Ranking the 16 best players in the women’s Sweet 16, including Paige Bueckers
After JuJu Watkins’ injury, who are the best players remaining in the Sweet 16? Among them are Flau’Jae Johnson and Lauren Betts.
There are just 16 teams left in the 2025 women’s NCAA Tournament. This weekend, teams will battle in Birmingham, Alabama, and square-up in Spokane, Washington. When the dust finally settles on Monday night, we will have four teams going to the Final Four.
Some teams, like TCU, are trying to get there for the first time. Others, like North Carolina and Duke, are trying to end long droughts and have tough paths ahead.
Along the way, stars may emerge for the first time, while elite players will reestablish their status with highlight-worthy plays and clutch moments.
As the Sweet 16 gets underway on Friday, these are the 16 players you need to watch. They’ll determine which teams get to the Final Four.
16. Toby Fournier, Duke
The ACC Rookie of the Year didn’t play in Duke’s second-round win over Oregon due to an illness, but she and coach Kara Lawson confirmed that she’ll play in Friday’s clash with rival North Carolina, which is good news for the Blue Devils. In Duke’s win over UNC in late February, Fournier finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds, notching just the second double-double of her career. She leads Duke in scoring this season and is 13th nationally in points per 40 minutes with 26.8.
15. Chloe Kitts, South Carolina
The junior forward for the Gamecocks has played some of her best basketball over the past month, scoring in double figures in seven straight games. She’s also averaging 9.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists over that stretch, giving South Carolina consistency and reliability in the post. For her play in Greenville, S.C., earlier this month, she was voted MVP of the SEC Tournament.
14. Shyanne Sellers, Maryland
Brenda Frese brought in seven transfers last offseason to revamp Maryland’s roster, but the constant that remains is Sellers. She’s the bus driver for this team that will face South Carolina on Friday evening, and if the Terps hope to win they’ll need Sellers to play well. The senior guard is one of just three players nationally averaging at least 14 points, three rebounds and four assists per game while shooting better than 40 percent from 3-point land. The others – Paige Bueckers and Olivia Miles – are on this list too. Sellers means just as much to her team as they do to theirs.
13. Alyssa Ustby, North Carolina
The fifth-year forward is the heart and soul of this Tar Heels team, which is in the Sweet 16 for the second time in the Courtney Banghart era. One of the best rim-runners in the country, Ustby owns North Carolina’s all-time rebounding record and the only triple-double in program history. She’s coming off a win against West Virginia where — in her final game in Chapel Hill — she tallied 21 points, seven rebounds, four steals and three blocks. The Tar Heels will go as far as Ustby can take them.
12. Reagan Beers, Oklahoma
A big reason why Oklahoma is in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013 is because of Beers, who is ninth in the nation in field goal percentage with a clip of 64.5 percent. The junior center averages 17.5 points, 9.3 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game. She’s one of the best combinations of interior scorer, rebounder and rim protector playing in the sport at the moment.
11. Flau’Jae Johnson, LSU
The electric and entertaining junior guard for the Tigers leads the team in scoring with 18.8 points per game to go along with 5.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.7 steals per game. Johnson is the only player in the country that shoots better than 46 percent from the floor, 37 percent from 3-point land and 80 percent from the free throw line while averaging at least 18 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.
10. Hailey Van Lith, TCU
A fifth-year guard at her third school, Van Lith is enjoying arguably the best season of her career. She’s averaging 17.7 points and a career-best 5.5 assists per game as she’s led TCU to its first Big 12 title and first-ever appearance in the Sweet 16. Whether or not they can go any further will have a lot to do with how Van Lith plays.
9. Kiki Iriafen, USC
Following the season-ending injury to superstar sophomore guard JuJu Watkins, Iriafen is now the bus driver for the Trojans. Whether they get to the Final Four or not rests on her play. We know that Iriafen is capable of carrying a team offensively though. Last year for Stanford, she had 41 points and 16 rebounds to lead the Cardinal past Iowa State. On Monday night against Mississippi State after Watkins went down, Iriafen piled up a season-high 36 points to go with nine rebounds.
8. Aziaha James, N.C. State
For the second straight season, James is playing her best basketball in March. She’s averaging a career-high 18.1 points per game this season to pair with 4.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists. She totaled 26 points in N.C. State’s second round win over Michigan State, and she’ll likely have to put forth a similar performance for the Wolfpack to beat LSU.
7. Olivia Miles, Notre Dame
Likely a top-five pick in this spring’s WNBA Draft, Miles has raised her game this season at Notre Dame, shooting a career-best 40.1 percent from 3-point land while also averaging 15.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game. Few players have the court vision that Miles does, and she’s one piece of a three-headed-monster in Notre Dame’s backcourt.
6. Madison Booker, Texas
The bus driver for a Texas team that earned a No. 1 seed in this tournament, Booker improved her 3-point shot from her freshman to sophomore season by 11.8 percent. She averages 16.4 points, 6.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game and was named SEC Player of the Year.
5. Sarah Strong, UConn
Arguably the best freshman in the country this season — though Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes has a strong case for that title — Strong has raised the ceiling for this UConn team as a rookie, providing them with a consistent inside presence, filling the shoes left behind by Aaliyah Edwards. She averages 16.1 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game and has the second-best shooting percentage on 2-point shots this season, making 68.9 percent of her attempts inside the arc. Strong also leads the nation in win shares (8.4) and defensive rating (83.9)
4. Aneesah Morrow, LSU
The nation’s leading rebounder with 13.5 boards per game, Morrow also averages 18.5 points per game and was tabbed as a First Team All-American by the USBWA. A versatile forward with a strong offensive skillset, Morrow is a great one-on-one player with the ability to score in the paint with relative ease.
3. Hannah Hidalgo, Notre Dame
For an example of how good Hidalgo is on both ends of the floor, consider she is fourth in the nation in scoring with 24.1 points per game and fourth in steals with 3.7 swipes per game. The ACC Player of the Year was strong for the Fighting Irish in its opening weekend wins, piling up 45 points, seven rebounds, eight assists and seven steals in two games.
2. Lauren Betts, UCLA
The 6-foot-7 center is the nucleus of a Bruins’ team that has a program-record 32 wins this season. Betts took home Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and Big Ten Tournament MVP honors in UCLA’s first season in the league, while also earning consensus First Team All-American honors.
1. Paige Bueckers, UConn
Who else could it have been? The 2021 National Player of the Year, Bueckers will be a consensus First Team All-American for the third time in her career. This season, her final one at UConn before heading off to the WNBA, she’s the only player in the country (minimum 20 games played, at least 20 minutes per game) shooting at least 50 percent from the floor, 40 percent from 3-point land and 90 percent from the charity stripe. Should those numbers hold, she would become just the 10th collegiate player since 2009 to join the exclusive 50-40-90 club.