Between their spotlight reel performs and hard-to-believe statistics, Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers have turn into acquainted not solely to girls’s faculty basketball followers however to many individuals with solely a passing curiosity in sports activities.
However on this yr’s N.C.A.A. Division I girls’s basketball event, there can be dozens of different gamers who’re able to take advantage of their second on the nationwide stage — gamers who’ve been placing up spectacular numbers and making outstanding performs all season, simply with a significantly smaller share of the highlight.
Listed here are 10 gamers with an opportunity to make believers out of this yr’s event followers. They vary from All-People and certain first-round W.N.B.A. draft picks to midmajor upstarts on the lookout for a style of March glory.
NaLyssa Smith has an opportunity to be the highest decide on this yr’s W.N.B.A. draft. Nevertheless it’s not simply because, at 6 toes 4 inches, she has the dimensions and power {of professional} put up gamers. A Baylor energy ahead, Smith has the finesse and talent to play with one of the best proper now.
She strikes across the court docket with the benefit and velocity of somebody a lot smaller — and for an added benefit, she has been coached this season by Nicki Collen, who arrived at Baylor after three seasons main the W.N.B.A.’s Atlanta Dream.
Within the event, Smith, who gained a nationwide championship with Baylor in her freshman yr, will work to steer the Bears to not less than the spherical of 16 if not the Closing 4. She has help however is undoubtedly Baylor’s centerpiece, rating within the prime 10 in Division I in scoring and rebounding whereas persevering with to enhance her gaudy stat strains. Smith reached a brand new profession excessive in rebounding with 20 on Feb. 28 towards Iowa State; within the subsequent sport, she hit her profession excessive in scoring with 35 factors. Followers have an opportunity not solely to see Smith peaking on the proper time however to scope out a possible future skilled star.
Cameron Brink, Stanford
The scariest factor about Stanford isn’t that it’s the defending nationwide champion — it’s that this championship group’s most prolific gamers are underclassmen: Haley Jones, a junior, and Cameron Brink, a sophomore.
Within the Cardinal’s balanced offense, what makes Brink an asset is her effectivity: She has had the third most field-goal makes an attempt on the group, however she’s the group’s main scorer. Her dominance across the basket made her an integral a part of Stanford’s championship run.
In final yr’s N.C.A.A. event, Brink averaged 4 blocks per sport, together with six in Stanford’s Closing 4 defeat of South Carolina. These groups seem like on a collision course this yr as properly, and Brink is the Cardinal’s solely potential reply to South Carolina’s Boston, who’s prone to be the nationwide participant of the yr.
If Stanford desires to repeat as champion, Brink’s assertive protection can be important. Her capacity to set screens and draw defenders away from her group’s sharpshooters whereas staying out of foul bother, one thing she struggled along with her freshman yr, may even be vital. It’s a protracted to-do record, however Brink has proven that she has the expertise to verify all these containers.
Destanni Henderson, South Carolina
Working the ground for the group that has been ranked No. 1 within the nation all season is not any small activity. Earlier than Destanni Henderson probably heads to the W.N.B.A. this summer time (some projections counsel she can be a first-round decide), she would in all probability prefer to be rewarded for all that work with a visit to the nationwide championship sport.
The Gamecocks will definitely want her with a purpose to get there. Henderson is a real level guard, working performs that assist make Boston, the group’s chief, much more unstoppable. The group’s greatest offense is predicated across the two of them: Boston attracts defenders to the basket after which passes to Henderson within the nook for a straightforward 3-point shot, or Boston grabs a rebound and tosses it to Henderson in transition to make an uncontested layup.
Henderson’s quickness makes her each South Carolina’s spark and the right counterpoint to Boston and her affected person put up play. In these uncommon moments when the South Carolina offense slumps, Henderson can normally lower to the basket and rating, or nab the ball and dash to the opposite finish for a layup earlier than her defender has even realized what’s occurring. When South Carolina beat Stanford in a redemptive December victory, Henderson had seven steals — a key to the victory she could properly attempt to replicate on this yr’s event.
Nearly 60 % of Iowa’s offense comes from two gamers: Clark, whose relentless taking pictures catapulted her into the nationwide highlight, and Monika Czinano, a senior put up participant whose reliability provides the Hawkeyes a rock-solid basis.
When Clark is having an off night time (which for her means scoring lower than 20 factors), Czinano retains the group regular, plugging away across the basket to maintain the offense alive. Her taking pictures share is among the many greatest within the nation, because of her footwork and fast launch: If Iowa is in rhythm, Clark can cross to her and Czinano may have the ball within the basket earlier than opponents have an opportunity to react.
Czinano led the group in scoring when Iowa gained its fourth Large Ten event title final weekend, additional proving how essential each she and Clark are to their group. “I simply assume we have now actually good chemistry,” Clark advised reporters earlier this yr.
Kierstan Bell, Florida Gulf Coast
Kierstan Bell is a matchup nightmare. At 6 toes 1 inch, she’s an important couple of inches taller than most of her fellow taking pictures guards — inches that she takes benefit of to shoot over opponents from principally wherever on the court docket.
The Eagles get a better share of their offense from behind the arc than another group in Division I, and Bell actually contributes on that entrance with almost 10 makes an attempt per sport. However the place Bell actually shines is in shaking anybody who may attempt to forestall her from attending to the basket. Her dimension and power are mixed with unbelievable quickness, permitting her to spin and juke her well beyond nearly anybody; she’s averaging 23.1 factors per sport. A meniscus harm in January threatened her W.N.B.A. draft inventory and her probabilities to point out off within the event, however she returned with quick double-digit scoring after lacking only a month.
Bell shines in huge moments. She had 25 factors within the first spherical of final yr’s N.C.A.A. event, wherein Florida Gulf Coast did not upset Michigan, and 32 factors and 10 rebounds earlier this season when her group earned a shock victory over now No. 9-ranked Louisiana State.
Elissa Cunane, North Carolina State
The 6-foot-5 heart Elissa Cunane has about as spectacular a résumé as anybody in faculty basketball: three straight Atlantic Coast Convention titles, two straight convention event Most Useful Participant Awards and a slew of different particular person honors. However the Wolfpack haven’t been capable of capitalize on her expertise on the N.C.A.A. event and haven’t made it previous the spherical of 16 since 1998. Final yr, Cunane’s good-but-not-good-enough performances in San Antonio contributed to top-seeded North Carolina State’s upset loss to fourth-seeded Indiana.
Consequently, she enters this event with one thing to show each to N.C. State followers and the W.N.B.A. groups which might be evaluating her for the upcoming draft. The Wolfpack’s power is their steadiness, and Cunane hasn’t been pushed to pad her statistics. However she’s able to dominating across the basket and hitting essential 3-point pictures whereas additionally main her group in rebounding. With N.C. State as soon as once more anticipated to be a No. 1 seed, something lower than a visit to the Closing 4 can be a disappointment — and it’s as much as Cunane to get them there.
Rhyne Howard, Kentucky
There may be little or no that the 6-foot-2 guard Rhyne Howard does poorly, together with rewriting the Kentucky file books. She is within the prime 10 of just about each statistical class accessible and has scored the second most factors in program historical past, together with women and men. But past Kentucky and girls’s faculty basketball followers, Howard has remained a relative unknown regardless of her prolific play and her many nationwide honors or the truth that she’s prone to be a top-five decide on this yr’s W.N.B.A. draft.
That began to vary final week, when a swap appeared to flip in Howard as she led Kentucky to its first Southeastern Convention event title since 1982. The group, seeded seventh, grew to become the second-lowest seed ever to win that title, beating the highest three seeds alongside the way in which.
Although she didn’t hit the electrifying buzzer-beater that earned Kentucky the championship, Howard was a power all through, scoring 88 factors over 4 video games for the third-highest level complete in event historical past. Now, she simply has to convey that splashy play — together with a win over L.S.U. wherein she made six of eight 3-point pictures — to the subsequent degree.
Starr Jacobs, College of Texas at Arlington
Match viewers may get just one alternative to see the redshirt junior ahead Starr Jacobs, however chances are high she’s going to take advantage of it. Jacobs, a junior faculty switch, has placed on a present in her first yr taking part in in Division I, incomes a range because the Solar Belt participant of the yr and main the Girl Mavs to an upset victory for his or her first Solar Belt Convention title with 28 factors, 11 rebounds and three steals.
She has already reworked her group by changing into the primary participant in U.T.A. historical past to common over 20 factors per sport for a whole common season whereas taking pictures nearly completely from contained in the arc. Now armed with an computerized N.C.A.A. event bid, Jacobs and the Girl Mavs have a possibility, albeit a slim one, to finish the ahead’s unlikely journey into the highlight by garnering this system’s first-ever event win.
Taylor Robertson, Oklahoma
Taylor Robertson is the sharpshooter behind considered one of Division I’s greatest offenses. She doesn’t simply lead the nation in 3-point pictures made, averaging 3.67 per sport; she is vying for a spot within the historical past books as the most effective 3-point shooters in girls’s faculty basketball lore. Robertson, a senior guard, is the one participant in N.C.A.A. historical past who has each made greater than 45 % of her 3-point pictures and averaged greater than eight 3-point makes an attempt per sport.
In brief, she’s taking pictures at an unprecedented price despite the fact that the ladies’s 3-point line moved again a little bit over a foot (it’s now the identical as the lads’s) in the midst of her Oklahoma profession. The Sooners will want her to get scorching in the event that they’re going to take advantage of what may very well be their highest N.C.A.A. event seeding in over a decade. Within the Sooners’ solely nationwide event sport of her profession up to now, Robertson hit six 3s; this season, she has hit as many as 9 in a sport.
A prime recruit when she enrolled early at Notre Dame final yr, the freshman guard Olivia Miles has already recorded a triple-double and is among the many Division I assists leaders, with 7.2 per sport earlier than event play. Miles performs with preternatural ease and reads defenses so shortly that at her greatest, she helps Notre Dame transfer with an nearly professional-level effectivity.
In any given sport, she will rating 30 factors, or seize 13 rebounds, or make 14 assists — nevertheless it’s her capacity to fill within the blanks, to help her teammates in the way in which that’s most helpful, that has helped the Preventing Irish exceed expectations this season.
This can be her first time taking part in within the N.C.A.A. event, and if the Irish trustworthy get their method, it can mark the start of a storied postseason profession for the younger guard — one that might convey Notre Dame again into the nationwide championship dialog.
Supply: NY Times
