5 Players to Watch in the 2025 Women’s College Basketball Tournament

The women's college basketball tournament tips off on Friday.

The rejection of the one-and-done rule in the women's game allows us to follow some of the top names throughout their college careers. With some help from BartTorvik, Sports Reference and FanDuel Sportsbook's college basketball betting odds, we can identify which players have the potential to stand out in March.

Here are some of the top players to watch -- new, old, or emerging -- in the 2025 college basketball tournament.

Most Exciting Players in the Women’s Basketball Tournament

Paige Bueckers and Sarah Strong, Connecticut

There's a decent chance we'll look back years from now and marvel at the fact that Paige Bueckers and Sarah Strong were on the same college hoops team. It has the makings of a Bird-Taurasi overlap -- though the current-day duo will have to bring a title back to Storrs to be put in that conversation.

By now we know what Bueckers brings to the table. Efficiency asks her for pointers after the senior guard (53.6% FG%-40.6% FG%-89.9% FT%) nearly joined the 50-40-90 club this season. Injuries, South Carolina, and Caitlin Clark have stopped Bueckers short of doing what most other UConn legends have. With less than a month remaining until the 2025 WNBA draft, can the consensus number one overall pick cap off her college career with a championship?

Strong could help her lead the Huskies to the promised land. While Bueckers leads the nation in win shares and offensive rating, the freshman leads the way in just about every other advanced metric, including player efficiency rating, defensive rating, defensive win shares, and plus/minus.

Strong has already proven valiant in big games. She posted 22 points, 13 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 steals in a two-point loss to USC, as well as 16 points, 13 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals in a win over South Carolina.

The one seed USC and two seed UConn sit in the same region -- much to the dismay of Trojans head coach Lindsay Gottlieb -- which means a rematch of last year's regional finals is firmly in play. As if JuJu Watkins wasn't enough to deal with, 6'3" forward Kiki Iriafen offers a whole new set of challenges for opposing defenses. In this potential matchup, Strong will have the chance to prove just how accurate the Breanna Stewart comparisons are.

UConn currently has +280 odds to win the women's national championship, the second-shortest behind South Carolina (+270).

Kiki Iriafen, University of Southern California

Let's circle back to Iriafen and the Trojans.

The transfer out of Stanford is projected to be a high pick in this year's WNBA draft, contributing 18.2 points and 8.3 rebounds per game this season. Her play this March will likely make or break USC's championship hopes.

Watkins has been elite -- win or loss. Across USC's three losses this season, the national player of the year frontrunner averaged 26.7 points and 3.0 steals. If you're an opposing team, you pretty much just hope that JuJu has an inefficient shooting night and doesn't rival Shai Gilgeous-Alexander-type volume from the charity stripe.

Iriafen, on the other hand, has been more volatile this season. It's helped USC win and lose games.

The Trojans went 13-3 in Quad 1 games this season. Across those three losses, Iriafen shot 34.2% from the field -- down from 49.9% on the season -- and averaged 4.0 turnovers. She's also dealt with at least three fouls in 10 of her last 12 games, reaching the limit (5) in two of those.

Once USC reaches the later rounds of the tournament, we'd have a good guess on whether or not they advanced based on Iriafen's box score alone.

Aaronette Vonleh, Baylor

In the last four seasons, 14 out of the 16 teams to win their region came into the women's tournament with a top-15 adjusted defense. The lone exception was the Iowa Hawkeyes in 2023 and 2024, but we don't have any Caitlin Clark's in this year's tourney.

Among those 14 teams, 13 of them ranked in the top-30 in adjusted offense, top-40 in effective field goal percentage allowed, and the top-80 in turnover rate. The only outlier here was the 2022 South Carolina Gamecocks -- a team that ranked eighth in offense, first on defense, and featured the likes of Aliyah Boston and Kamilla Cardoso.

There are seven teams that fit this build in 2025. Only one of them sits in Region 1 of the bracket, and it's not the first (UCLA), second (NC State), or third (LSU) seed.

The Baylor Bears head into the tourney with a 25th-ranked adjusted offense and 15th-ranked adjusted defense. They fare 37th in turnover rate and allow the 35th-lowest effective field goal percentage.

Baylor's road to the regional finals is brutal. They would likely see Ole Miss (12th-ranked defense) and UCLA in their second and third games. The Bruins are not a team you want to bet against, though Baylor's Aaronette Vonleh is putting up career numbers at the perfect time.

The senior center is not considered a professional prospect -- the makings for a breakout tournament run. She notched a career-high 37 points in the Big 12 semifinal game against Oklahoma State and scored a third of Baylor's points in a five-point loss to TCU in the conference championship.

Early foul trouble held Vonleh to just 10 minutes in Baylor's lone meeting against UCLA this season. If she can be as available and effective as she was in last week's Big 12 tournament, the Bears could be a candidate to pull off a major upset in this tournament.

Baylor currently has +1000 odds to win Region 1.

Harmoni Turner, Harvard

Past UConn and USC's stars, Chloe Kitts, Lauren Betts, Kiki Rice, Hannah Hidalgo, Hailey Van Lith, Flau'Jae Johnson, and Georgia Amoore are some of the other big names looking to make history this March, though there's one underdog worth mentioning.

Harmoni Turner is averaging 22.8 points and 2.8 steals per game for the Harvard Crimson. She's scored 40-plus points on two separate occasions this season and is averaging 31.3 points on insane 61.7% FG% and 45.5% 3P% efficiency across her last four.

Turner ranks third in the nation in win shares per 40 minutes, behind only Bueckers and Strong. She ranks fourth in player efficiency behind only those two and UCLA's Betts.

The 10 seed Harvard doesn't hold out major hope for a long run in a women's tournament that is typically owned by the chalks. However, the Crimson do rank 23rd in turnover rate, 24th in effective field goal percentage allowed, 33rd in adjusted defense, and could have more than enough offensive firepower with the way Turner has been moving.

That opens up the door for Harvard to upset 7 seed Michigan State on Saturday -- and maybe even more.

You can also download our FREE college basketball printable bracket.

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