It’s late December and another year of women’s basketball is reaching its conclusion. The last 12 months have seen continued growth in women’s college basketball and the WNBA, with new teams launching, historic franchises and players winning titles and new talent entering the scene.
But it also included tension in the boardroom, significant injuries and uncertainty entering 2026. Before we look forward, and to mark the holiday season, The Athletic’s Sabreena Merchant and Ben Pickman reflect on their gifts (winners) and coal (losers) for 2025.
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Gift: A’ja Wilson
Let’s start here: Wilson became the first player in WNBA or NBA history to win a championship, scoring title and earn finals MVP, league MVP and Defensive Player of the Year honors in the same season. That alone would make her a big winner this past calendar year. But when you consider it was her third title in four seasons, her league-record fourth MVP, and the Aces 17 consecutive wins, she is all the more impressive. That’s all merely some of her on-court accomplishments. Off the court, Wilson debuted her signature Nike sneaker, the A’One. She was named Time magazine’s Athlete of the Year and will be part of the Met Gala’s host committee. She has every reason to still be rattling the pink tambourine she broke out after the Aces’ title. — Ben Pickman
Coal: Injuries to Caitlin Clark, JuJu Watkins and more
It’s hard to forget all of the women’s basketball players who sustained significant injuries and were sidelined for extended stretches. In the WNBA, Napheesa Collier, Caitlin Clark, Breanna Stewart, Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot missed chunks of last season. Satou Sabally is still dealing with lingering concussion symptoms after suffering a head injury in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals and is out indefinitely as Unrivaled nears tipoff.
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USC star JuJu Watkins’ ACL tear in the second round of the NCAA Tournament marred the event and was the most prominent injury of the college season. South Carolina’s Chloe Kitts tore her ACL before the start of the 2025-26 season in the latest in a string of high-profile knee injuries.
Both the NCAA Tournament and WNBA seasons still crowned deserving champions, in UConn and the Las Vegas Aces, but Watkins’ injury was one of the two prevailing stories of March Madness. Clark’s absence put a damper on Indianapolis’ All-Star Weekend, and her returns provided jolts of excitement that many fans wished could have lasted the entire season.
– Pickman
Gift: Geno Auriemma and Paige Bueckers
Most programs would celebrate a stretch of seven NCAA Tournaments that included six Final Fours and one trip to the national title game. At UConn, it was almost catastrophic to go that long without adding another national championship, especially as South Carolina won three titles in that period to assert itself as the new power in women’s college basketball. Entering the 2024-25 season, the pressure on Paige Bueckers — already a national Player of the Year and multi-time All-American — was mounting to end the drought and cement her Huskies’ legacy with the ultimate crown.
The regular season had a couple of hiccups, but in hindsight, UConn was just biding its time. Coach Geno Auriemma perfectly paced UConn so it was ready to peak in March for a dominant postseason run that left no doubt which was the nation’s best team. Bueckers dazzled as she captured more national honors and was the no-brainer No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft. She ended the season as an All-Star starter, all-WNBA second-team and Rookie of the Year, then she was invited to Team USA as one of the senior national team’s future faces. Auriemma’s Huskies continued their dominance into the second half of the season, and they’ve been unbeaten since February as they chase title No. 13. — Sabreena Merchant
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Coal: Work stoppage threats
It’s been a tense few months in the WNBA as the league and players’ union are entrenched in collective bargaining agreement negotiations. As the calendar soon flips to 2026, they still appear far from reaching a new agreement. Both sides want a deal that increases player compensation, but they seem to agree on little else. Plenty of specifics still need sorted, and a fissure of trust — or distrust, really — might not be repairable. The disdain each side has for the other is often apparent.
Both parties surely hope to avoid missing a season — or even games — in 2026, but pinpointing when a new deal will be reached is difficult. In the short term, both sides appear to be waiting for the other to blink. Players recently approved their executive committee to authorize a strike if deemed necessary. The lack of clarity has brought a cloud of anxiety over the sport, and questions loom about how a work stoppage might impact the sport’s positive momentum. — Pickman
Gift: Napheesa Collier
Few athletes around the country had as much impact on their sport more broadly than Collier in 2025. In January, she launched Unrivaled, a winter three-on-three league she co-founded with a focus on player experience, paying record-high salaries and offering the inaugural participants equity. Collier won the league’s one-on-one tournament and led her team, the Lunar Owls, to the top playoff seed.
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During the WNBA season, Collier’s performance for the Minnesota Lynx made her an MVP front-runner until an ankle injury in August. She exited Game 3 of the semifinals with ankle and shin injuries as part of a chaotic final sequence.
But even after the defeat, she still made her presence felt. On the eve of the WNBA Finals, Collier delivered one of the most memorable news conferences in league history, lambasting commissioner Cathy Engelbert and the WNBA league office, claiming the WNBA had the “worst leadership in the world.” Collier’s statement, which also included criticism of officiating, solidified her stature as having one of the league’s — and women’s sports — most influential voices. — Pickman
Coal: Predestined champions
UConn’s dominance in the NCAA and the Aces’ dominance in the WNBA meant a lack of drama at the end of each sport’s season. UConn led by double digits for the final three quarters of the Final Four demolition of UCLA and for the entire second half of the championship against South Carolina, making the final weekend of the season a coronation rather than a contest. The WNBA’s first seven-game finals series ended in a sweep, with only two games even in the balance for the final minutes. The sports’ regular seasons had been defined by parity but were far from competitive when it came time to selecting a champion, as ratings fell relative to 2024. — Merchant
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Gift: Dominique Malonga and a young international talent wave
Americans have dominated women’s basketball for nearly 30 years, as Team USA has lost only one major international competition (the 2006 FIBA World Championship) since the creation of the WNBA. The 2024 Olympic gold-medal game showed some cracks in the armor, and the next wave of international talent is on the way.
Dominique Malonga exploded in the second half of the WNBA season, averaging 11.4 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.3 blocks while helping the Seattle Storm nearly defeat the Aces in the postseason. Her French compatriots Janelle Salaün (Golden State), Carla Leite (Golden State) and Leïla Lacan (Connecticut) impressed as rookies. Spain’s Awa Fam burst onto the scene and could be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft. In the NCAA, Michigan’s Syla Swords leads a new generation of Canadian talent, and UConn brought in Ecuadorian phenom Blanca Quiñonez. More international stars continue to flow into the NCAA now that schools can pay players, which could create a foreign pipeline that will challenge U.S. basketball supremacy. — Merchant
Coal: WNBA coaching diversity
Over the last two WNBA offseasons, 13 head coaches were hired. Zero were Black women. After the Storm parted ways with Noelle Quinn, no Black women are WNBA head coaches, even though the majority of players are Black women. Only three former players are in the head coaching ranks — two (Becky Hammon and Sandy Brondello) are among the three active coaches who have won a WNBA championship. The WNBA’s increased popularity has led to more investment in the coaching ranks, but more of those opportunities are going to coaches who didn’t participate in the growth of the league itself. — Merchant
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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