Girls’s March Insanity 2025: 9 NCAA Gamers to Know About, From Paige Bueckers to JuJu Watkins

Girls’s March Insanity 2025 is lastly right here. It feels as if it’s been a yr since Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese lit up their last NCAA basketball event earlier than their rookie season with the WNBA…as a result of it has. Now it’s time for this yr’s school basketball stars to shut out their season with a bang, and there’s no much less pleasure and drama this time round.

If all eyes have been centered final yr on Clark and Reese, this yr’s hype is all about top-ranked gamers Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins, who went toe-to-toe in a nail-biting game again in December. Sadly, followers received’t get to see the College of Connecticut star and the College of Southern California sophomore duke it out for the championship title, as their groups have been positioned within the first two seeds of the same region. This implies solely a kind of groups can presumably advance to the Last 4, a lot to the frustration of followers (and USC Trojans coach Lindsay Gottlieb).

It’s value noting that Clark and Reese managed to interrupt viewership data with final yr’s third-round matchup between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Louisiana State College Tigers, which grew to become the most-watched girls’s school basketball sport ever…a minimum of till Iowa’s subsequent two video games towards the UConn Huskies and the 2024 championship winners, the South Carolina Gamecocks. All this to say, a possible USC versus UConn rematch on this yr’s Elite Eight would nonetheless be must-watch TV.

In fact, Bueckers and Watkins aren’t the one gamers making waves this yr. Listed here are 9 gamers everybody can be speaking about all through the ladies’s March Insanity 2025 event.

Paige Bueckers, fifth-year senior on the College of Connecticut

Bueckers is without doubt one of the most influential girls’s basketball gamers, even outdoors of the school degree, although she selected to come back again for a fifth yr at UConn after sitting out the 2022–2023 season attributable to a torn ACL.

Past her sponsorship offers with manufacturers like Nike and Gatorade, Bueckers is a signed participant and partial proprietor of the Unequalled 3×3 league (which performs three-on-three basketball), has twice received an ESPY Award, and is predicted to be this yr’s number-one draft decide within the WNBA. Which means followers will probably be watching her play with the Dallas Wings this Might.

JuJu Watkins, sophomore on the College of Southern California

Watkins averaged the second-most factors of the season and led her crew to a nail-biting victory towards UConn this December. The 19-year-old guard’s unimaginable sophomore yr is simply par for the course, as she set the freshman scoring file with 920 factors and took house the 2024 ESPY Award for best breakthrough athlete.

This yr Watkins grew to become the quickest Energy 5 girls’s basketball participant to achieve 1,000 profession factors and was named a first-team Associated Press All-American alongside Bueckers, Lauren Betts, Hannah Hidalgo, and Madison Booker.

Watkins has a brand deal with Gatorade and Nike, and have become a notable investor in Unequalled forward of the 3×3 league’s first season. We are able to count on much more nice issues when she’s eligible to enter the WNBA draft in 2027.

Flau’jae Johnson, junior at Louisiana State College

The daughter of the late rapper Camoflauge, Johnson is a licensed baller on and off the courtroom. When she’s not rapping or enjoying ball, the LSU level guard additionally hosts the Better of Each Worlds podcast, the place she talks to celebs, athletes, and even some fellow NCAA gamers. Although she needed to sit out a number of video games this season attributable to an harm, she is expected to play for LSU throughout March Insanity.

And no, she doesn’t plan to surrender basketball in favor of her profitable rap profession, not too long ago telling Complex she seems to be ahead to a rematch towards Clark as soon as she will get into the WNBA. “I’m a junior, and so first yr—freshman yr—we acquired it. Second yr, she acquired me,” she says of LSU’s latest file towards the College of Iowa. “So me and Caitlin, we one and one proper now. I acquired to attend till I get into the league to interrupt that tie.”

Aneesah Morrow, senior at Louisiana State College

One other star participant at LSU, Morrow leads the Division 1 league in rebounds and double-doubles , which sounds pretty familiar…. (For many who don’t know, a participant earns a double-double in a sport once they have double-digit statistics in two of 5 classes: assists, blocks, factors, rebounds, and steals. Gamers may also rating a triple-double in the event that they earn double-digit stats in three of these classes.)

This yr Morrow logged her a centesimal profession double-double, incomes her USA Right this moment’s All-SEC (Southeastern Convention) participant of the yr and a spot on the AP All-American second team.

Although she injured her foot through the SEC Event semifinals, LSU coach Kim Mulkey says Morrow can be “good to go” for March Insanity.

Hailey Van Lith, graduate scholar at Texas Christian College

The 23-year-old TCU guard (who beforehand performed three seasons with the LSU Tigers) shouldn’t be solely a decorated college basketball player however an Olympic bronze medalist. In 2024 Van Lith performed on the US 3×3 Girls’s Nationwide Crew in Paris, making her a promising candidate for the WNBA and the Unequalled league after school.

This yr she helped lead the Horned Frogs to their first convention event victory since 2005, incomes her title as Big 12 player of the year.

Hannah Hidalgo, sophomore on the College of Notre Dame

At simply 5’6″, Hidalgo makes up for her lack of top with expertise, self-discipline, and drive. “On the ground, I’m very energetic,” Hidalgo told CBS Mornings forward of March Insanity 2025. “I’m yelling. I’m diving on the ground. Generally I’m flashy; generally I’m elementary.”

Like Watkins, Hidalgo grew to become a first-team AP All-American for the second year in a row, making them the third and fourth gamers to ever earn the dignity as a freshman and a sophomore. After being coached by her dad in highschool, she says she continues to stay by his greatest recommendation: “Exhausting work beats expertise when expertise fails to work laborious.”

Notably, Hidalgo missed crucial minutes of final yr’s Candy 16 spherical after she was informed to take away her nostril ring through the sport, regardless of having worn it all through the common season and first two rounds of the NCAA event. Her crew ended up dropping to Oregon State (70-65).

“I assumed it was BS, as a result of I’m on a run, I’m on a roll,” Hidalgo told ESPN on the time. “I scored two baskets after which having to sit down out for all that point, I used to be beginning to get chilly. I believe [the officials] have been frightened concerning the incorrect issues. They need to have reffed the sport.”

Olivia Miles, senior on the College of Notre Dame

After lacking final season attributable to a knee harm, Miles has not solely been integral to the Preventing Irish’s success this yr, however she tied Alyssa Thomas’s school file for six triple-doubles in a NCAAW profession. According to AP, she’s the season’s solely participant with three triple-doubles to her identify and averages 16.2 factors, 5.8 assists, and 5.9 rebounds per sport.

Although Notre Dame received its 2025 NCAA event opener towards Stephen F. Austin on March 21, followers can be watching out for Miles, who left the sport early with an apparent ankle injury. “If it’s not severe, you already know she’s going to play,” teammate Maddy Westbeld mentioned in a postgame press convention, per AP. “She’s an extremely robust participant.”

The New York Times’ Athletic put Miles within the quantity two spot of their WNBA mock draft.

Sedona Prince, graduate scholar at Texas Christian College

This 24-year-old heart has a way more controversial status than the opposite gamers on this record. Although Prince has fought against gender inequity in school sports activities all through her school profession, she has additionally been the topic of a number of allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault, as reported by the Washington Post in February. You’ll be able to learn more about her history here.

In an announcement to the Washington Submit, Prince’s legal professional, A. Boone Almanza, mentioned the basketball participant “categorically denies that she has abused anybody in her life, whether or not mentally, emotionally, or bodily.” The assertion continued, “Sadly, others have determined to make use of Sedona as a launch level for his or her careers. In an effort to create some relationship privateness, Sedona has requested girlfriends to signal nondisclosure agreements as a result of their private, intimate moments shouldn’t be the topic of public dialogue.”

The accusations have sparked online discourse over Prince’s standing at TCU, and her March Insanity efficiency may definitely affect her future profession within the WNBA.

Chloe Kitts, junior on the College of South Carolina

Kitts is seeking to safe her second consecutive NCAA Championship title after final yr’s undefeated season. The 20-year-old ahead is a key member of the reigning championship crew and was named the SEC Event MVP in 2025. These accolades come after she earned gold medals on the 2023 FIBA U19 Girls’s World Cup and the 2022 FIBA Girls’s U18 Americas Championship. This yr she was given an honorable mention by the Related Press for the 2024–2025 All-America groups.

Off the courtroom, Kitts is energetic on social media, the place she generally posts videos and photos along with her boyfriend, fellow South Carolina basketball participant Collin Murray-Boyles. Who doesn’t love an influence couple?

In fact, these are simply a few of the proficient girls followers can be keeping track of this yr. Listed here are another essential particulars you would possibly need to know.

The essential NCAA Girls’s March Insanity schedule

First spherical: March 21–22
Second spherical: March 23–24
Candy 16: March 27–28
Elite Eight: March 29–30
Last 4: April 4
Nationwide championship: April 6

Methods to Watch Girls’s March Insanity 2025

The ESPN Community can be airing March Insanity video games on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPNews, whereas viewers can stream video games on the ESPN app and Fubo.

For extra nitty-gritty particulars—together with sport instances, scores, and crew schedules—head to the NCAA website.