With the women's college basketball season set to tip off on Sunday (Nov. 1), it's worth taking a look at some of the major events of the summer and what programs benefited, or didn't, from the offseason. When we last left the sport, UCLA had just routed South Carolina to win the national championship. All six players who scored for UCLA in have graduated, but players such as Sienna Betts are embracing bigger roles and showing that the reigning national champions can still be competitive this upcoming season. Meanwhile, USC is preparing for a bounce-back year with the return of superstar JuJu Watkins. On the opposite side of the country, Dawn Staley's South Carolina Gamecocks are looking like a favorite even after the departure of their starting point guard Raven Johnson.

Winner: JuJu Watkins' return. The Trojans faced some struggles during their 2025-26 campaign without star player JuJu Watkins. She tore her ACL during the second round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament, but finally made her return to practice this summer. When the season tips off in November, she will have been out for about 19 months. There might be some rust, but this is the same player who set the NCAA Division I women's basketball freshman scoring record with 920 points during the 2023-24 season. As a sophomore, she averaged 23.9 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.2 steals and 1.8 blocks per game. Despite ending her sophomore campaign with an injury, she still earned the 2024-25 Naismith Player of the Year award. Having Watkins back is great news for USC, but what will truly make the Trojans dangerous is that she will play alongside Jazzy Davidson, who led USC in every major category last season and was named the 2025-26 national freshman of the year. The high-profile freshman streak continues this season as Coach Lindsay Gottlieb added Saniyah Hall, the No. 1 player in the ESPN class of 2026.

JuJu Watkins coached Saniyah Hall at Overtime Takeover last year: “That was before she committed though. So I was in her ear about committing a little bit hoping that she would come to SC.”

Loser: Michigan's starting point guard gets injured. Michigan made the top five of our because after a historic season with 28 wins and an Elite Eight appearance, the Wolverines were returning most of their key players, including Olivia Olson, Syla Swords, Mila Holloway and Te'Yala Delfosse. Unfortunately, Holloway, the team's starting point guard for the past two seasons, is out indefinitely due to a left lower leg injury, the team announced on Sept. 3. While no details of the injury were disclosed, it is not a torn ALC and she is expected to return to the court at some point during the season. The 5-foot-10 rising junior averaged 12.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.5 steals in 28.8 minutes per game last season and was an All-Big Ten honorable mention selection. Fortunately for Michigan, coach Kim Barnes added depth to the point guard position this summer with the signing of 22-year-old Dallas Loughridge, who has professional experience that most recently includes the NBL1 South in Australia.

Winner: Oklahoma State dominated the transfer portal with the signing of former Iowa State star Audi Crooks and former Gator Liv McGill. In January, Crooks made the because of her impressive efficiency as she was averaging 29.5 points in 26.1 minutes per game with Iowa State at the time of the rankings. Meanwhile, McGill averaged 22.5 points per contest at Florida as a crafty and athletic playmaker. While top transfers don't guarantee a championship, the Sooners are definitely in a better position now for a deeper NCAA Tournament run. “I think the beautiful thing about both of those players is they just want to win, and that's the number one priority for them, [and] for the rest of the team that we have,” coach Jacie Hoyt told the IX Sports in August.

Loser: Lots of unknowns for Tennessee. Tennessee's complete roster turnover fell into the “Loser” category after the transfer portal closed in April because every player who saw the court last season either graduated or transferred. Even five-star incoming freshman Oliviyah Edwards de-committed from the program and chose South Carolina instead. Having a completely new roster is difficult enough, but injuries have compounded Tennessee's struggles. The team signed All-Big Ten guard Kaylene Smikle, but she only played seven games during her senior season at Maryland because of knee surgery. Another promising signing was Avery Mills, a Liberty transfer who ranked No. 2 nationally with 3.1 three-pointers made per game last season. Unfortunately, Mills will be out for “an extended period” after she suffered a torn ACL and meniscus in her right knee in late June.

Winner: Class of 2022 ruling benefits South Carolina. The Gamecocks lost some key players to graduation, including starting point guard Raven Johnson. Although replacing her was going to be difficult, the team was setting up rising junior Maddy McDaniel to step into a bigger role. However, McDaniel withdrew from the university this summer to work on her mental health, leaving the team without a true point guard on the roster. Definitely not an ideal situation, but coach Dawn Staley figured it out. Thanks to the California ruling on Aug. 18, South Carolina was able to sign fifth-year guard Brooke Quarles-Daniels, who spent two years as the starting point guard at Oakland University and then spent two seasons at Michigan, although playing a different role more focused on defense. Despite not running the point recently, the 5-foot-7 guard still has much-needed experience in that position and Staley said other Gamecocks are willing to step up and handle some of the responsibilities. As a whole, South Carolina is still looking like the most dangerous team this season with the returns of Joyce Edwards and Tessa Johnson, as well as Chloe Kitts and Ashlyn Watkins, who both missed the 2025-26 season. The team also got stronger with

Loser: LSU's handling of the Kate Koval situation. Ukrainian center Kate Koval left LSU in August after the Tigers signed Russian player Anna Minaeva, because she did not feel comfortable playing with a Russian player given the ongoing war. “For me, this war is not distant or abstract,” Koval said on social media when explaining her decision to leave. “People close to me have been killed and wounded in Russian attacks, and places where I grew up and first began playing basketball have been destroyed by missile strikes.” Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the two countries are still at war. While a 17-year-old player should not be blamed for the war, the situation is still a very uncomfortable one for Koval, whose father works as a drone operator for the Ukrainian military. Kim Mulkey did give Koval a heads up when the LSU coaching staff started recruiting Minerva and even suggested the two players could maybe even be ambassadors for their countries. However, Koval was still not comfortable and decided to leave despite the transfer portal already being closed. A bright spot to this story is that the NCAA granted her a waiver to transfer and