Paige Bueckers, JuJu Watkins headline preseason AP All-America team

USC star JuJu Watkins and UConn's Paige Bueckers headline The Associated Press preseason All-America women's college basketball team released Tuesday. The list includes three sophomores for the first time, a clear sign of the young talent in a sport coming off a record year of fan interest.

Watkins and Bueckers were unanimous choices by the 30-member national media panel that selects the AP Top 25 each week. It's the third appearance on the team for Bueckers, who also was a preseason choice in her sophomore season and last year.

The duo was joined by Hannah Hidalgo of Notre Dame, Madison Booker of Texas and Kiki Iriafen of USC. Watkins, Hidalgo and Booker are all second-year players.

"It's unbelievable. Those players excelled as freshmen and their teams won. They did it in multiple ways," USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. "It's really exciting for the game and the future of it."

Gottlieb's stars, Watkins and Iriafen, are the first pair of teammates selected to the All-America team since 2017-18, when UConn had three of the five players chosen. Iriafen entered the transfer portal soon after Stanford Hall of Fame coach Tara VanDerveer announced her retirement in April.

"Kiki came because she wanted to play with JuJu, who recruited her because she wanted to play with Kiki," Gottlieb said. "It's exciting to see their personalities mesh."

Watkins and her fellow sophomores were part of the ratings and attendance boom last season for women's college basketball that was led by Iowa's Caitlin Clark and LSU's Angel Reese. NCAA Tournament attendance was the highest it's ever been and the championship game that featured Clark and Iowa against undefeated South Carolina had a record TV audience of 18.7 million, the highest for a