USC star JuJu Watkins and UConn’s Paige Bueckers headline The Related Press preseason All-America girls’s faculty basketball group launched Tuesday that for the primary time contains three sophomores in a transparent signal of the younger expertise in a sport coming off a report yr of fan curiosity.
Watkins and Bueckers have 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 selection in her sophomore season and final yr.
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 gained. They did it in a number of methods,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb stated. “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 needed to play with JuJu, who recruited her as a result of she needed to play with Kiki,” Gottlieb stated. “It is thrilling to see their personalities mesh.”
Watkins and her fellow sophomores have been a part of the rankings and attendance growth final season for girls’s faculty basketball that was led by Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese. NCAA match attendance was the very best it is ever been, and the championship sport 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 type in 5 years.
Bueckers averaged 21.9 factors and 5.2 rebounds per sport to assist UConn attain the Remaining 4, the place the Huskies misplaced to Iowa in one other sport that drew excessive viewership. UConn’s star has eligibility left after sporadic accidents however has stated this will probably be her final yr in class. She lastly had a wholesome season for the Huskies after lacking most of her sophomore yr.
Watkins burst onto the nationwide scene as a freshman and put up eye-popping numbers. The Los Angeles native averaged 27.1 factors per sport, 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 match run in three many years.
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 per sport for Stanford final season, together with scoring a career-high 41 in a second-round win over Iowa State within the NCAA match.
Hidalgo, like Watkins, had a stellar freshman season. She averaged 22.6 factors, 6.2 rebounds and 5.5 assists per sport for the Combating Irish, serving to them win the ACC match and advance to the Candy 16.
Booker stepped up her play for the Longhorns after Rori Harmon went down with an ACL damage in late December. She was thrust into the start line guard slot and shined, averaging 16.5 factors, 5.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists per sport. These numbers have been even larger after Harmon’s damage.
Bueckers, Watkins and Hidalgo have been all first-team AP All-Individuals 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.
