How does women’s college basketball replace a transcendent superstar who became a new kind of household name, a buzzy rivalry between commercial-ready personalities and their respective teams’ quest to dethrone the reigning titan of the sport?
How about with two mega-talents with major crossover appeal leading a pair of bicoastal powers and their quest to take down … that same reigning titan?
Last season, Caitlin Clark set a new college scoring record and led her Iowa team on a run to the national title game — all with her signature dashes of ludicrous 3-point shooting and passing.
Clark’s exploits catalyzed unprecedented levels of viewership and attention for the sport. The Caitlin Clark Effect, it was called.
Three successive games set a record for the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history: Iowa’s payback win over LSU and Clark’s multi-year foil, Angel Reese, in the Elite Eight (12.3 million); Iowa’s controversial Final Four win over UConn (14.2 million); and Iowa’s loss to undefeated South Carolina in the championship (18.7 million).
It was either an unrepeatable phenomenon, a unique story with the steep arc of one of Clark’s logo 3s, or a template for how women’s basketball could capture and then keep eyeballs.
If the momentum is to continue into this college season, it will rest largely on the star power of UConn senior guard Paige Bueckers and USC sophomore guard JuJu Watkins.
With the style and NIL profiles to match, the unanimous preseason All-America picks lead two of the projected three best teams in the nation.
If Clark’s game evokes Steph Curry’s, Watkins is Kevin Durant, a smoothly unstoppable three-level scorer, and Bueckers is a kind of lanky LeBron James, an offensive dynamo who still prefers to pass and whom South Carolina coach Dawn Staley once called “probably the elitist basketball player to ever grace our game.”
But if there’s a head-to-head dynamic between Bueckers and Watkins, it’s less of the “you can’t see me” hand-waving seen between Clark and Reese and more of the “can you top this?” variety. Each could follow Clark as the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft — Bueckers this spring, Watkins not until 2027.
Bueckers is entering her fifth year at UConn after posting a career-high 21.9 points per game last season, which followed two seasons ruined by leg injuries. There was a time, as she won Player of the Year in 2020-21, when Bueckers was rated ahead of Clark, and that day may yet come again.
“Anybody that’s watched her play will know that when Paige was a freshman, there was nobody in the country better than Paige. … And then she kind of disappeared from the spotlight because of some injuries,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma recently told reporters. “Putting a player like Paige on your team automatically makes you a national championship contender.”
Watkins ranked second in the country with 27.1 points per game as a freshman, on room-to-improve 40.1 percent shooting. Now USC’s move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten means additional exposure from playing in more and earlier time zones.
The 19-year-old Los Angeles native deserves every bit the credit that Clark got for staying home to revitalize a dormant program. Watkins said Clark has offered advice on how to navigate her growing stardom.
“To have that kind of mentorship and that relationship with her, it definitely means a lot,” Watkins said, according to the Associated Press. “She’s had the biggest impact on women’s basketball, and being able to see her journey is really inspiring.”
Along with their individual heroics, Bueckers’ once-dynastic Huskies (without a title since 2016) or Watkins’ Trojans (without a title since 1984, back in Cheryl Miller’s heyday) being on a collision course with the South Carolina juggernaut — or with each other, for some Yankees-Dodgers energy — is the sort of narrative that can fuel the continued growth of the sport.
Call it the Paige Bueckers Effect or the JuJu Watkins Effect. To what extent remains to be seen.
“A lot has changed — the viewership and the attention that women’s basketball [is getting] is a key point,” UConn guard Azzi Fudd, who is Bueckers’ best friend, told The Post after last season. “It brings different things than the men’s game does, and true fans of the game will really appreciate it. And that’s what people have started to learn. And I think it’s just amazing to finally be able to get that recognition.”
