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Women’s college basketball 2025-26 too-early power ranking: UConn looks like favorite again

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Women’s college basketball 2025-26 too-early power ranking: UConn looks like favorite again

A season that was supposed to be defined by parity instead ended with the two most iconic brands in women’s basketball meeting in the national title game and UConn adding a historic record 12th title. Those programs once again top the field in this way-too-early look at 2025-26.

As is tradition in these power rankings, the defending champions get the top spot. However, an early wave of entrants into the transfer portal, combined with the double graduations of the senior class and the super senior class from the pandemic bonus year, has created a lot more flux below the upper tier.

Some teams barely have enough players to field a lineup now. Most rosters will be unrecognizable when comparing today with the start of the regular season as transfers pick their new landing spots, putting a heavier emphasis on recruiting classes because the status of returning players is uncertain.

Almost famous: Baylor, Maryland, Columbia

Final Four teams aren’t going anywhere

Even without Paige Bueckers, UConn is a worthy candidate for the best team in the country thanks to its rising superstar Sarah Strong. She finished the season second nationally in win shares behind only Bueckers and figures to become even more prolific with more of the offense running through her as a sophomore.

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With Strong, Jana El Alfy and Azzi Fudd returning from the starting lineup, plus KK Arnold and Ashlynn Shade ready to assume bigger roles as juniors (they already took on bigger burdens as freshmen), this is the best five in the country. Ice Brady, Allie Ziebell, Morgan Cheli and the sixth-ranked recruiting class provide solid depth even if the Huskies don’t add any transfers.

South Carolina will lose at least three starters, and potentially four if Raven Johnson decides to go pro. But the Gamecocks machine is ready to backfill, with MiLaysia Fulwiley, Tessa Johnson and Joyce Edwards waiting in the wings. This isn’t a program that rebuilds; it reloads.

Texas also loses two starters but has a trio of rising sophomores (Jordan Lee, Bryanna Preston, and Justice Carlton) to help Madison Booker get to the next level. The talent is obvious, but South Carolina’s historical dominance of the SEC — and Dawn Staley’s historical dominance over Vic Schaefer — keeps the Gamecocks ahead of the Longhorns for now.

UCLA can welcome back the most players from its Final Four team, with everyone eligible to return. However, the national semifinal flameout creates some doubt about the Bruins’ overall ceiling compared with the rest of this crew, slotting them in fourth despite being the No. 1 team for most of the season.

SEC is still deepest conference

Beyond the co-conference champions, the rest of the SEC is also reloading. LSU has the perimeter duo of Flau’jae Johnson and Mikaylah Williams plus the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, headlined by Grace Knox.

Tennessee’s Kim Caldwell can now get players to specifically fit her system and has brought in the second-best class with several dynamic guards to play alongside Talaysia Cooper, Zee Spearman and Ruby Whitehorn.

The single best freshman is headed to Oklahoma to join Raegan Beers, Sahara Williams and Zya Vann. As such, all three teams, which all advanced to the 2025 Sweet 16, project in the top 10.

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Kentucky is harder to evaluate with the loss of Georgia Amoore, who has been central to everything Kenny Brooks has built in Lexington and previously at Virginia Tech. However, the return of three starters, including Clara Strack, healthy seasons for Jordan Obi and Dominika Paurova, plus Brooks’ historical success in the portal keep the Wildcats’ outlook high.

Vanderbilt returns the dynamic duo of Mikayla Blakes and Khamil Pierre. Mississippi State has many holes to fill, but a top-15 class coming in to surround Madina Okot is worth including in this group.

I’m keeping an eye on Georgia as well. The Bulldogs struggled to a 4-12 SEC record in 2024-25 but beat the Lady Vols on the last day of the regular season. Rising sophomores Trinity Turner and Mia Woolfolk are a strong core to build around, and Katie Abrahamson-Henderson brings in a top-20 class.

Which young teams can take next step?

Duke slides into the top five as it expects to bring back eight of its 10 rotation players. Ashlon Jackson had her best season as a junior, and underclassmen Jadyn Donovan, Oluchi Okananwa and Toby Fournier have all taken significant steps forward in Durham. With a true center next season in Arianna Roberson (who missed 2024-25 with an injury), the Blue Devils might finally have the pieces to make their first Final Four in two decades after coming up one possession short in 2025.

Iowa’s freshman class showed flashes in its first year. Ava Heiden, Teagan Mallegni and Taylor Stremlow will need to be much more productive to get the Hawkeyes back to hosting in the first weekend, though incoming freshman Addison Deal should help juice the offense.

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Michigan’s trio of freshmen (Syla Swords, Olivia Olson and Mila Holloway) needs some reinforcements in the frontcourt. The Wolverines can get that in the portal — Swords’ high school teammate Kate Koval, who might leave Notre Dame, would be an excellent addition. If so, the Wolverines could challenge in the Big Ten.

Louisville had five freshmen in the rotation last season, and the Cardinals found their next cornerstone in Tajianna Roberts. The veterans are basically all gone except for Ja’Leah Williams, but this ranking is a bet on Roberts being good enough to lead Louisville and Mackenly Randolph filling in Olivia Cochran’s shoes.

Elsewhere in the ACC, this might be a year early for NC State, considering the Wolfpack lose a trio of starters and have no seniors. However, the freshman class of Tilda Trygger, Lorena Awou, Zamareya Jones and Devyn Quigley is promising. With Zoe Brooks at the helm, there is still a lot to work with.

Iowa State was the young team last season, and we just can’t quit the potential of Audi Crooks and Addy Brown. The Cyclones’ ceiling is still probably limited by Crooks’ defense, but to start the year, there is too much continuity and talent to leave Iowa State out of the top 15.

And a nod to the WBIT champs, Minnesota. Even without Mara Brown, the Golden Gophers’ core of Amaya Battle, Grace Grocholski and Tori McKinney did some special things to close out the 2024-25 season. If Braun can ever be healthy, and this ranking presupposes that, Minnesota has so many long, versatile forwards/wings and is a modern basketball fan’s dream.

Big names missing

Culling this list to 25, especially at the start of the season, is always tricky. Teams such as Baylor, Ohio State, Columbia and West Virginia could easily have slotted in ahead of Maryland or Alabama.

But let’s address the elephants in the room: the big-name teams that either didn’t make the rankings at all or barely squeezed in. Notre Dame slots in at 25 because it’s impossible to exclude two-time first-team All-American Hannah Hidalgo altogether, even if she has essentially no other teammates but Cassandre Prosper after a portal exodus, which included backcourt mate Olivia Miles. Regardless of who ends up playing next to Hidalgo in 2025-26, she can will the Irish to enough wins.

USC and TCU, teams that lost in the Elite Eight, couldn’t make the cut, however. The Trojans are expected to be without JuJu Watkins for most of the season, and they graduated four seniors who played significant roles. Two of their three top freshmen are in the portal, so the combination of Kennedy Smith, Malia Samuels and incoming Jazzy Davidson wasn’t enough to vault past these other teams.

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With TCU, the roster is barren. Although Mark Campbell will almost certainly sign some of the best transfers in the country, as he has done each of the past two seasons, they aren’t in Fort Worth yet. Donovyn Hunter alone does not make a top-25 team.

(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Joe Buglewicz, Patrick McDermott, Jacob Kupferman / Getty Images)

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WWE Survivor Series: WarGames heads to Houston in November

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WWE Survivor Series: WarGames heads to Houston in November

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WWE will swing for the fences for the second straight year when it hosts one of its major premium live events of the year at a Major League Baseball ballpark.

The company announced on Monday that Survivor Series: WarGames will take place at Daikin Park in Houston – the home of the Astros – on Saturday, Nov. 28. It follows up the success of last year’s Survivor Series: WarGames event, which took place at Petco Park in San Diego – the home of the Padres.

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Roman Reigns lands a Superman Punch on Brock Lesnar during Survivor Series at Petco Park in San Diego, Calif., on Nov. 29, 2025. (Rich Freeda/WWE via Getty Images)

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“Houston is the perfect host city to celebrate this milestone chapter in Survivor Series’ storied history, and we look forward to partnering with Houston First and the Houston Astros to deliver an unforgettable event,” WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque said in a news release.

WarGames is a highly anticipated match, which has taken place yearly among wrestlers on the WWE roster since 2022. The premium live event has also seen some dramatic returns.

Stephanie Vaquer enters the ring during Survivor Series at Petco Park in San Diego, Calif. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)

In 2023, CM Punk came back to WWE at the end of the show and shocked the entire sports world. Randy Orton also made his in-ring return during the match. Last year, a mystery attacker interrupted the WarGames match and gave the win to The Vision and company.

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It’s unclear what is in the cards right now for the 40th edition of the event.

“We are proud to be able to help bring one of the world’s premier entertainment brands to Houston for what promises to be an unforgettable holiday weekend,” said Michael Heckman, President and CEO of Houston First, which partnered with WWE to bring the event back to Houston.

Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio celebrate their win during Survivor Series at Petco Park in San Diego, Calif. (Rich Freeda/WWE via Getty Images)

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“Hosting WWE Survivor Series will bring thousands of passionate fans to our city and generate a significant economic impact for community. Houston has earned a reputation for delivering world-class entertainment events, and we look forward to welcoming the WWE Universe to our destination.”

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Commentary: Inside the Shohei Ohtani Economy driving a wild auction for his worn cleats

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Commentary: Inside the Shohei Ohtani Economy driving a wild auction for his worn cleats

How much would you pay for a pair of shoes? Someone else’s shoes, I mean.

Would you pay $7,000 for a chair on which Taylor Swift sat in a basketball arena — for an NBA playoff game, not for her wedding? Someone did.

There was one Swift chair up for bid. The Dodgers gave away 52,000 trading cards as part of a promotion for the Japanese animated series “One Piece” this month, and the current asking prices for one of those cards on eBay range from $784 to $15,656. Even at the low end … strike that, there is no apparent low end to the collectibles market these days.

Now add Shohei Ohtani to the mix. A pair of his cleats hit the auction block Monday, hyped by the promoter as “one of the most significant baseball artifacts ever” and “the greatest baseball footwear ever made available” and “the most culturally significant footwear ever worn on Japanese soil.”

In this case, the adjectives are more than breathless. Ohtani is the best player in baseball, the favorite to win his fifth most valuable player award in six years, an international tourist attraction, and a global pitchman making an estimated $125 million in sponsorships and endorsements this year.

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So, the footwear: These are the cleats Ohtani wore when the Dodgers opened the 2025 season in Japan, decorated with art of his world-famous dog Decoy and signed by Ohtani with Asian kanji characters rather than English letters.

The cleats were purchased last year by Take to the Universe (TTU), a Japanese company that distributes beauty and wellness products in Japan and throughout Asia. State records show the company registered a subsidiary in Los Angeles two months ago.

The cleats Shohei Ohtani wore during the Dodgers’ 2025 season opener in Japan are on the auction block.

(The Realist)

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“We thought, hey, we could actually use this to market our company and enter into the U.S. market,” said Ryoji Iguchi, chief executive of the subsidiary. Iguchi declined to say how much TTU paid for the cleats.

For a Japanese company to leverage Ohtani and the Dodgers to introduce itself to an American audience is nothing new — not just for tangible consumer goods, but also for animated characters.

You wouldn’t actually go into a store and ask for a TTU product, though. You eventually might go into a store and ask for a beauty product made by another company. TTU would just get it there.

So how does selling a pair of cleats create brand awareness for a brand consumers would not even know?

“This interview,” Iguchi said.

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The Ohtani Economy strikes again: You don’t know us, but we’re coming to America, we want to help you sell your wares — and we’re selling Ohtani’s cleats!

The sale was arranged by Scott Keeney, founder of the Realest, a Los Angeles-based enterprise specializing in sports and entertainment memorabilia.

The cleats Shohei Ohtani wore during the Dodgers' season opener in Japan in 2025 are on the auction block.

The cleats Shohei Ohtani wore during the Dodgers’ season opener in Japan in 2025 are on the auction block.

(The Realist)

Keeney talks about the “museum-grade” and “investment-grade” quality of the cleats. You might find a trading card marketed as one of one, but someone could make another. In this case, no one can make another pair of cleats worn by Ohtani on that particular day.

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“It’s no different than art, where you’re seeing paintings selling for tens, hundreds of millions of dollars,” Keeney said. “The top grails are in a category of their own.

“It’s what the ultra, the top 0.0001% want, and they appreciate faster than anything else in the category.”

So how much might the Ohtani cleats command, given the combination of sport and celebrity?

Kobe Bryant’s sneakers from the game in which he tore his Achilles tendon — and hit two free throws before he left the court — fetched $660,000. Michael Jordan’s “Flu Game” shoes sold for $1.4 million. Kanye West wore “Air Yeezys” to the Grammys, and the pair sold for $1.8 million.

The ball Ohtani hit for his 50th home run in his 50-50 season: $4.4 million. And, speaking of holy grails: Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” fetched $32.5 million.

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I cannot afford that, in this lifetime or any other. Perhaps you can. If you cannot, the Realest is offering this free-to-enter contest: Guess the sale price of the Ohtani cleats and, if you come closest to the actual sale price, you win 1% of the price. In the event of a tie, the first submission wins.

The cash would be nice, because this is just a pair of someone else’s worn shoes. But, since everything else Ohtani does seems to be unprecedented, this auction just might be too.

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Stefon Diggs, still seeking new NFL home, insists no team has a better No 2 receiver ‘than me’

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Stefon Diggs, still seeking new NFL home, insists no team has a better No 2 receiver ‘than me’

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Stefon Diggs is still looking for his next NFL team after one season with the New England Patriots, which ended in a Super Bowl LX defeat.

With NFL training camps across the country set to kick off at the end of the month, Diggs, who will be entering his 12th season, made quite the statement during a recent YouTube video on his channel.

Diggs stated that he is the best No. 2 receiver in the league, and he explained why.

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New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs (8) walks to the podium to speak to the media after a minicamp held in the WIN Field House at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on June 10, 2025. (Eric Canha/Imagn Images)

“Everybody got a 1,,” he said. “Opportunities aside, people might say there’s seven real 1s. In my opinion, I can compete with anybody, but take those as your 1s. You can’t name a No. 2 better than me. There’s not a No. 2 on a team. Let’s presumably give people the credit and just say, ‘OK, you want to take the No. 1 spot away.’ Name your No. 2 receiver right now. Tell me how much he makes. My last question is: Is he better than me?”

Diggs put up 1,013 yards in his 11th season, his first and only with the Patriots, on 85 receptions (102 targets) with four touchdowns from breakout star quarterback Drake Maye . It marked Diggs’ seventh 1,000-yard season in the NFL, which have come in seven of the last eight seasons.

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The 32-year-old did note being a No. 2 option, which means he could be willing to take a pay cut to join a squad that he could help get back to the playoffs and, as ever player hopes, the Super Bowl. But no team has pulled the trigger just yet.

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Could Diggs’ off-the-field issues be a factor? He faced some serious allegations in December after being charged with felony strangulation and misdemeanor assault in a dispute with his private chef.

New England Patriots receiver Stefon Diggs speaks during his introductory press conference on March 28, 2025. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

However, Diggs was found not guilty by a jury, with the NFL closing its review on the matter, stating there was insufficient evidence to warrant a suspension for violating its personal conduct policy. Diggs’ attorney said that “professional athletes have a target on their back” following the non-guilty verdict.

“We have taken these allegations seriously from Day One and that’s exactly why we were eager for the facts to come to light through the legal process,” Mitch Schuster of Meister, Seelig & Schuster, the firm that represented Diggs, said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital in May.

The Patriots released Diggs in March, but he has been staying in shape and looking for the next opportunity since the league cleared him last month.

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New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs plays against the Seattle Seahawks during Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2026. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)

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Teams to watch could be the Los Angeles Chargers, New York Giants, Washington Commanders, Kansas City Chiefs, or even a Buffalo Bills reunion with Josh Allen, who built such a rapport with him to earn four straight Pro Bowls from 2020-23.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

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