At this time last year — as hard as it is to believe — the South Carolina Gamecocks were considered a Final Four contender but weren’t the favorite to win the national title.
Then they scored a resounding win over Notre Dame in Paris to open the season, and everything changed. South Carolina was immediately placed atop the AP Top 25 poll and never looked back to become the 10th unbeaten NCAA champion.
There’s no doubt South Carolina opens at No. 1 this season. But is there a scenario in which the Gamecocks won’t be the last team standing at the Final Four in Tampa, Florida?
UConn, USC, UCLA, Texas, Notre Dame and LSU all look like early contenders to dethrone South Carolina, making the 2024-25 title chase intriguing if not completely wide open.
If healthy, UConn should have its best team since at least 2021 in its quest for a 12th championship. Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins are the front-runners for player of the year, and Watkins now has more help at USC, which is trying to win its first national championship since the days of Cheryl Miller.
How will conference realignment impact the battle for seeding in the NCAA tournament? USC and UCLA enter the Big Ten as the favorites to win the conference, but Texas and Oklahoma seem to have more to overcome with their move to the SEC.
Those changes all factor into the best- and worst-case scenarios for every team in ESPN’s preseason Top 25 poll.
Best case: Dawn Staley has built a program where the expectation every year is the Final Four and a national title. The Gamecocks continue to steamroll the competition, this time riding a talented, versatile and deep backcourt. They win the SEC going away, secure the overall No. 1 seed once again and become the first team to repeat as national champions since UConn won its fourth in a row in 2016.
Worst case: The loss of Kamilla Cardoso is exposed in late-November games against UCLA and Iowa State, two teams with a formidable inside presence. With the air of invincibility gone, so is much of South Carolina’s confidence. The Gamecocks are overtaken by LSU in the SEC and fail to make the Final Four for the first time in five years.
Best case: Paige Bueckers is somehow even better than she was a season ago. Azzi Fudd gets and stays healthy — and finally the two get to play together for an extended period. The extended minutes KK Arnold and Ashlynn Shade were forced to play a season ago pay dividends, and Princeton transfer Kaitlyn Chen picks up where Nika Muhl left off, giving Geno Auriemma multiple options in the backcourt. Ayanna Patterson and Jana El Alfy, who both missed last season, are impactful in a frontcourt led by freshman Sarah Strong, who is the best freshman in the country. The mix of talent ends the national championship drought, and the Huskies earn their 12th title.
Worst case: Five key Huskies missed last season due to injury, and UConn once again can’t escape the health problems that have plagued the program for three years. The lineup shuffling becomes the norm again, and navigating an always challenging nonconference season becomes difficult for a second straight season. Much of the burden falls to Bueckers, who comes through. But it’s asking too much to deliver a title, and the season again ends in the national semifinals.
Best case: With JuJu Watkins leading the way, the Trojans’ talent is overwhelming. Kiki Iriafen and Talia von Oelhoffen, Pac-12 foes a season ago, fit Lindsay Gottlieb’s approach perfectly. Rayah Marshall, who was second in the country in blocks per game in 2022-23, returns to being a dominant rim defender. Gottlieb also finds a way to effectively use her No. 1-ranked freshman class, led by Kennedy Smith, to plug every hole. Everything is working by the time USC meets UConn on Dec. 21. The Trojans then storm through Big Ten play before cutting down the nets at the Final Four for the first time in 40 years.
Worst case: The inefficiency that plagued Watkins late last season (she shot 30.7% from the field over USC’s final seven games) carries over into this season, and despite the upgraded talent around her, the Trojans don’t improve. They don’t win the Big Ten or get a No. 1 seed. USC is still good enough to reach the Elite Eight but falls short of reaching the program’s first Final Four since 1986.
Best case: Like Gottlieb at USC, Cori Close must incorporate former rivals in Washington State transfer Charlisse Leger-Walker and Oregon State transfer Timea Gardiner into the program while navigating the move to the Big Ten. She does so seamlessly because Lauren Betts and Kiki Rice still lead the way. Betts establishes herself as the best center in the country, and Rice and Leger-Walker make repeated clutch plays in big wins over South Carolina and USC, the latter of which on March 1 wins the Bruins the Big Ten title. That momentum carries over into the NCAA tournament, and UCLA wins its first NCAA championship.
Worst case: While Betts’ game takes another step forward, everything else around her doesn’t quite jell. Leger-Walker struggles after last season’s knee injury, Gardiner’s 3-point shooting (39.5% last season) isn’t as good, and Janiah Barker has difficulty carving out a role. The talent carries the Bruins to plenty of wins, but not the big ones. They lose to South Carolina, Ohio State and USC (three times, including once in the Big Ten tournament final), and bow out of the NCAA tournament in the Sweet 16 just like last postseason.