Big Ten women’s basketball coaches and players gathered at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center on Wednesday for the first of two media days in Rosemont.
With the season approaching in less than a month, here are four things we heard from local teams and conference powers.
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1. Northwestern coach Joe McKeown is trying to focus on preparing for the season — not the emotions of it being his last.
McKeown announced in March that he will retire after this season, his 18th at Northwestern and 40th overall as a head coach. He has a 268-258 record with the Wildcats and previously coached at George Washington and New Mexico State.
He said he believed it was time to move on from coaching, in part for family reasons.
“You’re looking back and you’ve been doing this now 44 years, and there are other things you want to do too,” McKeown said. “And some family decisions that played into it also. I love Northwestern. I love coaching in the Big Ten. But I think it was time.
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“Some days you wake up and you’re like, there’s other things you want to do. And that’s not a great answer, but really I’m just grinding right now trying to get my team ready.”
McKeown said he made the announcement in the spring to be fair to his players so they would have an opportunity to transfer if they wanted to.
When asked about his successor, he talked highly of associate head coach Tangela Smith and assistant coach Maggie Lyon — both Chicago-area natives — and mentioned there are other current head coaches who have been a part of Northwestern’s tree.
“I’m not sure the next thing,” he said.
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McKeown said he spoke about the move with best friend Gary Blair, the former Texas A&M coach who retired in 2022, and former college and WNBA coach Van Chancellor.
But for the most part, he is trying to compartmentalize his emotions about retirement so he can prepare his team and continue to recruit for Northwestern’s future.
“You start dealing with the present, and that’s really important,” McKeown said. “My coaches keep me on my toes, and when you get in the gym with your team, you’re just going, so you don’t really think about it. That’s probably helped me a little bit.”
2. USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said JuJu Watkins has been ‘strong and graceful’ as she focuses on her recovery.
Watkins, last season’s Associated Press national player of the year, announced last week she will not compete this season as she rehabs from a torn ACL she suffered in the NCAA Tournament.
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Gottlieb said the timing of the injury meant there were a lot of recovery scenarios to run through. She tried to help Watkins figure out what was best for her now and in the future.
“It was an appropriate time for her to say, ‘Hey, this is best for me now to put out there that I’m going to focus this year on my recovery and be ready to play next season,’” Gottlieb said. “I’ve been supportive of what she wants, getting her healthy.
“This is an injury that none of us would have chosen, but I hope at some point in her career, we’re looking back saying it made her stronger, it made her better, it was a moment in time that helped her in ways that none of us would have foreseen.”
Gottlieb said she sat Watkins down last month to ask her to think about what she needed from her coach as she recovers, whether that be watching film or going over the offense together. Gottlieb wants to be intentional about adding to Watkins’ tool belt despite her not being able to play.
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Gottlieb said Watkins was “present in every possible way” over the summer to try to help her team, including being a mentor to Jazzy Davidson, a freshman guard whom ESPN ranked as the nation’s top recruit.
“She’s making a conscious effort in her third year here to be more vocal and open herself up more,” Gottlieb said of Watkins. “She has always been magnetic and everyone is drawn to her, but she’s pretty introverted. You see her becoming more extroverted, which is really neat. And then some of it is just organic and intuitive for her.
“She’s really good with Jazzy. There’s not that many people who can say they’ve been the No. 1 recruit and walked into USC with a big load on their shoulders. But JuJu can literally say to Jazzy, ‘Hey, this is how I navigated this,’ and really help her.”
3. Illinois coach Shauna Green has to embrace the unknown.
The Illini lost five seniors — and four of their top five scorers — to graduation in 2025, including leading scorer and rebounder Kendall Bostic and top guard Genesis Bryant.
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That means Green, who led Illinois to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season, still is figuring out what she’s going to get from a young group.
“The unknown keeps me up at night,” Green said. “They’re all so talented, but we just need more experience.
“(With Bostic), you knew what she was going to give you. You knew good, bad, everything. She knew that about me. I knew that about her. With this, it’s still, when it really gets hard in that tough moment, how are they going to respond? Or when it’s a really good moment, how are they going to respond?”
The departures have left an opening for new player leadership, and Green has pointed to returnees Gretchen Dolan and Berry Wallace as players who need to step into the void. They join Jasmine Brown-Hagger as the only three returning players to have made a start for Illinois.
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Dolan and Wallace said they learned about leadership from the seniors, including setting an example first about how to work and allowing themselves to lead in their own natural way.
“None of them tried to step outside of themselves, which is a huge thing in leadership,” Dolan said. “You want to be authentic to yourself and who you are.”
4. UCLA will have two Bettses on the roster.
Center Lauren Betts was the coaches and media choice as preseason player of the year for a UCLA team that also was voted tops in the conference in preseason polls.
The 6-foot-7 Betts will be joined this season by her sister, 6-4 freshman Sienna Betts, the 2025 McDonald’s All-American Game MVP.
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Lauren said she has tried to give her sister space to experience her freshman year on her own, but she does offer advice here and there.
“Honestly, I haven’t had to help her much off the court because she’s living her best life right now,” Lauren said. “She’s an L.A. girl. She’s all over the place. She’s with the freshmen all the time. Off the court, she’s fine.
“But on the court, it’s just trying to help her as much as I can, especially because we’re playing kind of the same position. Help her with the plays, help her with tough practices, kind of helping her move on.”
UCLA coach Cori Close said she learned Sienna is the comedian of the two, often joking with a dry sense of humor. Close said Sienna almost didn’t go to UCLA when her sister transferred from Stanford because she wanted to make her own place, but they eventually persuaded her to become a Bruin.
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“What’s been fun to watch is I think they’re both really enjoying it,” Close said. “We have a thing we do at the end of every practice: What went well today? … The day before coming here, Sienna was calling out her sister about how she was leading and how she was leading her, and I thought, ‘Man, we’ve come a long way.’”
