There was no suspense in the National Player of the Year race in women’s basketball in 2024. It was as easy to guess the answer that March as it had been the prior October: Caitlin Clark. The award felt too obvious to merit any debate.
Which has set up a refreshing change of pace for 2025. This race felt completely open when the season began. And that hasn’t changed much as March approaches.
As the argument for the best team in the country has swung back and forth, the one for the best player has, too. There are multiple valid cases here. Contenders include both an undersized guard (5' 6" Hannah Hidalgo) and a dominant center (6' 7" Lauren Betts). They include do-it-all star JuJu Watkins. And hanging on the outskirts of the picture is a former National Player of the Year in Paige Bueckers. Each has a very different argument for the award.
The case for… Hannah Hidalgo
Notre Dame, sophomore, G, 24.7 PPG, 3.8 APG, 5.1 RPG, 3.9 SPG
Hannah Hidalgo staked her claim here in November. In that first month of the season, Notre Dame rolled into Los Angeles to face USC and Watkins, and the most dominant performer on the floor that afternoon was Hidalgo. She poured in 24 points, eight assists, six rebounds and five steals in the win, a perfect display of just how much the guard can do at her best. She scores. She facilitates. She gets more boards than might be expected from one of the smallest players on the floor. And she’s a master pickpocket.
There’s almost no one else who can score like her as consistently as she does. (Hidalgo is scoring more than anyone in the country besides Florida State junior Ta’Niya Latson—though it’s worth noting that she’s only a fraction of a point ahead of Watkins.) But what truly elevates her case is her defensive ability. Hidalgo may not have size. But she doesn’t need it to shut down opponents.
The reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Year, Hidalgo terrorizes opposing ballhandlers with her speed, tenacity and sense of timing. Hidalgo’s instincts are phenomenal. There are very few players this adept at picking apart a defense—at knowing just when and how to move to maximize her disruptive effect. Hidalgo would not be in this conversation if not for her scoring ability. (It also helps that she never really has a bad night: She’s finished in double figures in every single game she has played in college.) But the best argument you can make for her centers on what she does on the other end of the floor.
The case for… Lauren Betts
UCLA, junior, C, 19.8 PPG, 2.8 APG, 9.8 RPG, 2.9 BPG
The gist of this case felt very straightforward until the last two weeks. UCLA was the best team in the country—the last undefeated team among either men or women in Division I—with Betts as its best player. And then UCLA got knocked off by crosstown rival USC. The conversation about the best team in the country was no longer quite so clear-cut. But there’s still a case here. UCLA is very much still a title contender, and Betts remains its engine on both offense and defense as one of the most efficient, talented bigs in the country.
This season has been a reminder of why Betts was the top-ranked recruit in the class of 2022. It could be easy to forget that during her freshman year at Stanford, where she received limited minutes, and even at times last season after transferring to UCLA. But it’s easy to remember now. Betts has finally begun to play with a confidence befitting her size. She’s taking more than 10 shots a game for the first time in her career. She’s become a more assertive presence late in close games. She’s recording more rebounds and more blocks. Everything on this Bruins team flows through her: Betts’s power and size make her the unquestioned focal point of this roster every night. Consider that Hidalgo has three other teammates averaging double figures at Notre Dame, and Watkins has two at USC, but Betts has just one at UCLA.
Her scoring output is not as high as those guards, of course, and her highlights are not as flashy. But she’s playing like the best true big in the country, and it’s possible to argue that she’s doing more in the context of her team, more consistently, than anyone else.
The case for… JuJu Watkins
USC, sophomore, G, 24.2 PPG, 3.5 APG, 6.9 RPG, 2.0 BPG
No one on this list has offered a signature game as strong as Watkins. Earlier this month, No. 1 UCLA came into the Galen Center undefeated and left with a fresh digit in the loss column and a bruising reminder of the power of Watkins. The final numbers were impressive: 38 points, 6-of-9 three-point shooting, 11 rebounds, eight blocks and five assists. Yet even more impressive was the sense of control she asserted. Watkins owned the first half entirely. (She scored 25 of her points in those first two quarters.) If other players have offered dominant games this season, none has put together a show of force quite like that, and especially not against such a tough opponent.
It was an ideal display of her skillset. There aren’t many other players capable of recording eight blocks in a game. There aren’t any other players capable of recording eight blocks while draining six threes en route to scoring 38. (And, to wit, that statline was one that no one had ever recorded in D-I, man or woman: Watkins was the first player to score more than 35 with at least 10 boards, eight blocks and five three.) It’s hard to argue that Watkins is not the most electric talent in the country. She can score from anywhere on the floor, and she can do anything else that might reasonably be asked of someone with a basketball, too. There are certainly other players who are more efficient and more consistent. (Watkins’s show-stopper against UCLA came right after she went 5-for-21 against Ohio State.) But there may not be one more dynamic.
The case for… someone else?
The Naismith will almost certainly go to one of the above trio of players. But it’s hard to have this conversation without at least mentioning Paige Bueckers. Her numbers are not as striking as those of the players above. (She’s putting up 18.7 points a game with 4.8 assists and 4.4 rebounds.) But the way she impacts a game can be just as profound. Bueckers is a coach’s dream, executing all of the little things, consistently attacking in ways that benefit a team without showing up in the box score. And that does show up in some other statistics: She clears everyone in this group in terms of win shares and PER. Those are not the categories that generally win an award like this one. But they do help show why there’s virtually no debate over the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft. That one? It’s all Bueckers.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Making the Case for Each Player of the Year Contender in Women’s Hoops.
