Let’s skip the prologue and table-setting here and just jump right in to some hot takes before the upcoming women’s college basketball season begins.
Mikayla Blakes will lead the country in scoring
Last season as a freshman, Blakes topped 50 points in a single game twice and ended the year with an average of 23.3 points per game, which was eighth nationally. Blakes didn’t show any signs of slowing down over the summer, as she led Team USA in scoring at the AmeriCup. The reigning USBWA Tamika Catchings Award winner is heading into a sophomore campaign where she might be asked to score even more points. Vanderbilt’s second and third leading scorers from a year ago — Khamil Pierre and Iyana Moore — are no longer there, and their combined 28.4 field goal attempts per game have to go somewhere. Expect Blakes to put up some eye-popping scoring totals this season as she tries to take Vandy to its third consecutive NCAA Tournament.
Notre Dame will not advance to the Sweet 16
Hannah Hidalgo might average a triple-double and that still might not be good enough to put Notre Dame in contention for an ACC title or a top 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Top to bottom, this roster just isn’t as good as the ones the Fighting Irish have had over the past few seasons. The post depth they had last season is gone and so are two superb guards, one of whom was a top five WNBA Draft pick last spring and another who will be this spring. Niele Ivey has taken the Irish to four consecutive Sweet 16s, but never any further. It’ll be a surprise if this squad makes the second weekend of March Madness this year.
Clemson will make the NCAA Tournament
The Tigers exited last spring’s portal season as a clear winner After a strong finish to last season, which included an ACC Tournament win over Stanford, Clemson added several talented transfers that should help them in a big way in Shawn Poppie’s second season at the helm. They added players with experience in the ACC like Rusne Augustinaite and Demeara Hinds, a shooter in Taylor Johnson-Matthews who averaged 14.5 points per game for DePaul, and Rachael Rose from Wofford who was third in the nation in scoring in the 2023-24 season. Rose was also named to the watchlist for the Lieberman Award this month.
Hannah Kohn and Mia Moore — who both shot north of 35 percent from behind the arc last season — also return for the Tigers. Two ESPN top 100 recruits join Poppie’s squad as well. In an ACC that seems wide open in the middle, Clemson should be good enough to grab a March Madness bid.
The A-10 will be a three-bid league
This nearly happened last season but Saint Joseph’s was one of the First Four Out and got left on the bubble.
The Ivy League shouldn’t be as deep this season as it was last year and the Big East doesn’t look that much improved as a whole. Simply put, the bids will be there for a strong mid-major league to grab. Richmond is starting the season with all the hype as a preseason AP Top 25 team after beating Georgia Tech in the NCAA Tournament last season, and reigning A-10 Tournament champion George Mason should have a strong team as well.
Then there’s Davidson, which won a program-best 13 conference games last season. The Wildcats return their top two players in Charlisse Dunn and Katie Donovan, and Gayle Fulks has assembled a talented roster around them that is full of international flair — one that should be capable of helping this program take a historic next step.
Raven Johnson will average career-highs in points and assists
In three-and-some-change seasons at South Carolina, Johnson has never averaged more than 30 minutes per game. That could change this year for a few reasons. One, she is the most veteran player on a roster that is meshing in transfers and freshmen, and as the point guard, she’ll often be tasked with helping put those new players in a position to succeed. Second, because of the injuries that have hit South Carolina, Johnson might be asked to pick up more of the scoring load. The bars here aren’t all that high either. If Johnson averages nine points and five assists per game, this prediction will be true.
A Power 4 head coach gets fired before conference tournaments begin
Have y’all seen what’s happening in college football this year? By mid-October, we’ve seen 12 FBS coach openings and there are many more to come. Last year, across all sports but especially in women’s college basketball, many athletic directors were hesitant to make big changes because of the uncertainty of the House Settlement. Everything associated with that is now known and expectations are clearer. And if football has shown us anything, athletic directors aren’t afraid of facing the big buyout figures that come with pulling the plug early on a coaching tenure.
Those amounts in football dwarf the ones in women’s basketball, which is to say that firing a women’s basketball coach early will be an easier pill to swallow and a smaller check to write. At Power 4 programs that really care about the sport and are invested in it, we could see an AD make a change at head coach by February. Taking the logic some ADs use with football, there would be two advantages to making an early change: first, that program would be first-to-market, and second, they could have their new coach installed and set up by the time the transfer portal window opens.
MiLaysia Fulwiley will come off the bench more often than she starts at LSU
Here’s a recent quote from Kim Mulkey: “Learning point guard is probably a little challenging right now because (Fulwiley has) always been the recipient of the pass on the wing and now I’m trying to get her to do what Jada does. Jada has been a point guard all her life. I want (Fulwiley) to be able to just go to either position comfortably and she’s not comfortable yet.”
Couple that comment with some others that Mulkey has made this preseason about Fulwiley still growing and not being quite ready to play point guard full-time. Plus, two incredibly plugged-in LSU reporters — Reed Darcey and Cory Diaz — are projecting that Fulwiley won’t be a starter initially. Time will tell if Fulwiley’s role changes as the season progresses, but it seems like she’ll start it by coming off the bench.
A few more quick ones here with brief explanations…
- Lauren Betts will be the National Player of the Year
She nearly won this award last year before JuJu Watkins had a superb February, which included a pair of wins over Betts’ Bruins.
- Oklahoma State will win the Big 12
This conference race seems wide open and Jacie Hoyt has the pieces around Stailee Heard for the Cowgirls to take another big step forward.
- The SEC and ACC will combine for 20 NCAA Tournament bids
Let’s say 11 for the SEC and nine for the ACC.
- Gonzaga’s Allie Turner will lead the nation in made 3-pointers
She was seventh last season as a freshman and will likely pick up more of the scoring load for the Zags this season with Yvonne Ejim gone.
- Stanford will return to the NCAA Tournament. Cal will not.
The Cardinal brought in one of the best freshmen classes in the country and should find their way to a March Madness appearance this season. The Golden Bears lost four of their five top scorers from a season ago and didn’t make any major portal moves to replace them.
- We’ll see three head coaching changes in the SEC
Our three last season were Missouri, Arkansas and Auburn. For reasons explained above, some ADs that were hesitant last year to make a change might be more willing to do so this year.
- Duke will win the regular season and conference tournament titles in the ACC
Four of five starters return and so does Toby Fournier, who won ACC Rookie of the Year while coming off the bench. The Blue Devils then essentially added three McDonald’s All-Americans to their rotation with two players returning from injuries and freshman Emilee Skinner arriving in Durham. Their toughest challenge to repeat as ACC champs might be their closest neighbors, UNC and N.C. State.
