The Athletic’s debate sequence options two writers breaking down a selected subject. On this version, Chantel Jennings and Ben Pickman debate which girls’s school basketball participant ought to win Participant of the 12 months.
Chantel Jennings: As we head into the ultimate week of the season, there appears to be one overriding theme in girls’s school hoops this 12 months: parity on the prime stage of the sport. We’ve already seen 4 No. 1 groups, and a handful of others are severe contenders for the nationwide title. That is much more crowded on the prime than we’ve ever seen (at the least within the trendy period of NCAA girls’s basketball).
With that, there’s additionally a big stage of parity within the nationwide Participant of the 12 months race, and I, for one, really feel like — simply because the AP ballot has jostled between just a few prime groups — I’ve gone between just a few gamers all year long.
Ben Pickman: I completely agree. Final season, it was a foregone conclusion that Caitlin Clark would win Participant of the 12 months honors, however it appears like an open query this season. Nonetheless, there seems to be a prime three, in no order: Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, USC’s JuJu Watkins and UCLA’s Lauren Betts.
The place are you leaning?
Jennings: I have to admit, I typically see approach too many sides of an argument (it’s my lot as a center baby), so this selection is difficult. In all of the years I’ve thought-about this debate internally (and publicly, on the web), I reached my determination with a extra distinctive closing issue.
With that mentioned, I’m leaning closely towards Betts.
Each time I watch UCLA, I’m taken together with her gravitational pull when it comes to opponents’ focus and what meaning for her teammates’ talents. Put apart that she’s a double-double machine, and take into account how a lot her imaginative and prescient and passing have been components this 12 months. She’s averaging almost three assists a recreation and had 11 towards Minnesota. She blocks three pictures a recreation whereas averaging fewer than two fouls per recreation, and that is all whereas enjoying solely half-hour a recreation.
Pickman: She’s not my decide, however it’s exhausting to be unimpressed. She is drawing fouls like by no means earlier than (7.6 per 40 minutes, up from 5.5 final 12 months, in line with CBB Analytics). She stays efficient across the rim, and the remainder of her scoring throughout the paint has improved. She shoots 62.2 % from inside 4 to 6 ft of the basket, effectively above the DI common of 52.2 %.
LB etched her title within the file books final evening @laurenbetts12 now holds the single-season blocks file for UCLA Ladies’s Basketball, congrats Lo!#GoBruins pic.twitter.com/O1kpQueeDB
— UCLA Ladies’s Basketball (@UCLAWBB) February 21, 2025
Jennings: Actually, seeing South Carolina in individual not too long ago was a tipping level. I do know, it’s bizarre {that a} recreation that didn’t embody Betts or UCLA can be why I began feeling extra strongly about Betts as my POY decide.
Pickman: Since you got here away much more impressed with how she performed when UCLA beat South Carolina earlier this 12 months?
Jennings: That recreation was actually spectacular. Betts remains to be one in every of simply two gamers this season to file a 10-plus level, 10-plus rebound and four-plus help recreation towards the Gamecocks (the opposite participant was UConn freshman Sarah Robust). However that wasn’t the final word deciding issue.
South Carolina seems to be largely similar to final 12 months’s staff aside from dropping Kamilla Cardoso. And but, the Gamecocks aren’t enjoying almost as effectively, constantly or fairly as impressively as final season. Their exterior taking pictures hasn’t been as strong and their protection isn’t fairly as stout. Why is that? Nicely, they not have a 6-foot-7 middle holding down every little thing in the midst of the ground.
Seeing South Carolina with Cardoso and with out Cardoso has bolstered to me the worth of a participant who can clear up the glass, create second-chance alternatives and be an absolute scouting nightmare, whereas additionally making every of her teammates higher. It’s a well-recognized argument for level guards, however it additionally applies to Betts.
I had three overriding ideas after South Carolina-UConn:
1. UConn can win the nationwide title if it places six video games collectively like that in March and April.
2. I nonetheless really feel tremendous about South Carolina’s possibilities of making the Ultimate 4.
3. Betts is the Participant of the 12 months.
Pickman: I don’t assume there’s a lot debate that Betts has been the nation’s finest middle. Frankly, she may also be the nation’s most improved participant. And but, I’m leaning towards one other Huge Ten participant: Watkins.
She’s averaging 24.2 factors, 6.9 rebounds, 3.6 assists and two blocks per recreation. It’s a gaudy stat line, however it’s typically taken as a right due to Watkins’ success as a freshman. However take into account this: She has been extra environment friendly as a sophomore. Her utilization fee is down, and but she nonetheless leads the convention with 7.9 win shares, per Sports activities Reference. She controls each side of the sport and performs with knowledge past her years. Her basketball IQ interprets into her skill to power well timed steals and to keep away from fouling if she will get whistled early in a recreation.
Plus, in USC’s largest recreation of the season — towards the Bruins — Watkins turned the primary Division I participant with at the least 35 factors, 5 blocks and 5 assists within the final 20 years. It’s exhausting to miss that masterclass on this dialogue.
Jennings: Watkins actually does every little thing for the Trojans, however I don’t love evaluating gamers with whole stats as a result of it doesn’t account for Watkins enjoying 4 1/2 minutes extra per recreation than Betts. Whenever you break down win shares per 40 minutes, Betts edges out Watkins (if solely by a hair).
Watkins has been glorious this season whereas navigating the same cross-country schedule as Betts, and he or she has finished it with a largely revamped roster round her (in contrast to Betts). The Trojans mentioned goodbye to a bunch of Ivy League grad transfers and welcomed one of many nation’s prime highschool recruiting courses and among the finest switch portal courses. For the second 12 months in a row, a largely new crop of gamers revolved round Watkins, and, like final season, she has thrived. That’s no straightforward job.
Absolute magic from JuJu
FS1
USC Sport Day App pic.twitter.com/KnlnOCEoPl— USC Ladies’s Basketball (@USCWBB) February 23, 2025
Pickman: Proper. For the second 12 months in a row, she has produced extra factors than any participant in her convention. In my thoughts — and I’m not alone — she’s essentially the most gifted participant within the nation. Are you able to think about USC with out Watkins? She is a giant cause it might nonetheless be a No. 1 seed for the second consecutive 12 months, a feat the Trojans haven’t achieved for the reason that Nineteen Eighties.
Jennings: Hidalgo must be on this dialog, too. Even with the ball in her palms barely much less this season as a result of the Irish welcomed again a wholesome Olivia Miles, she has managed to extend her contribution to their success. It’s wild to assume that six months in the past many people have been questioning, “Is there actually sufficient basketball to go round for 2 elite backcourt gamers like Miles and Hidalgo?” And the reply, emphatically delivered by each, has been: Oh, sure!
Hidalgo has turn into much more unguardable together with her improved 3-point taking pictures. Her skill to complete on the rim has remained elite, however her free-throw taking pictures has elevated, too, by 10 proportion factors, making the choice to foul her a fair harder gamble. Defensively, she’s averaging fewer steals this 12 months, however ask any coach who has confronted the Irish this season they usually’ll actually say that Hidalgo causes much more complications this season on protection.
However finally, I nonetheless assume Betts has an important impression on her staff and affect on the result of video games for UCLA, so for that cause, she has my vote.
Pickman: Notre Dame is effectively positioned to get a No. 1 seed as effectively. All three of the gamers we’ve talked about are locks for the All-America staff, however every nonetheless has lots to play for.
The Irish shut their common season towards Florida State and Louisville, each of whom are ranked. They’re clinging to a slim lead within the ACC regular-season title race. UCLA and USC play Saturday in a matchup that can determine the Huge Ten title. Huge showings from Betts, Hidalgo and Watkins will impression their groups and in addition their award candidacies.
(Picture of Lauren Betts, left, and JuJu Watkins: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire through Getty Photos)