and she even looked the part in a 3×3 scrimmage against the Team USA bronze medalists at a scrimmage during WNBA All-Star weekend. But college games last longer than 10 minutes, and she hasn’t been able to adjust when the defense reacts. The Buckeyes don’t have a particularly tough schedule to start the season, so it will be interesting to see how McMahon gets her points. If it’s the same bowling ball approach, that doesn’t provide a ton of hope for Ohio State’s upside.
The Horned Frogs were seemingly snake-bitten last season, and their struggle to cobble together a roster obscured the fact that they were winning a lot of games before injuries hit. Now comes the question of whether TCU was beating up on a weak schedule or if the Horned Frogs can actually compete at full health.
Coach Mark Campbell has done well stocking up on talent in his second season, with Hailey Van Lith, Maddie Scherr and Donovyn Hunter joining TCU. Next to Agnes Emma-Nnopu, Madison Conner and Una Jovanovic, that makes a formidable guard group. Taylor Bigby, yet another former Oregon Ducks transfer reuniting with Campbell, gives some length on the wing with Aaliyah Roberson, but TCU’s success might just come down to Sedona Prince. Unfortunately, she hasn’t yet had a healthy season in six college tries. Natalie Mazurek could sneakily be one of the most pivotal players in the Big 12 as a result. It would behoove the Horned Frogs to see what they have in their backup centers early if Mazurek and DaiJa Turner are called upon for bigger minutes down the line.
After eight seasons in Blacksburg, it was very clear what a Kenny Brooks offense looked like. He brought the fulcrums of that system with him to Kentucky — point guard Georgia Amoore and center Clara Strack — but will it be that simple? The SEC is deep and defensive-minded, and how Amoore and the beautiful Virginia Tech two-player game holds up against the physicality of this conference is one of the biggest questions of this season and the upcoming draft cycle.
The SEC has a little more variety than in years past, with Texas’ power, Oklahoma’s pace, Alabama’s shooting prowess, Ole Miss’s suffocating pressure defense and now Kentucky’s methodical offensive system. With all of the realignment, do conferences still have identities in 2024? The Wildcats and Kenny Brooks could be a perfect test case.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos of Rori Harmon, Dawn Staley and Lauren Betts: John Rivera /Icon Sportswire Getty Images , Tom Pennington / Getty Images, G Fiume / Getty Images)
