The 2020-21 women’s college basketball season opens Wednesday
Final Four picks, player of the year predictions, biggest storylines
The 2020-21 women’s college basketball season opens Wednesday. As a season of uncertainty around COVID-19 cancellations commences, ESPN.com’s experts make their Final Four, NCAA champion, player of the year and rookie of the year picks below while tackling some of the season’s biggest storylines. Who will become the face of the women’s game this season? Which team joined the top-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks as the only unanimous picks to reach the Final Four (wherever it might be played)? There was nothing unanimous about our picks for the national champion.
What team/player are you most looking forward to seeing play, whether it’s to see a highly touted recruit make her college debut, or a team you might have questions about?
Graham Hays, ESPN.com college basketball writer: The next chapter at Oregon should be fascinating for what it means about the balance of power on the West Coast and throughout college basketball. We will never know if Oregon would have claimed its first championship a season ago. But even if that means the Ducks aren’t yet in the same club as Baylor, Notre Dame and South Carolina, programs that won at least one title and maintained a place in the upper echelon, can they show staying power?
Louisville did it after Angel McCoughtry and then again after Shoni Schimmel. Mississippi State might be in the midst of doing it without Teaira McCowan and Victoria Vivians (and now Vic Schaefer). Is there life after Ruthy Hebard, Sabrina Ionescu and Satou Sabally for Oregon?
I can’t imagine a more interesting assemblage of talent to try and answer that question. Is 6-foot-7 redshirt sophomore Sedona Prince literally the centerpiece? Is Maryland transfer Taylor Mikesell the perfect guard for a Kelly Graves offense? Can Taylor Chavez and Jaz Shelley evolve into feature players? And that’s before even getting to a freshman class that is its own high school All-America team. I have no idea how it all fits together, but I admit I’m more interested in watching the Ducks this season than I was watching last season’s brilliantly executed but very familiar storylines. Read more from ESPN.
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