The Guru NCAAW Report: The New Season Begins Set to be More Sensational Than The One That Wowed Last Time Around

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

One year ago, few suspected prior to the first jump ball that the international opening of the 2023-24 NCAA women’s hoops season in Paris and then moving across the USA would lead to the best six months ever compiled in the modern era.

 

This does not demean any of the earlier notables, some now coaches, others whose mark was coaching, along the timeline because they built it in a weave of eras and bridges between those eras – names like Blazejowski, Lieberman, Miller, Donovan, Swoopes, Staley, Weatherspoon, Holdsclaw, Catchings, Lobo, to cite just a few.

 

But opening day 2023 set the sport on a whole new path of numbers speak that grew to millions in terms of viewers and attendance.

 

And unlike past seasons, the momentum off Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and several other newcomers roared across the WNBA summer where the pro league’s prominent future is now common speak.

 

While the NCAA focus was prominently on Clark setting records night after night, that all will have been a bridge because a multitude of stars whose exploits were still in her shadow now get to take center stage and with no men’s equivalent one-and-done to the NBA , they will carry on sustaining attraction into the near future.

 

For those with short memories, the Paris game, grown to a doubleheader Monday, saw re-tooled South Carolina thump Notre Dame and keep on going to a perfect finish held intact by a buzzer-beater over Tennessee that likely caused a coaching change in an unprecedented direction for the Lady Vols after the final buzzer.

 

Then a few hours later, Southern Cal lived up to the hype of its new talent in frosh JuJu Watkins in Las Vegas taking down Ohio State from the underside of the rankings.

 

That sent the Women of Troy to eventually land at the top of the last hurrah of the PAC-12, but a bigger upset occurred a few hours later at the same event when Colorado took down top ranked LSU that entered the season with acclaimed dominance as defending national champion.

 

All of that had UConn, whose Paige Bueckers is taking an encore trip this season, poised to return to No. 1 by the weekend when they were set to break the all-time streak record of 564 held by Tennessee in the AP poll until the vastly undersold North Carolina State team shocked the Huskies who soon were beset by so many injuries they plunged to a three-decade low in the rankings.

 

The Wolfpack win opened the door for South Carolina to quickly return to the top and there they stayed while just below week after week the team that reached second place couldn’t hold on.

 

Parity had truly embraced a season with an all-time high even if it couldn’t make it all the way to the top where Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks wouldn’t let go.

 

And every week more and more people were fueling record TV ratings and jamming arenas watching Iowa’s Clark chase the NCAA women’s scoring record and keep going to collect more that were total basketball specific.

 

Off the court the future of the women’s collegiate game was being enhanced with a record deal renewing with ESPN while that move sparked NCAA legislation which gave their tournament a financial units reward system resembling the payout the men have received for years.

 

Going into 2024-25, storylines abound as the fab frosh of last season such as USC’s Watkins and Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo of Haddonfield continue their exploits as sophomores.

 

South Carolina’s now a year experienced, USC is loaded, Notre Dame and UConn are restored from injuries, UCLA is as strong as ever, but all of it thanks to football’s lust-caused conference realignment and the rise of the portal plus the retirement of longtime coaches such as Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer and Iowa’s Lisa Bluder has created familiar faces in strange new place on rosters and in league competition.

 

Yes Virginia, there is no sanity clause, with the Cavaliers playing California, Stanford meeting SMU in the ACC, while Penn State, Rutgers, and Maryland go coast to coast once late December rolls in to meet USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington in the Big Ten.

 

Colorado and Utah are joined with the sister PAC-12 refugees of Arizona and Arizona State in the Big 12 but that’s not where Texas and Oklahoma live, they’re part of the even stronger Southeastern Conference in which Tennessee and new coach Kim Caldwell, the first in Knoxville not cut from the cloth of the late legend Pat Summit, start out with a preseason forecast lowest ever ranking of seventh.

 

At Iowa with Clark now in the WNBA dialogue foregoing a CoVid-created fifth year, the Hawkeyes still have a player who can score and was third in the nation behind the former superstar and USC’s Watkins.

 

She happens to be Villanova’s Lucy Olsen who kept the Wildcats relevant after Maddy Siegriest graduated to the WNBA. Stanford’s stud Kiki Iriafen is now at former PAC-12 rival Southern Cal.

 

Oregon State at its final press conference after its Elite Eight elimination by South Carolina was poised to be a top 10 team at this season’s outset but as the Beavers headed with PAC-12 refugee Washington State to two-year’s play in the West Coast Conference before returning to a new-look, rebuilt PAC-12, eight players decided no thanks so Raegan Beers now is an Oklahoman while Talia von Oelhoffen is at USC and Timea Gardiner is at UCLA where one might also find Washington State former star player Charlisse Leger-Walker.

 

But there is some stability nationally like at UConn where Hall of Famer and Norristown’s Geno Auriemma along with Associate Head Coach and Rutgers alum Chris Dailey begin their 40th season.

 

Keep your eye on Game 4 on Nov. 20 at Gampel. Wins ahead hosting Boston U., South Florida, and at North Carolina at a neutral site by arena sets him up to pass Stanford’s Van Derveer and become the all-time NCAA men’s and women’s victory leader.

 

The opponent? Glad you asked. A Philly touch in playing Fairleigh Dickinson now coached by former Villanova star and Saint Joseph’s coach Stephanie V. Gaitley.

 

And locally, Saint Joseph’s has kept everyone to erase the tough finish of an otherwise record season and the Hawks are picked a close second in the Atlantic 10 behind Richmond, which opens here Monday night at AAC regular season tri-champion Temple at 8 p.m. at the Liacouras Center.

 

The Owls are picked eighth.

 

In other Monday local openers, La Salle is at AEC preseason-choice Maine at 11 a.m. (ESPN+), Ivy pick and defending champion Princeton at 5 p.m. plays at the A-10’S Duquesne (ESPN+), Delaware, picked 6th in the CAA in its last year in the conference at 5 p.m. is at the A-10’s George Washington in D.C.; Rider, picked ninth in the MAAC, hosts Navy at 6 p.m. in Lawrenceville, N.J. (ESPN+).

 

In the Big Ten where Rutgers and Penn State were among the unlisted forecasts, Rutgers hosts Manhattan of the MAAC at 7 p.m. at Jersey Mike’s Arena while PSU welcomes Bucknell of the Patriot League at 5 p.m., at the Bryce Jordan Center. Both games airing on the subscription B1G+ conference secondary channel.

 

Of the two local Patriot picks, Lehigh, chosen third, hosts Long Island U., of the NEC at 6 p.m., at the Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, while Lafayette, picked last, visits Boston College of the ACC at 5 p.m., the former on ESPN+, while the latter on the secondary ACCNX.

 

Nationally, it all starts in Paris, Ole Miss meets USC at noon on ESPN followed by UCLA at 2:30 playing Louisville on ESPN2.

 

South Carolina at 7:30 p.m. plays Michigan on TNT in Las Vegas, part of the Hall of Fame series.

 

Some other highlights _ MAAC champion Fairfield is at Arkansas at 7:30 p.m., and Quinnipiac at 6 p.m. is at Holy Cross.

 

Later this week Thursday night, La Salle grad Cheryl Reeve, longtime coach of the WNBA runnerup Minnesota Lynx, will be an inductee of the 2024 Class of the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame that includes retired University City coach Lurleen Jones at the casino hotel in South Philly by the stadiums.