USC star JuJu Watkins and UConn’s Paige Bueckers headline The Related Press preseason All-America girls’s faculty basketball group launched Tuesday. The checklist contains three sophomores for the primary time, a transparent signal of the younger expertise in a sport coming off a report 12 months of fan curiosity.
Watkins and Bueckers had been unanimous decisions by the 30-member nationwide media panel that selects the AP Prime 25 every week. It is the third look on the group for Bueckers, who additionally was a preseason alternative in her sophomore season and final 12 months.
The duo was joined by Hannah Hidalgo of Notre Dame, Madison Booker of Texas and Kiki Iriafen of USC. Watkins, Hidalgo and Booker are all second-year gamers.
“It is unbelievable. These gamers excelled as freshmen and their groups received. They did it in a number of methods,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb mentioned. “It is actually thrilling for the sport and the way forward for it.”
Gottlieb’s stars, Watkins and Iriafen, are the primary pair of teammates chosen to the All-America group since 2017-18, when UConn had three of the 5 gamers chosen. Iriafen entered the switch portal quickly after Stanford Corridor of Fame coach Tara VanDerveer introduced her retirement in April.
“Kiki got here as a result of she wished to play with JuJu, who recruited her as a result of she wished to play with Kiki,” Gottlieb mentioned. “It is thrilling to see their personalities mesh.”
Watkins and her fellow sophomores had been a part of the scores and attendance increase final season for girls’s faculty basketball that was led by Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese. NCAA Event attendance was the very best it is ever been and the championship recreation that featured Clark and Iowa towards undefeated South Carolina had a report TV viewers of 18.7 million, the very best for a basketball broadcast of any variety in 5 years.
Bueckers averaged 21.9 factors and 5.2 rebounds to assist UConn attain the Remaining 4, the place the Huskies misplaced to Iowa in one other recreation that drew excessive vioewership. UConn’s star has eligibility left after sporadic accidents, however has mentioned this can be her final 12 months in class. She lastly had a wholesome season final 12 months for the Huskies after lacking most of her sophomore 12 months.
Watkins burst onto the nationwide scene as a freshman final 12 months and put up eye-popping numbers. The Los Angeles native averaged 27.1 factors, second solely to Clark, and set the nationwide report for a freshman with 920 factors. She helped the Trojans attain the Elite Eight of their deepest NCAA Event run in three a long time.
There are excessive expectations for the group, which is ranked third within the preseason ballot behind No. 1 South Carolina and No. 2 UConn. Iriafen averaged 19.4 factors and 11.0 rebounds for Stanford final 12 months, together with scoring a career-high 41 within the second spherical win over Iowa State within the NCAA Event.
Hidalgo, like Watkins, had a stellar freshman season. She averaged 22.6 factors, 6.2 rebounds and 5.5 assists for the Preventing Irish, serving to the group win the ACC Event and advance to the Candy 16.
Booker stepped up her play for the Longhorns after Rori Harmon went down with an ACL harm in late December. She was thrust into the place to begin guard slot and shined, averaging 16.5 factors, 5.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists. These numbers had been even larger after Harmon’s harm.
Bueckers, Watkins and Hidalgo had been all first-team AP All-People within the spring. Booker was on the second group with Iriafen incomes honorable point out.
The AP started releasing a preseason All-America group earlier than the 1994-95 season.
Reporting by The Related Press.
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