Top women’s basketball freshman guarantees Elite Eight trip for her SEC squad

One of the top freshmen in women’s college basketball didn’t waste any time making noise on her new campus.

Aaliyah Chavez — the MVP of the Jordan Brand Classic and Gatorade’s National High School Player of the Year — grabbed the microphone earlier this week at Oklahoma’s Class Kickoff, a pep rally of sorts for the Sooners’ incoming freshmen. And after hyping up the crowd full of her fellow classmates, she made a noteworthy declaration.

“Sweet 16 last year, but we going to the Elite Eight this year. I promise that. I promise that y’all,” Chavez said. “And I challenge all of you to be at every single home game. Every single one.“

Oklahoma has surged in recent years under coach Jennie Baranczyk — going to four straight NCAA Tournaments, winning two regular season conference titles and appearing in the Sweet 16 last season — but the Sooners haven’t advanced to an Elite Eight since 2010, back when they had three WNBA players in their starting lineup.

There’s reason for optimism in Norman though. The Sooners return their top three scorers — Raegan Beers, Peyton Verhulst and Sahara Williams — and brought in an impressive freshman class that is headlined by Chavez. For the returners, Beers is coming off a season where she averaged 17.3 points and 9.4 rebounds per game while shooting 63.3 percent from the floor, Verhulst posted career-bests in several stats last season, and Williams is coming off a summer where she featured for Team USA’s 3×3 squad.

And Chavez is being billed as one of, if not the best, rookies in the country. She scored more than 4,000 points in her high school career and had her pick of top programs to choose from, picking the Sooners over offers from South Carolina, LSU, UCLA and Texas.

With Chavez joining an already talented roster, Oklahoma going to the Elite Eight isn’t all that far-fetched.

The hottest Micah Parsons trade rumor comes from the funniest source imaginable

Micah Parsons’ status with the Cowboys has been the legendary off-field football drama of the Summer. It has everything: One of the league’s best players, a crotchety old owner, an agent with hurt feelings, and contractual issues. Dallas, in its eternal football wisdom, has dug its heels in over getting Parsons a new contract worthy of his ability, with Jerry Jones instead trying to circumvent the negotiation process by excluding an agent, then bemoaning the fact he got caught doing it.

Parsons is holding out, and has demanded a trade — saying he loves Dallas and the Cowboys, but ownership and management have made his situation untenable. It goes without saying that 31 teams would trip over themselves to make a deal for Parsons. It’s not often one of the best pass rushers in the NFL is available right before the season begins, and he’s the kind of impact player that could lift an established playoff team into Super Bowl contention.

Even knowing that, nobody expected the biggest source on a potential trade would be the Dallas-Fort Worth breast enlargement community.

The phrase “the breast enhancement community is rather close knit” is absolutely sending me, but the idea of Parsons to the Packers is an idea that has been floated around for some time now. As it stands Green Bay needs a high-tier, signature pass rusher with Rashawn Gary being their best option right now, and while he’s a great player, he’s not a double-digit sack artist like Parsons is.

Far be it from me to doubt the news-breaking credentials of a Twitter breast enlargement doctor called “Dr. Feelgood,” but looking through his account it’s very out of character to be sharing NFL news. In fact, most of Dr. Feelgood’s tweets center on promoting the cryptocurrency “Dust Burp,” which I wish was fake — but it’s very real, and he’s highly invested in trying to get people on board with his burping hippo memecoin.

“Dust Burp is going to be the next Bonk Fun.”

This makes me believe the Parsons rumor even more. Dr. Feelgood doesn’t have much to gain from sharing fake trade news about Micah heading to Green Bay, because every post that’s not about Dust Burp is a wasted opportunity that could be spent talking about Dust Burp.

There’s another wrinkle to this too. A now-deleted post on Reddit claimed something very similar at the same time as Dr. Feelgood, this time from inside the organization itself.

Obviously this should be met with scrutiny too, but Reddit users pointed out that u/gridirongamer has been on the Packers subreddit for 12 years, and never posted fake information either. When you have two people posting out of character stuff like this it shows there’s some smoke to this potential fire, and it has a lot of people buying into the idea that Parsons could be traded from the Cowboys to Packers before the season begins.

This matches up with a lot that our own Justis Mosqueda has heard about the Parsons situation, with his belief being that Jerry almost wants to punish Parsons by sending him out of the large Dallas market, and into the NFL’s smallest one. It’s his idea of the worst thing he could do as an owner, and Green Bay fits the bill.

Ultimately this feels really, really likely. There’s simply too many people and sources linking Parsons to Green Bay — but that doesn’t mean a deal is done. The Packers won’t trade for Parsons if he won’t sign an extension, and there’s a real chance Jerry Jones’ penchant for drama is leading him to tell people that he’s trading Parsons to the Packers, simply to elicit a response and put pressure on his star player to agree to his terms, lest he be sent to a small market.

Just remember: If this ends up happening we need to give credit to the Reddit user in Dallas, and buy some Dust Burp to help Dr. Feelgood’s portfolio.

LeBron James' options for his future and selecting All-Century teams with Jared Greenberg

On this episode of Good Word with Goodwill, Vincent Goodwill and Jared Greenberg of NBA TV and Turner Sports discuss the NBA offseason being eerily quiet. Is there a big move on the horizon?

Next, Vince and Jared play a game of “Better Odds.” Are there better odds that LeBron James will own an NBA team within 3 years or he’ll still actively be playing? Are there better odds Luka Doncic will make an all-defensive team or become the NBA’s all-time leading scorer?

Later, Vince and Jared make their choices for the All-Century team and debate if the current team could compete with the previous team. All that and much more on Good Word with Goodwill!

(1:50) Quiet NBA offseason

(6:11) Better Odds: LeBron is an owner or still playing in 3 years

(23:51) Better Odds: Steph Curry plays for another team or wins a 5th ring

(34:43) Better Odds: Luka makes all-defensive team or becomes all-time leading scorer

(41:56) All-Century NBA teams

(49:27) Would this All-Century team defeat the past one?

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Subscribe to Good Word with Goodwill

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

🖥️ Watch this full episode on YouTube

Check out the rest of the Yahoo Sports podcast family at https://apple.co/3zEuTQj or at Yahoo Sports Podcasts

Dawn Staley says she would have taken Knicks’ coaching job if offered

Dawn Staley was ready to be the head coach of the New York Knicks.

In an interview with Candace Parker and Aliyah Boston on their “Post Moves” podcast, the South Carolina women’s basketball head coach confirmed she had a formal interview for the Knicks’ head coach vacancy earlier this summer and was interested in the position.

“If the Knicks would have offered me the job, I would have had to do it,” Staley said. “It’s not just for me, it’s for women, for … to break open that. It’s the New York Knicks, and I’m from Philly, but it’s the freakin’ New York Knicks.”

Dawn Staley speaks on coaching in the NBA, saying “if the Knicks would have offered me the job, I would have had to do it.” 👀 pic.twitter.com/BnBGEskmNx

— Post Moves with Candace Parker & Aliyah Boston (@PostMovesShow) August 27, 2025

League sources told The Athletic that while Staley impressed during her conversation with team president Leon Rose and other members of the Knicks’ front office, she was not considered a finalist to fill the vacancy left when the team fired head coach Tom Thibodeau following the franchise’s first trip to the Eastern Conference finals in 25 years. The franchise hired Mike Brown, formerly the Sacramento Kings’ head coach, to replace Thibodeau.

During the conversation with Parker and Boston, Staley said she went into the interview with the Knicks’ brass with a series of questions of her own, primarily centered around the potential impact of hiring the first woman head coach in NBA history.

“Would I take any NBA job? No,” Staley said. “I will say this: The NBA has to be ready for a female head coach. You can’t just interview somebody and say, ‘We’re going to hire her.’ I probably lost the job by asking this question.”

“Well, I had a series of questions that I asked them,” she continued. “No. 1 was: Why was I in the candidate pool? I said, ‘Has the New York Knicks organization, in its history, ever had what you’re looking for? They wanted a team. They wanted inclusiveness with management, coaches and everyone. They wanted it to feel like a closely-knit franchise. The answer was really ‘no.’ If you don’t hire anyone different, how are you going to get that? That was No. 1.

“My other question was, ‘If you hired me as the first female coach, how would it impact your daily job?’ Because it would. It would. You’re going to get questions that you don’t have to be asked if you hire a male coach. There’s going to be the media, all this stuff you’ll have to deal with that you didn’t have to deal with and don’t have to deal with when you hire a male. That got them to thinking. That really got them to thinking. ‘Maybe she’s right.’ I felt the energy change after that.”

Staley signed a new contract with South Carolina in January that makes her the highest-paid coach in women’s college basketball. The deal, which extends through the 2029-30 season, totals more than $25 million after signing bonuses and annual increases.

Staley’s interview was part of an unorthodox Knicks’ coaching search that ended with Brown’s hiring. Team decision-makers reached out to multiple NBA teams to inquire about their head coaches under contract, like Houston’s Ime Udoka, Dallas’ Jason Kidd and Chicago’s Billy Donovan. The Knicks also interviewed NBA assistant coaches like Minnesota’s Micah Nori and New Orleans’ James Borrego, as well as recently-fired head coaches like Taylor Jenkins and Brown.

More women than ever are joining NBA coaching staffs in high-ranking roles, but no woman has ever been the head coach of an NBA team.

In 2019, the Knicks, under a previous regime, hired Lisa Willis, a former WNBA player, as an assistant coach for their G League affiliate.

There are currently three women who serve as NBA assistant coaches: Jenny Boucek (Indiana Pacers), Brittni Dolandson (Atlanta Hawks) and Lindsey Harding (Los Angeles Lakers). In 2024, Harding, then the head coach of the Stockton Kings, became the first woman to be named coach of the year in the G League. Harding was the first woman to be the head coach of a G League team, and she worked under Anjali Ranadivé, the first female general manager in G League history.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

New York Knicks, South Carolina Gamecocks, NBA, Women’s College Basketball, Culture

2025 The Athletic Media Company