“She’s baaaack,” Aubrey Griffin’s teammates were saying all week when they passed her in the hallways. And when she checked into Sunday’s game against Seton Hall with 4:37 left in the first half, her first appearance since being helped off the court at Creighton with a torn ACL on Jan. 3, 2024, UConn had the college equivalent of a veteran acquired at midseason for a postseason run. A difference-maker.

“It’s Aubrey Day,” Paige Bueckers told SNY’s Chelsea Sherrod as she walked off the court. “To see her, how hard she’s worked, everything she’s been through, and how it’s never deterred who she is as a basketball player and a human being. It’s extremely rewarding to see her have fun out there.”

UConn women’s basketball powered by star trio in 96-36 rout of Seton Hall as Paige Bueckers passes milestone

Griffin, entering to a loud reception from UConn fans, played about 10 minutes, scoring three points, with four rebounds and two assists. She was just getting her legs under her, and her full impact was hardly needed as UConn overmatched Seton Hall, 96-36.  (And Seton Hall came in with a 5-1 record in Big East play.)

But when Griffin, 6 feet 1, in her sixth season at UConn, gets up to full speed, her impact could be felt in games in which the Huskies will be challenged, at Tennessee and South Carolina next month and in the late stages of the NCAA Tournament.

In getting Griffin back in late January, UConn, which already has the talent and depth to go back to the Final Four, gets a large dose of some of the things it doesn’t necessarily have. The moment a fully healthy Griffin gets out there, the Huskies get longer and more athletic, can become more dynamic on offense, more menacing on defense, more experienced off the bench. In the 12 months since Griffin went down, UConn lost five out of 44 games, but was twice torched for 30-plus points by Hannah Hidalgo in losses to Notre Dame, and gave up 25 to JuJu Watkins in a two-point loss to Southern Cal last month.

Does UConn win those games if Griffin is available to guard the opponents’ best players? Could she be, even if coming off the bench, that little extra something that could make the difference? Geno Auriemma and his assistants would love to find out, when the championship is on the line.

UConn’s performance Sunday was notable for Paige Buecker’s 2,000th career point, and for the sustained look at Bueckers, Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong, healthy at the same time and forming an in-sync “Big Three,” something else the teams that have beaten UConn the last few years have not had to defend.

Those are big deals. But Griffin, as a missing piece of a puzzle, could be just as big. When she came to UConn in 2019, she wasn’t a top-10 recruit, but Auriemma saw something in the daughter of former NBA player and coach Adrian Griffin. She has played 111 college games, averaging 21 minutes, 8.2 points, 5.7 rebounds. Whenever a switch was somehow flipped, though, Aubrey Griffin could be far more dynamic than those stats indicate.

Dom Amore: Maybe it hasn’t been on script, but Paige Bueckers, on brink of 2,000 points, has fashioned a tale of her own at UConn

And that was beginning to happen more consistently last season, before Griffin landed awkwardly at the baseline in Omaha, when her “last season” ended.

“Her injury came right in the midst of  when she was playing the best basketball of her career,” Auriemma said.

The team was devastated for her, the postgame locker room, bus ride to the airport and trip to Washington for the next game as somber as witnesses had ever seen. When Griffin, who has missed the 2021-22 season with a back injury, announced to the UConn fans on Senior Night that she would return for her extra year of eligibility, there was hope. Like Bueckers and Fudd, she worked diligently, day by day to return once her left knee was repaired. The typical 12-month recovery leaves her with 2 1/2 months to leave the mark she came to UConn to make.

“She has put in a lot of effort, a lot of time, a lot of work into doing all this and she has to be rewarded,” Auriemma said. “Some way, she has to be rewarded. I’m grateful she’s going to get an opportunity to give it a shot.”

And maybe the UConn team, after years in a dark forest full of injuries, is about to be rewarded, too. Without COVID, without the injuries and the red-shirting, the Huskies would not have a team like it has assembled right now. Established stars and future stars in the making all together, from freshmen like Strong, 18, to Griffin, 23, who earned her degree in women’s studies nearly two years ago.

“It feels great to be back out there with my teammates,” Griffin told reporters after the game, “and it’s been a long process and every single one of them has been with me every step. I’m just so grateful to be out there again.”

Griffin said she could hardly sleep Saturday night, knowing she had been medically cleared to play, with a restriction on minutes. When she came out to stretch Sunday, the student section chanted for her. After she checked in, Bueckers immediately got her the ball.

“To let her know at that all of us believe in her and are excited to have her back was definitely the goal,” Bueckers said.

Dom Amore’s Sunday Read: CT Sun staying put, charting new course into WNBA future; On Titans’ Will Levis, Coach K’s idea

Griffin ended up at the line and made one. She returned for the final 6 1/2 minutes, and KK Arnold found her running down the floor with a long pass for a layup, Griffin’s first bucket bringing the UConn bench, which by then had all the starters, to their feet. The Huskies led 89-33, but the basket felt rather important. For Aubrey Griffin and her teammates, it certainly was.

“The first time I went in I was a little nervous,” Griffin said. “The second time I was a little more comfortable. I know it’s my first game and I know it’s going to take a couple of games to get to feeling like myself, but I think today was a good start.”

Add history as one of its most formidable opponents. If you’re conversant in sports history, you know the NFL began as league of Midwest factory towns. One by one, Canton, Akron, Decatur and the others were abandoned until only Green Bay, and the community-owned Packers, remain as a link to those roots. The NBA, once it took flight, left cities like Fort Wayne and Syracuse. And don’t get us started on the NHL and Hartford.

Connecticut Sun enter new era in 2025 with introduction of head coach Rachid Meziane

When the Mohegan Sun brought the Orlando franchise to Connecticut in 2003, it was an ideal fit for The W. Maybe this isn’t a big market, but it is a women’s basketball hotbed. Now, as the WNBA expands, grows in popularity, seeks greater TV revenue, there is bound to be some sentiment from the league, and the players union, that it has outgrown the CT franchise and needs to move into a bigger market. Since the Sun played a game in Boston last year, a sellout at TD Garden, and made plans to play one of Caitlin Clark’s games vs. the Sun there next season, it’s natural to wonder if it’s a precursor to a removal of the franchise.

“We are here, this is where we want to be, so I wish people would put those rumors to bed,” said Beth Regan, chairwoman and justice of the Mohegan Tribal Council of Elders.

So the Sun are re-inventing themselves one more time, shuffling the front office to name former UConn star Morgan Tuck GM and hiring Rachid Meziane from France as head coach to blend EuroBasket with The W. With only three players currently under contract, the Sun, who have made the WNBA semifinals six years in a row, the finals twice, will look very different next spring, in personnel and style.

“There’s always optimism when you start a new chapter,” said Sun president Jen Rizzotti, the former UConn star. “There is no way to predict the future, but based on our success in the past and what we felt Rachid could bring our organization, adjustment wise, what our flow looks like, we felt he was the right fit for a team that’s been so close.”

The Sun have had success because coaches and GMs past and present, like Mike Thibault, Curt Miller, Stephanie White, Darius Taylor, now chief basketball strategist, and Tuck have stayed ahead of the curve in drafting and trading for players. The Sun have been modest players in the free agent market, and have had to trade their share of stars because of their desire to play in a bigger market, with more to do, more off-the-court revenue opportunities.

“We’ve been able to identify players that are interested in being part of a winning culture and maybe a little less interested in being a part of the things off the court that so many players nowadays feel are important,” Rizzotti said. “We’re looking for the blue-collar, underdog, hard-working personalities.”

This offseason will be a test to find out how many of those kinds of players are still out there. “This generation’s a little bit different,” Rizzotti said, “but there are differences in what a 22-year-old feels and what a 27-year old feels, or in players who have had that (big market) experience and it wasn’t what they were looking for.”

One of the biggest bones of contention in recent years has been the Sun’s practice digs at the Mohegan Tribal Community and Government Center, which they sometimes have to share with outside events — even in preparing for playoff games. The Indiana Fever announced Thursday it will build a $78 million performance center in downtown Indianapolis, next to its arena.

The Mohegan Tribe has acknowledged the need to upgrade facilities, but there are no plans to report as of yet, said Joseph M. Soper, Tribal Government Council corresponding secretary, a key figure in Mohegan Sun’s sports and entertainment realm.

“We understand where the infrastructure needs are going,” Soper said. “Especially as the league grows and develops, it’s something we’re always continuing to explore. We’re aware. We’ve always been committed to trying to provide what is right and what the team needs to be successful.”

Connecticut Sun take step toward becoming ‘New England’s team’ with first-ever TD Garden game

The idea of playing games in Boston came from the Sun, which was the first WNBA team to turn a profit on its own in 2010. The franchise is not for sale, but is looking to expose the WNBA to fans in Boston and perhaps interest some to travel to the casino and take in a game. The game against Los Angeles drew 19,103 to TD Garden last Aug. 20.

“Yes, we are a Connecticut team, but we really are New England’s team,” Soper said. “In the past, I don’t think we would have had the financial success to do it. You could see the excitement and anticipation of where the league was going, we felt it was the right opportunity.”

It could be considered, Tribal leaders say, that selected games with the potential to draw more than the 10,000 Mohegan Sun Arena holds could be played in Hartford, once the XL Center is renovated. The Sun averaged 8,450 last season, ninth among 12 teams.

As the Sun put together a new roster for 2025, almost from scratch, Meziane will be offering free agents something different, a re-imagined Sun. “This new trend of that position-less, everyone-can-shoot, everyone has those kind of premier skills,” Tuck said. “As a player, that’s a little more enjoyable, more free-flowing, you’re reading and reacting.”

As a coach in the Euro League with France and leader of the fourth-place Belgian team in the Paris Olympics, Meziane is looking to play what some call “beautiful basketball,” and many modern players who have overseas experience could be drawn to it. This is the latest plan for a small-market franchise that, historically, is a can-do organization.

“The W has a lot of physicality,” Meziane said. “In Europe, we have less physicality, so we have to play smartly, have a high basketball IQ, move the ball, less isolations, less one-on-one. We have unselfish play in Europe. I think we can mix this, combine high-IQ basketball with physicality and this combination can make something very nice, very exciting for our fans to watch. You saw in the last Olympic games, European teams can compete with Team USA, so it’s very smart for NBA and WNBA coaches to analyze what’s happening in Europe.”

More for your Sunday Read:

Dom Amore’s Sunday Read: Fascinating tale of a UConn men’s basketball walk-on; the selfless Caroline Ducharme and more

Still a way for Will?

Now that the Titans, who finished 3-14, have secured the No.1 pick in the draft, quarterback Will Levis, the Xavier-Middletown grad and 33rd overall pick in the 2023 draft, faces an uncertain future there.

Levis completed 63.1 percent of his passes for 2,091 yards, 13 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, a quarterback rating of 81.2, near the bottom of NFL regulars. He missed time with a shoulder injury and was benched for a couple of games late in the season.

“All I can do is work this offseason on those areas of my game and come back here and show them I can be a franchise quarterback,” Levis told reporters in Nashville last week. “I truly believe with the ball I put on tape, and my body of work as a whole this season, I know and people who know ball, I think, can see that I can do it. I want to be a starter, I know I have what it takes, hoping to show I can continue to be a starter in this league.”

After the last game, Levis said he wanted to “be the quarterback of this team for the rest of my career.” If he does move to a new team, Levis would have some history on his side. There are many examples, most recently Sam Darnold in Minnesota, of young quarterbacks failing with their original team, but coming into their own later on.

Sunday short takes

*UConn’s Marc Gatcomb, who joined the Islanders’ organization this season, was summoned off the ice during the morning skate with Bridgeport of the AHL and sent up to New York on an emergency basis when a flu bug hit Jean-Gabriel Pageau among others on the team.

After taking his “rookie lap” before Tuesday’s game against Ottawa, Gatcomb, 25, flipped the puck over the glass to his parents, who drove down from Massachusetts. He played 7 1/2 minutes with the fourth line, and was returned to Bridgeport, where he has nine goals and eight assists. He’s the ninth UConn player to reach the NHL.

“I thought he had a really good start. That line had some energy at the beginning,” coach Patrick Roy told reporters afterward. “I thought he did a really, really nice job. He was physical, he was good for his first game.

*With Brad Robbins off to Tulsa, UConn coach Jim Mora has an important hire to make. To get the attention of quality quarterbacks in the transfer portal, a respected QB coach is essential. Hey, would Dan Orlovsky be interested?

*Former UConn men’s basketball teammates Jalen Adams and Brendan Adams (no relation) are pro teammates this season with Hapoel Holon of the Israeli Basketball Premier League.

*With Dodger Stadium undergoing renovations, it looks like the UConn-Vanderbilt baseball game scheduled to be played there March 2 will be moved to UCLA.

*Only baseball produces one-of-a-kind characters like Bob Uecker, the backup catcher who made a career out of putting himself down to lift the rest of us up. “A Braves scout came to my house and said they wanted to sign me for $20,000. My Dad said, ‘I’m sorry, but we don’t have that kind of money.'” Uecker died Thursday at 90, a long life, so well-lived.

Coach K says Big East, ACC should consider forming ‘mega-conference’

Last word

Mike Krzyzewski proposed an ACC-Big East merger or alliance this week and I listened with great interest, as I have proposed such an idea in this space before. Coach K has it right. Sure, it would be the best of all possible worlds for UConn, basically the original Big East re-assembled, plus Duke, UNC, et al. But it would also be good for the ACC, with UConn adding value in multiple sports. Rick Pitino was also talking about mega-conferences for basketball at Big East Media Day in October, and endorsed Coach K’s idea. So how does this sound? The Big East schools play their tournament at Madison Square Garden, the ACC at Barclays, can alternate years on that, and the two winners meet on Saturday.

“I feel like a free throw would be pretty ironic because I don’t get many of those,” she said Friday, after the UConn women’s basketball practice. “But more like … an end-of-the-first-quarter buzzer beater. That would be cool.”

Bueckers, who has 1,994 points at UConn, will likely reach 2,000 early in the game Sunday against Seton Hall at Gampel Pavilion, in her 102nd game for the Huskies, basically 2 1/2 seasons. She will be the 12th to reach that mark for UConn, but no one, not even Maya Moore, who tops the list with 3,036 points, did it in so few games.

After investing in UConn alums’ new league, Geno Auriemma and Paige Bueckers excited for Unrivaled debut

“Being here, you are surrounded by all these greats who have been here,” teammate and long-time friend Azzi Fudd said. “I didn’t know 2,000 was coming up. It feels so fast.”

And herein hangs this tale, unique in UConn lore. We know about the injuries, both Bueckers’ and many of her teammates, through the years. We know about the excruciating losses. We know the number of UConn championship banners has remained stubbornly stuck at 11 since 2016.

But there comes a point — and this is as good a time as any — when we should stop asking “what if?” and appreciate what is, a time to begin chiseling out that place for Bueckers on UConn’s Mount Rushmore, which would have far more than four faces.

“This notion that you have to win a national championship or multiple championships in order to be considered a generational-type player or an amazing player,” Geno Auriemma said. “There are a lot of great players that have had amazing careers that have never won a national championship, never been to a Final Four. So you can’t use that as a gauge for where Paige would be. My thought process is, how much did she dominate the college basketball world during her time here, how many Final Fours would we have played in if she weren’t on our team?”

Bueckers was the national player of the year as a freshman in 2020-21, when UConn reached the Final Four in the bubble and lost to Arizona. Though she missed much of year two, she practically willed the Huskies to the Final Four in her second  year with an overtime tour de force to beat NC State in a regional final, eventually lost to South Carolina in the championship game. UConn missed the Final Four when Bueckers missed the entire 2022-23 season, but returned as she returned last April, losing to Iowa in the semifinal.

Dom Amore: Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd, have one last ride to fulfill destiny at UConn

Her supporting cast, while very good, has not had the multiple All-Americans of UConn championship teams of the past, and it has often been depleted by injuries, forcing Bueckers to play unfamiliar positions — power forward much of last season.

Her natural unselfishness keeps her scoring from exploding, yet she’s averaged 19.7 points, 4.8 assists and 4.4 rebounds across 101 college games, shooting 53.5 percent from the floor, 41.9  on threes.

“To me, the most impressive thing is, she doesn’t take a lot of shots to get to those numbers,” Auriemma said. “And she took the same number of shots a player of her caliber normally would, she would have gotten here a lot quicker, too.”

Auriemma, on occasion, wonders what it might look like if Bueckers could be transported back in time to play with some of those great teams. With her all-around ability, she might not have scored as much; might have gotten more assists. She could have been the missing piece for teams that came so close in 2017, 2018, 2019. Who is to say what might have been if Bueckers and Fudd had more than a handful of games healthy together?

“But how many players can say they were the best players in the league and went to the Final Four every year they played?” Auriemma said. “Not many. Unfortunately, when you play at UConn, there’s a list.”

The list includes Moore, who played for the Minnesota Lynx while Bueckers was growing up near Minneapolis. She’s the players Bueckers most wanted to be like, but the pantheon of greats has surrounded her every time she has walked into Gampel or the Werth Center. That, along with the world-wide focus on her, has been relentless.

Never has Bueckers run from any of it, another thing that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

“Just wanting to the best is the mindset I’ve always had and a lot of people who come through these doors have,” Bueckers said. “That comes with winning championships. Breanna Stewart won four, Sue Bird and Maya Moore won plenty, and many others who won a lot. So to be the best here, you really have to win a national championship.”

And who is to say she won’t get it yet?

“I think I’ve done a lot of growing at UConn in terms of my mindset and my mentality, of staying in the present,” Bueckers said. “No past thing, no past missed shot, no past turnover affects what I’m doing right now. It only affects you if you let it affect you. Not looking forward too far into the future, just trying capture ever day as it is, be the best version of yourself each day. You can’t continue to grow in the future if you don’t grow right now.”

Freshman Claire Murdoch brings a mature game to UConn women’s hockey

“… No questions about me,” she said, when she began speaking Friday, but the 2,000th point will be about Paige Bueckers, all about her determination to write a story of her own at UConn, even if it hasn’t always been on script.

“I feel like something so Paige-like would be, I don’t know, a buzzer-beater,” Fudd said. “Something so ridiculous that, like, no one would make that except her. … Hopefully she’ll be able to take that step back and appreciate the moment for a second, too.”

Stewart and Collier are two of the most successful players to ever come through Storrs, both in their collegiate and now professional careers. Stewart led the Huskies to four consecutive national championships from 2012-16 and has since won two WNBA MVP awards and three league championships. Collier was a freshman on Stewart’s 2016 NCAA championship squad and went on to earn three straight All-American selections before graduating in 2019. She was the 2024 WNBA Defensive Player of the Year and has earned four All-Star selections in five complete seasons.

“Everywhere they go and everything they do, it’ll always be mentioned that they played at UConn,” Auriemma said. “For the rest of their lives, everywhere they go, everything they accomplish, we’re going to be a part of that. I couldn’t be prouder if it was my own kids at home. When I met both of those kids, they were 17 years old and just hoping to get a chance to play basketball at a high level, and now they’re incredibly accomplished gold medal winners and incredible human beings. I’m as excited as anybody to watch (Unrivaled) this weekend.”

Auriemma was one of the first major investors in Stewart’s and Collier’s Unrivaled league, which tips off its inaugural season Friday at its new state-of-the-art facility in Miami. He has since been joined by dozens of other icons across sports, business and entertainment, including U.S. women’s soccer legend Alex Morgan, actor Ashton Kutcher, former NBA star Carmelo Anthony and South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley.

Unrivaled will compete in a modified version of the traditional 3-on-3 basketball that has grown in popularity since it was added to the Olympic Games in 2021. The league will play on a shortened 72-foot full court rather than the half court used in FIBA competitions, and teams will play to a ‘winning score’ in the fourth quarter rather than for a set period of time. Unrivaled also has its own shot clock and free-throw rules that aim to accelerate the pace of the game and replicate playground-style basketball.

“The easiest and most truthful answer for me is that my confidence is in Stewie and Pheesa, those two people as people, and their character, who they are, and the people that they’re involved with,” Auriemma said. “When they came to me and said, ‘Hey, this is what we want to do,’ I’m investing in the two of them as opposed to, ‘This league has the ability to just skyrocket and become the biggest thing in all of women’s basketball’ — but it may. We don’t know … The world likes that right now, that fast pace, and 3-on-3 has been really good at the Olympic level, so I think the league is going to be fantastic.”

Unrivaled features 36 active WNBA players divided across six teams for its first season headlined by Stewart and Collier, but the star-studded rosters include 13 WNBA champions, 22 All-Stars and 16 Olympians. The league also loaded with UConn alumni: Stewart will play alongside 2024 graduate Aaliyah Edwards on Mist BC, and former teammates Tiffany Hayes and Stefanie Dolson reunite on Laces BC. Three-time All-American Katie Lou Samuelson and Azura Stevens round out the group representing Phantom BC and Rose BC, respectively.

Unrivaled has also secured more than a dozen major corporate sponsorships on top of its individual investors, ranging from Wilson as the game ball manufacturer to Miller Lite as the league’s official beer partner. TNT Sports signed a multiyear media rights deal to exclusively broadcast every Unrivaled game this season across its networks, and Ally Financial is the league’s jersey-patch sponsor with Under Armour as the official uniform partner.

“Personally, I was investing in Pheesa and Stewie, but when I found out how many other people and at what level were also investing in it, I felt like, wow, I made a good decision,” Auriemma said with a grin. “I think they’re going to knock it out of the park.”

Stewart and Collier launched Unrivaled to provide WNBA stars a stateside option to play during the offseason with the goal of making it player-owned. All 36 players competing in 2025 receive equity league in addition to an average salary of more then $200,000 — the highest average in women’s professional sports.

UConn superstar Paige Bueckers signed an name, image and likeness deal with Unrivaled in August that gives her an ownership stake in the league and comes with the expectation that she will join as a player once she begins her professional career. Bueckers and LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson are the only college athletes on NIL agreements with Unrivaled, but USC star JuJu Watkins also joined the league as an investor in December.

“I think really the investment, the partnerships, how much they’re pouring into those women who are part of the league and have stakes in the league (stands out),” Bueckers said. “And just how important they’re treating it. It’s not just a fun league for the offseason for them to make money and have an opportunity to play. It’s really an opportunity to grow the game, and they’ve poured everything into it … so it’s a great start to the league, and I’m excited to watch.”

“It’s like, to learn to swim, you have to go to the swimming pool, so I’m getting in the pool as much as possible,” Meziane joked at his introductory press conference Thursday.

Meziane was hired as head coach of the Connecticut Sun on Dec. 4, becoming the first international coach in the franchise’s 27-year history. Meziane has spent 19 years coaching in the French Ligue Feminine including the past five with Villeneuve d’Ascq, leading the club to a league championship in 2024. He has also coached Belgium’s women’s national team since 2022, and the team had its best-ever Olympic finish coming in fourth at the Paris Games this summer.

Though Meziane’s English is still shaky and he had never set foot in the state before this week, the opportunity to join the WNBA was one he couldn’t pass up.

“The WNBA is the best league in the world, and the W has the best players, so I cannot understand who (would) not be interested to join it,” Meziane said. “I knew that it could be a big challenge. It will take lot of hard work, but I’m ready for that … For me, the WNBA was something I had to do. I have to be here to compete against the best teams, the best players, the best coaches in the world.”

The Sun went through a long interview process to find the right replacement for Stephanie White, who left the team after two seasons to serve as head coach of the Indiana Fever. General manager Morgan Tuck, who was officially promoted the day before Meziane’s hire was announced, helped spearhead the search alongside president Jennifer Rizzotti and former general manager Darius Taylor — who is remaining in the Sun front office under a new title. Rizzotti said the trio worked in equal partnership to identify and vet candidates, and Meziane eventually checked every box the team was looking for.

“Me, her and Darius did everything together pretty much. We all reached out to our networks, we identified a list, and we met very regularly, every couple days, about the list,” Rizzotti said. “I set up a lot of initial interviews to kind of vet candidates, and then if I felt like they were the right fit, we then immediately set up an interview for the three of us, and then they would usually follow up with an interview just the two of them, so all three of us had a chance to talk to each candidate multiple times in different settings … It was a very much a combined team effort, like literally 33.3% that each of us put into this process, because we felt like it was really important that we had the perspective of all three of us, and we chose the right person that we all believed would fit.”

hard work, discipline, and communication #BringTheHeat | #CTSun pic.twitter.com/Eb0lmSxVkI

— Connecticut Sun (@ConnecticutSun) January 16, 2025

Meziane plans to officially move to Connecticut in February, and his wife and children will join him after they finish their school year in July. Meziane has a 9-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter, who he said attended nearly all of his games in France, and he expects they will become the Sun’s biggest fans as soon as they arrive.

One of the Sun’s biggest requirements in their hiring process was finding someone willing to relocate to Connecticut full time. The team has not had a head coach live year-round in the state since Mike Thibault was fired in 2012, and Rizzotti felt the team needed a full-time presence as the WNBA expands with fewer players leaving to compete overseas during the offseason.

“That was honestly one of my first questions to everyone. That’s why I talked to everybody first, because I didn’t want us to interview somebody who wasn’t willing to be a Connecticut native,” Rizzotti said. “I felt like it was important — as we’re going to continue to invest in the team, we’re going to have facilities that match what (players) want, we’re going to have players here in the offseason — that their coaches needed to be here and they needed to be all into that … We needed to have our entire staff feeling invested in that Connecticut future.”

Meziane is also an elite basketball mind, aiming to marry the more team-oriented European game with the aggressive style of the WNBA. He originally played soccer growing up but quickly switched to basketball after developing a fascination with the Xs and Os of the game, and his knowledge immediately endeared him to Rizzotti and Tuck as former players.

“The WNBA has more physicality and some rules are a bit different, but the basketball is universal,” Meziane said. “I moved to basketball because I think in basketball we have more tactics, so it’s something I’m very interested by, and for sure my experience (will help). I’ve coached many players, and many of them are very smart, so I’ve learned from them … It’s easy to talk with Morgan because she is a former player. She played basketball at the top level, so I think that she’s able to really evaluate my skills. We felt our passion, and that’s why I’m here.”

The Sun did not retain any of the assistant coaches from White’s staff and are looking to fill two more positions after hiring former New York Liberty assistant Roneeka Hodges on Jan. 10. Hodges played for 10 years in the WNBA across six different teams, and she also played multiple seasons overseas in France before retiring in 2019. Hodges spent the last three years working under Australian national team coach Sandy Brondello and helped the Liberty to their first WNBA Championship in franchise history in 2024.

Rizzotti said Meziane’s input will be important in rounding out his coaching staff, but she is also prioritizing women and former players in the hiring process to complement his international experience.

“Obviously he wants people that he’s comfortable with, so he had his list of people he wanted us to interview, and for us, having former players on the staff was important to us,” Rizzotti said. “I wanted to make sure, not only do we have former players on staff, but that we are also grooming the next generation of WNBA head coaches in our league … I’ve always felt that you hire the best person for the job — I played for the best coach in the United States (UConn’s Geno Auriemma) who happens to be a man — but it’s not lost on me that women being able to put successful women in leadership roles needs to be a priority.”

Authorities in Indianapolis have charged a 55-year-old Texas man with felony stalking of Indiana Fever star and WNBA rookie of the year Caitlin Clark.

Michael Thomas Lewis is accused of repeated and continued harassment of the 22-year-old Clark beginning on Dec. 16, the Marion County prosecutor’s office wrote in a Saturday court filing. Jail records show Lewis is due in court on Tuesday.

Lewis posted numerous messages on Clark’s X account, according to an affidavit from a Marion County sheriff’s lieutenant.

In one, he said he had been driving by the Gainbridge Fieldhouse — one of the arenas where the Fever plays home games — three times day, and in another he said he had “one foot on a banana peel and the other on a stalking charge.” Other messages directed at Clark were sexually explicit.

The posts “actually caused Caitlin Clark to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, or threatened” and an implicit or explicit threat also was made “with the intent to place Caitlin Clark in reasonable fear of sexual battery,” prosecutors wrote in the Marion County Superior Court filing.

The FBI learned that the X account belonged to Lewis and that the messages were sent from IP addresses at an Indianapolis hotel and downtown public library.

Indianapolis police spoke with Lewis on Jan. 8 at his hotel room. He told officers he was in Indianapolis on vacation. When asked why he was making so many posts about Clark, Lewis replied: “Just the same reason everybody makes posts,” according to court documents.

He told police that he didn’t mean any harm and told them he fantasized about being in a relationship with Clark.

“It’s an imagination, fantasy type thing and it’s a joke, and it’s nothing to do with threatening,” he told police, according to the court documents.

In asking the court for a higher than standard bond, the prosecutor’s office included that Lewis traveled from his home in Texas to Indianapolis “with the intent to be in close proximity to the victim.”

The prosecutor’s office also sought a stay-away order as a specific condition if Lewis is released from jail ahead of trial. Prosecutors requested that Lewis be ordered to stay away from the Gainbridge and Hinkle fieldhouses where the Fever play home games.

The Associated Press was unable to determine Monday if he has a lawyer who can comment on his behalf.

The Associated Press named Clark the Female Athlete of the Year for 2024. After leading Iowa to last year’s national championship game, she was the top pick in the WNBA draft and went on to win rookie of the year honors in the league.

There are healthy disagreements, as there should be, about which players belong in that 1.5 percent. Does short-term greatness trump long-term excellence? How many players are so clearly in the top 1 percent that there is not a credible argument to be made against them?

This year’s ballot of 28 candidates, all of whom played during the years I covered baseball full-time for The Courant, has one among those in their first year: Ichiro Suzuki.

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A rookie of the year and MVP in the same season, 2001, he didn’t start in the U.S. major leagues until age 28, yet joined the 3,000-hit club. He broke George Sisler’s 80-year-old record for hits in a season, stole more than 500 bases, with two batting titles, three silver sluggers and 10 Gold Gloves, plus the significance of his career in building the bridge between Japan and the U.S. He checks too many boxes for a responsible voter not to check his.

When Baseball Writers Association of America’s  Hall of Fame voting began in 1936, there were dozens of all-time greats waiting in line and it took decades to catch up with the backlog. From this grew the wait-your-turn school of thought, that no one should be a first-ballot inductee and therefore no one would be unanimous. This was not an unreasonable take in its day, and some Halls of Fame do operate on this principle, but it has long been outdated here. Mariano Rivera finally broke through in 2019, and Ichiro could very well be the second to be elected unanimously, based on ballots revealed so far.

Another first-timer, CC Sabathia, is not quite a slam dunk, but with 251 wins — pitching wins mattered more during the first half of his career —  plus 90 more wins than losses, 3,089 strikeouts, a Cy Young Award and a key role on a championship team, he checks enough boxes, too.

Long-term excellence and short-term greatness is a Cooperstown combination.
Next, four holdovers from last year’s ballot get my vote again: Carlos Beltran, Andruw Jones, Billy Wagner and Andy Pettitte. Beltran and Jones have enough offensive/defensive credentials for me. I was a late comer to Wagner, as I believe the bar should be very high for relievers, but with so many of my colleagues voting for him — he just missed getting the needed 75 percent in 2023 — I do not have a strong enough objection to be among 26 percent that could him out.

Pettitte’s durability and postseason success should earn him a place, and I do not hold his appearance in the Mitchell Report against him. I do not believe his involvement with PEDs rises to the level of others.

Now, for my annual explanation on steroids. To be brief, I voted for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens during their last several years on the ballot. If they got in, or get in eventually, I would vote for all such players. But Bonds and Clemens are not in, and that eliminates Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez for me, for now.

This leaves me with six boxes checked so far, four available (10 is the limit) and a lot of borderline candidates, including Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Former Red Sox star and MVP Dustin Pedroia, “King Felix” Hernandez, Brian McCann, a catcher with 282 homers, Omar Vizquel, 11-time Gold Glove winner, Mets face-of-franchise captain David Wright, Torii Hunter. All are worthy of consideration and had some Hall of Fame-caliber stretches during their careers.

After wrestling with it for a couple of weeks, I’m going to vote for one more: King Felix, in Year One. His career was curtailed by injuries; his last great year came at age 29, but there is precedent for such pitchers getting in. He was a six-time All-Star, a Cy Young winner, pitched a perfect game, certainly passes the eyeball test.

The others have more years of eligibility and I keep an open mind on all going forward. I could be convinced. The passage of times brings new context and perspective, and some ballots are more crowded than others.

But on the ballot I will mail this week, I am going with these seven to join that 1.5 percent: Suzuki, Sabathia and Wagner — I believe those three will get in come the January reveal — plus Jones, Beltran and Pettitte, who will probably fall short again, and Hernandez, who will probably have to wait several years.

More for your Sunday Read:

Dom Amore: In epic game, UConn, Southern Cal add fuel to women’s basketball fire. Will they meet again?

Paige-JuJu a ratings winner

The UConn-USC women’s basketball game on Fox Dec. 21 was watched by 2.23 million viewers, peaking at 3.76 million, which are astounding numbers considering the game was up against the best of the CFP first-round matchups, Ohio State vs. Tennessee.

It was the highest-rating women’s game so far this season, and the second highest ever on Fox. Caitlin Clark’s final regular-season game, played last March, drew more viewers, but was not up against such powerhouse competition.

UConn’s big comeback, which fell short, 72-70, probably kept viewers turning in, or drew more to tune in, or tune back in. If there is a Paige Buckers-JuJu Watkins III played deep in the NCAA Tournament in March, new records could be set.

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Top-shelf stuff

Took the opportunity to watch Notre Dame-West Haven’s boys basketball standout Abdou Toure, considered by many the top player in the state, during the smoothly and professionally run tripleheader, The Day Holiday Classic at Mohegan Sun, last week.

Toure scored 27 points in the Green Knights’ 66-43 victory over Hillhouse-New Haven. Not a newsflash here, but Toure, 6 feet 6, who led ND to an unbeaten season in 2023-24, can really jump out of a gym. He has numerous high major offers, from power conferences to Ivy League, but he is a junior and is not close to a decision.

“I haven’t really dropped any of my top schools yet,” he said. “Just letting the colleges come in. No rush. … I feel like I’m growing a lot, every day in practice. I feel I can get better at my dribbling and my 3-point shot.”

Dom Amore: UConn’s Stephon Castle soaring to head of NBA rookie class with Spurs

Sunday short takes

*Despite his productivity, Stephon Castle’s minutes have been reduced lately with the Spurs. Don’t read too much into it. He’s been dealing with a shoulder issue, all rookies hit a wall during the long season to which they are unaccustomed and, remember, San Antonio has a 39-year-old starter, Chris Paul, at the position. Castle is a big part of their future.

*Antother former Husky, one-time lottery pick James Bouknight’s attempt to rebuild his career with Portland’s G League affiliate is going well so far. Through 16 games he’s averaging 15.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists. He had 19 points for Rip City in the league’s Winter Showcase.

*After watching Victor Wembanyama play in person for the first time on Christmas Day, I have two words: Holy. Crap.

*Why would Jerod Mayo, a first-time head coach, have ever been on a hot seat when the Patriots were 4-13 last year and are playing a rookie quarterback? Next year, if things don’t improve, the year after, maybe.

*Surfing YouTube for 1960s and ’70s NFL Films recaps is a good way to take your mind off the present Giants. You get angry all over again for the trading of Fran Tarkenton and wasting of Bob Tucker’s greatness. It’s Festivus week and that’s my grievance.

*The UConn men’s hockey team started the second half this weekend in the Kwik Trip Holiday Faceoff in Milwaukee with games against Alaska-Fairbanks and either Wisconsin or Ferris State. The Huskies, 7-7-1 with some notable wins in the first half, are No. 15 in the PairWise rankings, fairly well positioned for a run at the NCAA Tournament.

*John Neider, redshirt freshman from Law-Milford, led UConn in special teams tackles this season with 10.

*Next year would be a good time to start a new home-and-home football series with UConn and Boston College, just saying.

Big East women’s basketball preview: Can conference compete with UConn’s dominance in 2024-25?

Last word

Enough already with all the carping about blowouts in the first round of the college football playoffs. Blowouts are part of college football, there are frequent mismatches even within conferences.

So this year, we had blowouts. It doesn’t mean those teams or those conferences didn’t deserve to be there, or that fourth or fifth place teams in some conferences did deserve to be there. Let this new process play out for a few years before jumping to those conclusions.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Plunging participation in girls basketball led one of Nebraska’s largest high schools to cancel its varsity team for the year.

The decision by Grand Island Senior High School — the state’s third-largest with more than 2,600 students — reflects a national decline in participation in the girls sport, even as the popularity of women’s basketball behind the likes of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese has sent record numbers of fans flocking to arenas or tuning in on TV.

Schools across the country have made similar choices, but that hasn’t made the move any easier for those passionate about Grand Island basketball.

“We’ve seen the train coming. I mean we’ve been sitting on the tracks forever. But frankly, people just didn’t want to do the heavy lifting that was required,” said Jeremy Jensen, a former Grand Island mayor and high school soccer coach who wishes more had been done to build a sustainable girls basketball program.

What happened in Grand Island?

The high school in the largely blue-collar city of 52,000 about 120 miles (190 kilometers) west of Omaha decided to cancel its varsity and junior varsity teams this year after no juniors or seniors went out for the sport.

The team suffered a series of lopsided losses, and with many young athletes choosing to specialize in one sport and other activities competing for girls’ time, the school decided to focus on developing young players instead of putting a team of freshman and sophomores on the court.

Still, the school’s decision was jarring at a time when college and professional women’s basketball has been surging in popularity, partly due to the phenomenal success of WNBA Indiana Fever guard Clark, who set records at the University of Iowa.

Kansas State University women’s basketball coach Jeff Mittie said more viewers doesn’t necessarily mean more players.

“Certainly in college, all of our games are on TV, easy for people to find, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re playing the sport,” Mittie said. “It just means they’re interested in watching it.”

A declining trend

Since Clark was born 22 years ago, participation in girls high school basketball has dropped nearly 20% and the sport has fallen from most popular to number four behind volleyball, soccer and track and field, which all have seen double-digit surges in participation, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Even as the basketball numbers have dropped, total participation in high school sports has grown, with more than 3.4 million girls competing in high school sports last year.

Losing takes a toll

In the past few years in Grand Island, Jim Ward watched every player on his oldest daughter’s middle school team quit basketball in high school, either to focus on another sport like volleyball or wrestling or because they lost interest. During that time, the high school girls team was losing games by margins of 70 points or more.

The team lost 43 of its last 44 varsity games and has not won more than three games in a season since 2016-17, with its last winning season in 2009-10.

“If you’re Grand Island going into Omaha facing some kids that are going to go D-1 (Division I) and you can only keep up with them for the first half of the first quarter, would you want to play longer?” asked Ward, who serves on the booster club board and has a daughter on the team in 10th grade.

Kelli Jefferies knows success is possible in Grand Island because she led the school to its only state championship in 1979 as a player and racked up 231 victories over 33 years as coach before stepping down in 2012.

But Jefferies said she understands the current struggles.

“When you’re not really able to compete and be competitive, you can see why kids don’t want to do it anymore,” Jefferies said. “That’s not fun for everyone, for coaches and players and anyone involved.”

Costly competition

The problems in Grand Island and elsewhere run much deeper than a losing record.

In some communities it can be hard for girls to find opportunities to compete and learn the game when they are young. Many families can’t afford to invest the thousands of dollars and countless hours required to play club basketball to prepare them to compete in high school, putting them behind in development.

As teams get competitive earlier and earlier, girls might quit the sport if they are cut in grade school.

Families in Grand Island who want their kids to compete at the highest levels of club sports must drive about two hours twice a week to Lincoln or Omaha for practices and again on the weekends for tournaments if they are not traveling farther to other cities.

Can the sport recover?

Grand Island’s current coach, Kathryn Langrehr, works with middle schoolers and offers free basketball clinics at all the city’s elementary schools to help build a pipeline of players for the sport.

But rebuilding could be challenging, especially given the pressure on kids to specialize in just one sport.

“It kind of speaks to the world that we’re living in with club sports and specialization of sports, where kids want to participate or are only able to participate in one activity,” said Jon Dolliver, who oversees basketball at the Nebraska School Activities Association.

Volleyball in particular grew tremendously as the sport became much more visible on television and social media and the U.S. emerged as a world power.

The sport is especially popular in Nebraska, where Creighton University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the state system’s flagship campus, are ranked in the collegiate top 10. Nebraska fell short in the national semifinals on Friday. Last year, 92,003 people filled Nebraska’s football stadium to watch a volleyball match, setting a world record for attendance at a women’s sporting event.

Brandon Traudt’s daughter was a strong basketball player in middle school after growing up alongside her brother Isaac, who now plays for Creighton, but she always preferred volleyball. She will soon pursue that passion at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

“I think girls just naturally — especially in the state of Nebraska — gravitate towards volleyball,” Traudt said. “Volleyball is just very, very good in this state.”

Maybe the popularity of the WNBA and players like Clark could change the trends, but Ward, the Grand Island dad, can envision an 8-year-old telling her parents she wants to play basketball only to be told there is no time for that with volleyball and dance.

“I think the Caitlin Clark thing — it’s tough to say if this third grader sees it that she’s just going to quit volleyball and start playing basketball now. I don’t know,” Ward said.

“So, uh, what’s the scoop on the latest game of the century,” he said. “I don’t know how many ‘games of the century’ we’ve played, but this is another one.”

Technically, you have to wait for the end of the century to look back and decide what the most splendid events were. There were many “fights of the century” during the last one, but in the end most could settle on Ali-Frazier I as the heaviest of heavyweights. This is 2024 and not many of us have that kind of time, so Paige Bueckers vs. JuJu Watkins II will be the placeholder in women’s basketball for now.

Two of the top names in the game at the moment meet, Bueckers for fourth-ranked UConn, Watkins for seventh-ranked Southern Cal. The XL Center on Saturday night is the place to be, and the place to be seen. Dress to impress.

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“Just try to approach every game the same way,” Bueckers said. “Every game is the biggest game of the season. That’s the way it’s always been for these games. Obviously, the media does its job, has the names, has the graphics, makes it easy to promote in that way. But two teams against each other trying to win the basketball game, that’s how it always is.”

Before the season’s over, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo might like another chance to weigh in on this. But for the moment, it’s all eyes on Bueckers-Watkins. Bueckers, averaging 20.6 points, is the fifth-year senior who has overcome much of two years lost to injuries to try one last time for the championship that has eluded UConn since 2016. Watkins is the sophomore who played herself into the national consciousness as a freshman, and is averaging 24.7 points per game, third in the nation.

This is UConn vs. USC, starting five vs. starting five, bench vs. bench. But this game has long been sold out, and tickets on the secondary market, according to Victory Live, a company that tracks secondary market tickets, are going for $127 a pop, the highest ever recorded for a UConn women’s game.

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The TV ratings figure to follow, with the game on Fox. And, fair or unfair, there are only two reasons for this and the country knows them on a first-name basis, Paige vs. JuJu.

“When you’re playing a really good team,” Auriemma said, “you’re trying to make sure that the players that can hurt you the most, you contain them. And they’re trying to do the same thing to us. So you go into every game thinking our best options may struggle and you need other people to step up. And yet the funny part about it is if your best player plays really well, that kind of takes pressure off your second, third fourth guys and they play well.”

For UConn, that means Sarah Strong, who is one of the top freshmen in the country. In fact, if UConn and USC becomes an every year thing, Watkins and Strong might be the next game of the century. It could mean Ashlynn Shade, who torched Iowa State this week, or Azzi Fudd, who could return from her knee injury for at least a cameo appearance. So the undercard is fairly star-studded here.

“We’re a team” Bueckers said, “and no individual can win or lose the basketball team.”

The stakes include seeding for the NCAA Tournament. For the Trojans, there’s the chance to knock off the sport’s biggest blue blood. For UConn, there’s a chance to wipe away lingering doubts from the loss at Notre Dame.

There was much more at stake for Bueckers-Watkins I. It was a Regional Final, last April 1. Bueckers had 28 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, three steals and two blocks as the Huskies, the underdog due to their thin roster, prevailed 80-73. Watkins had 29 points, 10 rebounds. That set up, if you can follow this, Bueckers-Caitlin Clark II in the Final Four, which was the last game of the century. Clark and Iowa won that one.

So Bueckers has been in these games before, and Auriemma, who has coached in 27 and won 23 No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchups, has been here, too. Not that it gets old.

“Who do you think is going to win Saturday night?” Auriemma asked, rhetorically. “Let’s say Paige gets 40, JuJu gets 40, who do you think is going to win? Is it really Paige vs. JuJu? Not really. If we didn’t show up and just let them go to the XL Center and play one-on-one? But that’s not the way it’s going to happen. But I do think both of them are going to have a tremendous effect on the game.”

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A coach knows that. A coach who follows any sport out there can tell you that Tom Brady and Peyton Manning had many showdowns, but one never had to tackle the other, or break up a pass. Two Cy Young winners can duel, but it’s each pitcher against the other’s lineup.

Basketball is somewhere between that and tennis or boxing, which are one-on-one epics from which neither can hide. Bueckers and Watkins will be on the court together and their every move will draw the cameras and the crowd’s eyes. The narrative is too loud to ignore, so Auriemma did address it with his team all week.

“You always have in the back of your head and worry a little bit,” he said. “Does it become ‘I have to do this, I have to do that’ and all of a sudden you forget what makes you who are and you try to do more than you need to do because you feel like you have to live up to the bigness of the game. The best players we’ve had have just rolled into these games like, ‘this is what I do.’ And in her career, that’s kind of what Paige has done. She’s pretty much rolled into these games like, this is what I do, this is who I am, this is how I play’ and these games give her an opportunity to reinforce in her mind who she is. It adds to the confidence she already has.”

And that is the scariest part of the UConn coach, who sees the Paige we don’t really know.

“The narrative is sexy and its fun and it’s great to argue about,” Auriemma said. “But at the end? With five minutes to go, I hope both of them have control of the game. That would be fun to watch. … The only downside is, she plays great, great, great tomorrow night and we win, and then I have to listen to that for the next month.”

For his ringside seat, it’s the price he’ll pay.

NEW YORK (AP) — For Djaniele Taylor, attending WNBA games was the perfect way to rediscover a sense of community coming out of the long slog of pandemic-era lockdowns.

The 38-year-old Evanston, Illinois, resident has regularly attended Chicago Sky games for the last three seasons, after she watched the team win its first championship in 2021. As a queer Black fan, she felt the games were a supportive and safe sporting environment.

“I was hooked and I loved the atmosphere — it was very queer-friendly, very family-oriented, very diverse,” she said.

As the popularity of the WNBA skyrocketed this year, Taylor watched the price of her season tickets more than double since 2022. With the growth, she noted a “darker vibe shift,” too: What always felt like a positive setting started to take a more hostile turn at times.

As women’s sports set new records for attendance and viewership, Taylor and other longtime fans watched with optimism — and unease. It’s a cycle female athletes and fans of women’s sports have come to recognize: With the increased and sought-after visibility also comes added scrutiny — as well as harassment and online abuse toward some players.

This year, fresh off the NCAA spotlight, former college basketball stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese made their WNBA debut for the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky, catapulting their personal brands as well as the popularity of the league among viewers.

Fans are tuning in for the love of the sport, as they always have, said Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas-Austin. But they’re also drawn by the dynamics between players like Clark and Reese, who faced each other in the 2023 NCAA championship between the University of Iowa and Louisiana State University.

While both deny there’s any bad blood between them, tension has been drummed up by fans and increased media attention. Beneath it are racial undertones that originated while the two played in college — with predominantly white Iowa pitted against predominantly Black LSU, and Clark and Reese “emerging as these kind of archetypes that people can run with,” Davis said.

“That really raises the engagement and just the raw numbers of viewership. And then it also solidifies those narratives,” she said.

It’s also led to harassment and abuse — much of it racially motivated and directed at players of color across the league and the wider sports landscape.

“Angel and Caitlin have given us an incredible platform to talk about how we treat Black and white athletes differently in the media,” said E.R. Fightmaster, co-host of Jockular, a podcast on the intersection of women’s sports and queer identity.

During the playoff matchup in September between the Connecticut Sun and Indiana Fever, the Sun’s DiJonai Carrington posted an email she received with a racial slur and graphic death and sexual assault threats.

Her teammate, Alyssa Thomas, shared her own experience.

“In my 11-year career, I’ve never experienced racial comments (like) from the Indiana Fever fan base,” Thomas said, after the Sun eliminated the Fever from the playoffs.

For her part, Clark has disavowed the toxic discourse, though some say she hasn’t done enough to try to rein in the racism by some of her Indiana Fever fans.

“People should not be using my name to push those agendas. It’s disappointing. It’s not acceptable,” Clark said back in June. ”Treating every single woman in this league with the same amount of respect, I think, it’s just a basic human thing that everybody should do.”

At the end of the 2024 season after facing some criticism for initially failing to condemn the harassment, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said, “There’s no place in sports for this,” and vowed to attack it “multidimensionally.”

The league should have done a better job preparing for the harassment, said Frankie de la Cretaz, a freelance writer whose work explores sports, culture and queer identity. “They should have seen it coming based on the discourse between fans around Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese in college.”

The NCAA released a study in October showing online abuse toward student-athletes peaked during March Madness, with women’s basketball players receiving three times more threats than men’s players. For the first time in March Madness history, the women’s championship game drew more viewers this year than the men’s.

“It’s very exciting, of course, to see the increased visibility of that increased popularity, but it is extremely concerning and disappointing to see what has come along with that,” said Lynn Holzman, vice president for NCAA women’s basketball.

A similar study found racist and sexist posts aimed at female athletes made up nearly half of all monitored abusive posts during the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

At the summer games, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif faced hateful comments and false accusations about her gender leading up to her gold medal win.

“People want a chance to delegitimize successful women all the time. And so if you are a successful boxer and they can’t find anything else to pick on, they are going to say that you are too manly to play,” Fightmaster said.

Khelif urged an end to bullying athletes. “It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind,” she said.

The issue of transgender women competing in women’s sports has been highly polarized this year. A former University of Kentucky swimmer was among a dozen athletes filing a federal lawsuit against the NCAA in March, accusing it of violating Title IX rights by allowing a transgender woman, Lia Thomas, to compete at the 2022 national championships.

The lawsuit also cited unconfirmed reports that a transgender woman was playing on the San Jose State women’s volleyball team. This fall, colleges began dropping out of matches with San Jose State, which has not confirmed it has a trans woman on the team. The Associated Press has withheld the player’s name because she has not publicly commented on her gender identity.

But that hasn’t stopped politicians from shaping campaigns around keeping transgender women out of women’s sports or wading into the polarizing debate on fairness.

About half of U.S. states have a ban on transgender athletes participating in school sports according to their gender identity. This year, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu signed a law banning transgender athletes from grades 5-12. Ohio banned trans athletes as young as kindergarteners. West Virginia and Idaho are looking to the U.S. Supreme Court to support their bans.

Even as women’s sports reach new heights in viewership and with it ticket sales and lucrative deals, inequalities persist, including disparities in pay, the quality of women’s sports facilities and online harassment of female athletes.

“It’s disingenuous to me if we are going to celebrate the rise of women’s sports but not address the ways in which we’re treating women athletes differently,” said Cheryl Cooky, professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Purdue University.

“My hope is that the rise of women’s sports can happen in absence of the vitriolic rhetoric that we’ve seen.”

AP Sports writers Alanis Thames and Doug Feinberg contributed.