The best women’s basketball games and performances of 2024…and what’s next in 2025

Caitlin Clark. A’ja Wilson. Breanna Stewart.

Grade growth. Increase in attendance. Record merchandise sales.

It was a historic year for women’s basketball, with professional and college games fitting into the broader cultural zeitgeist like never before. Before turning the page on 2025, our team of women’s basketball editors give you their superlatives of the year that has just passed. They highlight some of their favorite games and performances and even tell you what they’re watching for as the new year begins.

Best game

Sabreena Merchant: Game 1 of the WNBA Finals. The drama of MinnesotaThe return of (and criticism of the fourth quarter replays) set the stage for five tense, alternating games with so many great moments, highlighted by Courtney Williams’ four-point play. Even though the Lynx didn’t win the championship, they gave us a series that will remain engraved in our memories.

Chantel Jennings: National title match between Iowa And South Carolina. This game was the most memorable thanks to how historic it was in the moment. Sitting on the field, even as it became clear that South Carolina would finish its season undefeated in style, everyone understood that we were witnessing history. My estimate of 15 million viewers (a number that would have seemed incredible even a few years earlier) was still nearly 4 million less than the total audience for the women’s title match.

Ben Pickman: I agree with Sabreena here. While Sabrina IonescuThe winner of Game 3 of the 2024 WNBA Finals makes it a close discussion, the madness that followed in Game 1, coupled with Williams’ heroics at the end of regulation, elevates this game above all others.

Best individual performance

Pickman: With all due respect to the countless records broken by Clark, Wilson and Angel Reese This year, Arike Ogunbowale orchestrated the best individual performance of the year. Of course it happened in the WNBA All-Star Gamebut against Team USA, Ogunbowale set an All-Star Game record with 34 points, all scored in the second half. Her 21 points in the third quarter were the most in a quarter in All-Star Game history, and the variety in which she scored was the best stretch of offensive basketball I’ve seen in 2024.

Merchant: Nyara Saballythird quarter of Game 5 of the WNBA Finals. It’s not the most prolific performance by any means, but his 9 points in less than five minutes – as New York eliminated a previously unused big-three lineup – changed the game and helped the Freedom win their first title in franchise history.

Jennings: Clark’s first quarter against Michigan. Barring a historic collapse, everyone knew Clark would break the Division I scoring record against Michigan in February. But it was his incredible first quarter, starting the game 3-of-3 from the floor and ending it with the record-breaking 3 logo that felt like something out of a movie. She finished the night with a program record 49 points (beating her teammate Hannah Stuelke(the record of 48 a few games earlier).

Favorite reporting moment

Jennings: Gold medal match between Team USA and France. Diana Taurasi started the Olympic cycle by saying few people talked about the challenge of playing France in France, and the U.S. team got a taste of that during the gold medal game this summer. The energy and electricity at Bercy Arena was unforgettable, and hearing the French fans sing their national anthem before the match gave me chills. It was a hard-fought match, and for much of the second half I wondered if I was really going to write a match story about how the team’s streak of eight consecutive gold medals ended. Americans. But Team USA was victorious as Gabby Williams’ shot that would have tied the game was inches from the 3-point line. The energy of the arena fluctuated with each possession and was unlike anything I had ever felt.

Pickman: I know I speak for all three of us when I say how lucky we have been to witness so many memorable moments in women’s basketball in 2024. But if we narrow it down to just one moment of our own report, I’m going to take a break. the news of Candace Parker’s retirement to Breanna Stewart. Parker retired on the first day of WNBA training camp, and the Ace announced the news just three minutes before Stewart’s first media scrum of the season. I remember reading Parker’s retirement statement over and over again in the next few minutes because I was so surprised by the timing – and really just to make sure I wasn’t being punked. Then I asked Stewart about it, and his reaction was one that I and the Internet will remember for a while.

Merchant: Covering the last Pac-12 tournament. For all the lifers at the conference, like Tara VanDerveer, it gave the strange feeling of attending your own funeral. It was emotional to celebrate the conference’s greatness in the presence of former legends, especially in a year where there were so many individual highs for the Pac-12. It was a reminder of how our job in covering this sport is to tell the stories of the people involved, and of when those people (broadcasters, administrators, families, etc.) see their lives change significantly in due to forces beyond their control, it hits you.

Best quote

Pickman: I’ll throw two out there. The first came during the WNBA Finals when I asked Courtney Williams if she knew what it meant to be “Minnesota nice.” She laughed and replied, “I’ve never heard that.” Chantel is the Midwest resident in this panel, but I — as a New Yorker — had just assumed that it was a rite of passage for anyone living in the state to know what “Minnesota nice” means. But alas. On another note, Cheryl Miller gave a rare press conference before coaching the WNBA team in July’s All-Star Game and gave a particularly strong response when I asked her about the WNBA’s reception of a $2.2 billion television rights contract. The standout phrase: “A two is good, an eight would be better,” referring to his belief that the WNBA still isn’t getting enough in its media rights deals.

Merchant: Everything Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said in her postgame statement after losing Game 5 of the WNBA Finals. From calling the refs and saying the game was “stolen” to subtly shading New York for needing 28 years to win a title while Minnesota was chasing its fifth , the full 15 minutes was raw emotion at its finest.

Jennings: By the time coaches and players arrive at the Final Four, there aren’t many questions that can be asked in a press conference that they haven’t already heard. But Dawn Staley decided to change things up in Cleveland when she kicked off her Final Four press conference with a very serious question for reporters: Is it lie down or lie down? And then she dropped this gem: “Someone taught me that you lie to get laid, right? Sorry. I’m so excited to be here!

What we’re looking forward to in 2025

Merchant: How do the Las Vegas Aces react after falling short of their expectations in 2024? If New York and Las Vegas are supposed to be this generation’s great rivals, then it’s the Aces’ turn to raise their game and figure out how to play championship-worthy basketball again for a full season. On a related note, the South Carolina Gamecocks lost their first game in over a calendar year to UCLAbut they still look set to win their second consecutive title. Can they end the repeat eight-year NCAA Tournament drought?

Jennings: The finances of women’s college basketball will change dramatically in 2025. For starters, women’s college basketball will I finally receive units starting with the 2025 NCAA Tournament (assuming Division I members approve the plan in January). Also in the 2025-2026 academic year, revenue sharing will affect college sports. This is an unprecedented moment in NCAA history, and it could shift the balance of power in women’s college basketball. The name, image and likeness model will change significantly as the NCAA will have to approve all NIL transactions, and the “pay to play” NIL model, as many coaches have called the current structure, will be abandoned. Money makes the college sports world go round, and 2025 is a year in which money — especially in women’s college basketball — will change.

Pickman: An on-court question: After a first-team All-WNBA season, what’s going on with Clark’s development and Indiana fevermore broadly, under the direction of new coach Stephanie White? An off-court look: After a year of explosive growth for women’s basketball in 2024, what will TV ratings, attendance, merchandise sales and overall business changes look like next year?

This article was originally published in Athletics.

Minnesota Lynx, New York Liberty, Indiana Fever, Las Vegas Aces, South Carolina Gamecocks, Iowa Hawkeyes, WNBA, Women’s College Basketball

2024 The Athletic Media Society