#womens-college-basketball

#womens-college-basketball

South Carolina guard Ta'Niya Latson drove into the paint in the third quarter. As she went up for the layup, she was met by USC guard Kennedy Smith, who rose up and swatted the ball so hard into the stands that it knocked the hat off a fan sitting a couple rows deep in the Crypto.com Arena crowd. That ended up being the highlight of the Trojans' second half.

"You see in sports things like that happen -- there's just something where you rally around each other," West Virginia coach Mark Kellogg told ESPNU after the game. "I'm so proud of that group of five. I guess it's one of those moments where you don't really know what to say. But that's as good a win as I've probably ever had."

Hidalgo is coming off a season that saw the talented guard become just the fourth sophomore to earn All-America honors in her first two years. USC's JuJu Watkins also accomplished that feat last season, but is out for this year while she's recovering from a torn ACL she suffered in the NCAA Tournament. Courtney Paris and Maya Moore were also All-Americans their first two seasons.

Perhaps this list of potential players of the year for 2025-26 will bring some calm to the chaos, a chance to look at who should be the best performers in each conference. Some seem easy to call -- there don't appear to be any true challengers to UConn's Sarah Strong in the Big East or Richmond's Maggie Doogan in the Atlantic 10 -- but other races like the SEC and Big 12 should be tight until the final day of the campaign.

As much as February and March get most of the attention, NCAA tournament résumés begin their construction the moment the college basketball season begins. November and December matter. They matter plenty. Those are the games that shape the narrative for the rest of the season and are referenced when the selection committee is making many of its most difficult decisions.

Hopefully it's a little bit of a confidence builder and not, 'Oh my God!'