After competing in most acclaimed, highest-rated women's Final Four ever, last year's March Madness semifinalists heeded the very evident calls for encores, reloading with a number of familiar names.
Three of these teams return their leading scorers from a year ago — Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, Virginia Tech’s Elizabeth Kitley and LSU’s Angel Reese also comprise half of the AP’s preseason All-America team — while South Carolina looks to offset notable losses to the WNBA with transfer addition Te-Hina Paopao and the expected development of Kamilla Cardoso.
With the 2023-24 women’s college basketball season now just a few days away, here’s a preview of each team for this upcoming year and a reason why they’ll be headed back to the Final Four in five months.
👀: How preseasion No. 1s do in March Madness
LSU
Overview: Despite coming off a season where the Tigers earned their first-ever national title in an iconic shootout win over Iowa, there’s an argument that LSU’s offseason was, somehow, just as good.
America’s second most valuable player and 23-point-per-game scorer Angel Reese is back in the Bayou for at least one more year, leading a crop of returnees that includes SEC All-Freshman selections Flau’jae Johnson and Sa’Myah Smith along with deadeye three-point specialist Ketari Poole. Losing Alexis Morris, who averaged 15 points and a team-high four assists, LaDazhia Johnson and Jasmine Carter to graduation were expected but notable setbacks, but LSU responded with blue-blooded authority, scooping up the transfer portal's creme-de-la-creme.
After embarking on a remarkable run into the NCAA Tournament, scoring 20 points in all four games for Louisville and only succumbing to Caitlin Clark’s torrid Hawkeyes, Van Lith stunned the college basketball world by entering the transfer portal for her senior season of college basketball. Motivated by a desire to “compete and play for the best,” Van Lith landed on LSU less than a month after the Tigers’ championship triumph, and coach Kim Mulkey later used similar messaging to land third-team All-American Aneesha Morrow, who averaged nearly 26 points per game for DePaul.
Major Losses: Alexis Morris (15.4 PPG, 4.1 AST), LaDazhia Williams (9.9 PPG, 6 REB), Jasmine Carson (8 PPG)
They’ll be back because of… decadence. A physical embodiment of coach Mulkey’s audacious game-day garb, generally seen scrunched in a squat along the Pete Maravich Center sideline, LSU’s roster is inescapably lavish, from its returning veterans all the way down to its incoming freshman.
Mulkey’s stardom on the recruiting trail landed her the No. 1 and No. 2 prospects in the transfer portal, the aforementioned Morrow and Van Lith, on the heels of the top-ranked high school class as well. America’s finest prospect, Mikayla Williams, and fellow five-star Aalyah del Rosario both appear prepared to contribute from day one in Baton Rouge, combining to go 16-22 for 36 points in LSU’s scrimmage victory Wednesday, and the Tigers’ glittering pedigree makes them a strong candidate to repeat last year’s success.
📊 Top 10 players: Rim protectors | Shooters | Passers | Post scorers
Iowa
Overview: Surging to the first 30-win season in Hawkeye history and a national championship appearance, the '22-23 Iowa group thrived on a transcendent offense, finishing with the 10th-highest scoring average in the last decade.
Crucially, Caitlin Clark is back in Iowa City for year four, but buried beneath her deservedly acclaimed return is the notable glut of production departing from Iowa’s DI-best offense. Coach Lisa Bluder’s entire starting front-court in Monika Czinano and McKenna Warnock graduated this offseason, taking their 28-point scoring average with them, and unlike the aforementioned Tigers, Iowa hasn’t offset these losses through recruiting — Bluder welcomed zero transfers onto campus this offseason, and incoming four-star prospect Ava Jones suffered a tragic injury last Fall, leaving her unlikely to play college basketball.
As such, the prospects of Iowa’s frontcourt reside with the development of Hannah Stulke and Addison O’Grady. The pair of former four-star, top-100 recruits step into a wide-open front court and have both shown flashes this offseason, impressing in the Kinnick Stadium exhibition with a combined 22 points and 9-18 shooting from the floor. The remainder of last year’s starting lineup in Kate Martin and Gabbie Marshall returns for Iowa, so strides from Stulke and O’Grady give Bluder a chance at assembling another complete rotation.
Major Losses: Monika Czinano (17.1 PPG, 6.5 REB), McKenna Warnock (10.9 PPG, 5.9 REB)
They’ll be back because of… Caitlin Clark. As self-sufficient and well-rounded of an apex scorer you'll see in, really, any level of basketball, Clark's excellence gives Iowa a chance to win any and every game on its schedule. The nation's leading returning scorer, Clark sports a genuinely limitless range once her lead foot crosses half-court and leverages the unending attention directed her way by opposing defenses. The rising senior waltzed to the assist title a year ago, slinging passes to rolling post players and punishing cheating defenses.
In all, Clark directly contributed to nearly 50 points per game, well over half of Iowa's total last year, and is one of the rare players in college basketball who can be consistently depended on to win games almost singlehandedly.
South Carolina
Overview: A Hallmark ending to the illustrious Gamecock careers of Zia Cooke and Aliyah Boston came down the season's final weekend in Dallas seven months ago. Veterans of the most successful stretch in program history and now finally the unquestioned senior leaders in garnet and black, they stood on the precipice of a rare box left unchecked through Dawn Staley's exquisite tenure in Columbia: a perfect season. Undefeated after 36 wins and very rarely challenged — two overtime triumphs over Stanford and Ole Miss were USC's only games decided by a single possession — South Carolina couldn't overcome Caitlin Clark's 41-point outburst, falling 77-73 in the Final Four. The perfect season ended, Cooke and Boston, along with Laeticia Amihere and Brea Beal, all declared for the WNBA Draft, and Staley returned to work preparing a very new-look core in Columbia.
As per usual in the last decade, South Carolina is littered with talent — of the 11 players on the current USC roster, eight are former five-star recruits. The lack of returning scoring does present a notable aberration, however, as this season marks the first time since 2012-13 that the Gamecocks don't return a double-digit scorer, the year after Staley's initial recruiting class had cycled through the program. South Carolina turned instead to the transfer portal for its scoring punch and snagged Oregon's Te-Hina Paopao, who averaged more than 13 points per game and shot the long ball at a near 43 percent clip. Paopao and fellow fourth-year star Kamilla Cardoso, who leads Gamecock returnees in scoring and projects to be one of the best post players in college basketball this season, lead a notably young, majority-underclassmen roster that certainly has the talent to lace 'em up in April again.
Major Losses: Zia Cooke (15.4 PPG), Aliyah Boston (13 PPG, 9.8 REB), Laeticia Amihere (7.1 PPG), Brea Beal (6.4 PPG)
They’ll be back because of… Dawn Staley. Well, yes, because of her presence on the sideline, but also because of her words leading into the season. Staley, who's amassed as much credibility as anyone in the game of basketball, referred to Paopao and sophomore Raven Johnson, former No. 2 overall recruit in the 2021 class, as the best lead guard tandem she's ever coached.
Such confidence in the backcourt, and encouraging performances in an exhibition drubbing of Rutgers from Cardoso and MiLaysia Fulwiley, suggests Staley may well have another contender in Columbia this year.
Virginia Tech
Overview: What was once a fairly linear rebuild for Kenny Brooks in Blacksburg skipped a number of steps during a remarkable ACC Championship and Final Four run in 2023. Virginia Tech hadn't advanced past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament this millennium, a feat Brooks' top-seeded Hokies achieved easily with double-digit wins over Chattanooga and South Dakota State, and they would uproot the program's entire 42-year history the following weekend with their first-ever Sweet 16 victory over Tennessee. VT even led by 12 against LSU in the Final Four, felled ultimately by a 22-3 fourth-quarter Tigers run, but the Hokies return enough pieces to make Brooks' sudden success a standard at Virginia Tech.
Most importantly, star center Elizabeth Kitley is back patrolling the paint for Year 5 in Appalachia after a dominant 2022-23 campaign — Kitley averaged an 18-point double-double and separated herself as one of the nation's best shot blockers with nearly 2.5 swats a game. Georgia Amoore, the Aussie aspect of VT's 1-2 punch last season, also returns to campus, bringing back 37.5 points per game between them. There are notable concerns with the Hokie rotation, however, losing double-digit scorers Kayana Traylor and Taylor Soule while entering the new season with six (!!) freshmen on the roster, albeit many of the high four-star variety.
Major Losses: Kayana Traylor (11 PPG, 2.9 AST), Taylor Soule (10.9 PPG, 5.6 REB), D'asia Gregg (4.8 PPG, 6 REB)
They’ll be back because of… balance. Even as Brooks' bunch scales toward the national spotlight, they've always graded out as impressively balanced ball clubs, finishing inside the top 50 in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency each of the last four years. Last year's Virginia Tech squad demonstrated a penchant for winning games in a variety of different ways and Kitley's presence in the paint offers a high floor for offensive production and rim protection.
It's hard to say how well VT's crucial crop of freshmen will integrate into the rotation, but a blockbuster Nov. 9 clash against Iowa will put the Hokies starlets to the sword straight away.
