The year is 2026 and women’s basketball is at a critical moment in the sport’s history. The WNBA and the league’s players’ union are embroiled in tense collective negotiations. Unrivaled looks to build on its first campaign while a new entity, Project B, could impact the winter landscape. Interest in college basketball continues to grow, but there is no clear face of the sport as the NCAA Tournament approaches.
Before too much happens, Athletics‘s Ben Pickman and Sabreena Merchant are here to give their thoughts on what they think will happen in the next 12 months. Here are our predictions for the WNBA, college basketball and women’s basketball.
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WNBA
Merchant: Expansion team will make playoffs
The Golden State Valkyries set a new standard for expansion teams in 2025, becoming the first team to make the playoffs in their first season. Their example means early success will no longer be an anomaly in the WNBA. All but two veterans will enter free agency, giving the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire plenty of opportunities to fill their rosters with established talent. Tempo hired a championship head coach in Sandy Brondello, who expects to compete and has not missed the playoffs as head coach. The Fire brought in the assistant general manager of these Valkyries (Vanja Černivec), giving Portland an even clearer understanding of how to succeed immediately. A chaotic offseason in terms of player movements could limit the league’s overall continuity, making it easier for new teams to come out of the gate. Whether the onus is on these teams to win right away rather than positioning themselves for the 2027 draft (when JuJu Watkins and Madison Booker can enter the WNBA) is an open question, but either Toronto or Portland will be good enough to finish in the top eight in 2027.
Pickman: A first-time league MVP (Bueckers?) will be crowned
The WNBA MVP award has primarily been reserved for specific players for more than half a decade. Since 2018, Breanna Stewart or A’ja Wilson have won the honor six of eight seasons, with Jonquel Jones (2021) and Elena Delle Donne (2019) as outliers. But the league has too much talent to simply write Stewart or Wilson up for the trophy again. I predict someone else will win the award for the first time.
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Napheesa Collier finished second in MVP voting the past two seasons, and her candidacy was seemingly derailed by an ankle injury in August. She probably would have been the most likely starter, but her injuries could impact her early season production. Nonetheless, Alyssa Thomas has been in the top five for four straight years and is poised to build on her first season in Phoenix, which resulted in the Mercury making the WNBA Finals. It also appears to be a question of when, not if, Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers will win league MVP awards and end a streak of more than a decade without a guard winning MVP. For now, I’m taking Bueckers.
College basketball
Pickman: UConn won’t repeat
UConn has dominated almost all of its opponents throughout the first two months of the season. The Huskies are undefeated and have won 11 games by more than 30 points. Their offense and defense are ranked in the top 10 nationally, with Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong playing at All-America levels. And yet, I take UConn for winning the 2026 national championship.
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To begin with, history is on my side. Since 2016, a team hasn’t repeated as a champion (even though it was UConn), and only once — at South Carolina last year — did a title winner even advance to the following year’s championship. Texas has a very impressive non-conference resume, beating two top-five opponents (South Carolina and UCLA) and three other top-15 teams (Baylor, North Carolina and Ole Miss), and is second in net rating. UCLA has a roster loaded with senior talent looking to avenge its shortcomings in last season’s Final Four. Michigan, South Carolina, LSU and Iowa State also look like formidable contenders for star power. I picked UCLA to win the national championship early in the season, and I didn’t see enough to hesitate.
Merchant: UConn will remain undefeated
Of the 10 times a women’s college basketball team has finished a season undefeated, UConn has accounted for six. Geno Auriemma knows how to pace a team. The schedule also works in the Huskies’ favor. The Big East is in a bad season and UConn’s two toughest remaining opponents – Tennessee and Notre Dame – come to Storrs, Connecticut, this season. Unlike last season, when the Huskies prepared for the tournament with Azzi Fudd returning from injury and Sarah Strong learning the ropes as a freshman, this season’s team came out on fire and is strong enough to withstand the rigors of an undefeated campaign. The Huskies’ defensive rating of 70.9 points allowed per 100 possessions is the program’s best since 2016 (an undefeated season). The 120.6 offensive rating is UConn’s best since 2018, when it finished the regular season undefeated before losing in the Final Four on a buzzer-beater.
No team has a duo as talented as Strong and Fudd, both of whom have already won a title. The Huskies’ depth is absurd, to the point where Jana El-Alfy started last season and knocked out first-team All-American Lauren Betts in the national semifinals, but she now plays an average of 11.4 minutes per game. With the emergence of Blanca Quiñonez, who closed out December with five straight double-digit outings, UConn has all the pieces needed to repeat as champions.
Sports affairs
Merchant: Project B will not play a game
Project B is expected to start in November with a series of two-week tournaments around the world. A handful of players signed up, including Nneka Ogwumike, Jonquel Jones, Jewell Loyd, Alyssa Thomas and Kelsey Mitchell, multiple-time WNBA All-Stars. What it doesn’t have is a traditional basketball league model, enough players to currently fill 11 teams, or an explanation of how or why fans should tune in to a barnstorming endeavor that won’t have a consistent schedule. Secrecy surrounds the operations and financing of Project B, and part of the basketball world is skeptical about how it will all work. Unrivaled proved that a basketball startup can take off with a new format, but there are many more questions about Project B.
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Since this prediction is for the year 2026, this does not mean that Project B will never happen. However, if that is the case, the first game will be delayed until at least 2027. The uncertainty of working within the WNBA is a factor; If the league season extends into November due to a later start date (and because of the FIBA World Cup in September), it would complicate the availability of Project B’s biggest names.
Pickman: WNBA and union will reach agreement
Most years, predicting the WNBA season will begin in May would have the spice of plain white rice, but this offseason has been unpredictable. The WNBA and WNBPA are locked in tense negotiations to reach a new collective bargaining agreement. The players’ union voted last month to authorize its management has the option to strikeand both parties attempted to maintain pressure on the other with the existence of a 48-hour extension termination clause. It is therefore not certain that the WNBA season will begin as planned in mid-May. However, it’s hard to believe either team would want to miss games, given the explosive growth the league has seen. Preventing this unprecedented momentum would be a mistake, one that both sides will eventually recognize. A compromise on the salary structure will not be easy, but there is still time to reach a new agreement without impacting the official start date of the regular season. The expansion draft, a historic free agency draft and a college draft could all take place within weeks of each other — putting a strain on each of the league’s 15 teams — but come May, at least games will start on time.
This article was originally published in Athletics.
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